Air Fryer Recipe: Fried Chicken Thighs

Lord have mercy y’all – bought me an air fryer last week and I haven’t used the oven once to cook a thing since then! 🙂

The great thing about this air fryer? I set up a deal alert on SlickDeals to notify me when one that I liked went on sale. I picked this bad boy up for just $39.99 – normally $99.99. Now THAT was an awesome deal!

So far I’ve made chicken legs, french fries, fish sticks (OMG so good!), hot dogs, and bacon and everything was delicious. The chicken legs and hot dogs were great. The bacon I should have left in about another minute or two. The french fries? Hubby told me to take them out too early – which he owned thankyouverymuch – and there were a few that weren’t cooked all the way. I think I should have just done a single layer as well and not had a double layer of fries – they would have cooked more evenly. Live and learn, right?

Now that I’ve “got the hang of it” I decided to share an air fryer recipe with y’all using these delicious Pereg Exotic Spice Blends – particularly the Kabab blend for tonight’s dinner.

I absolutely love these spices and rubs. They make everything taste so flavorful! I loaded up the seasoning on both sides to coat them well, then put them in the air fryer basket (single layer!) which holds 4 thighs comfortably.

Cook them at 400 degrees for 35 minutes, checking about midway through the process to see how they were doing. I initially put them in for just 22 minutes, but since these are really thick thighs, they were still a little pink at the bone at just 22 minutes. I put them in for another 13 minutes and they came out perfect. Here is how the first batch looked when they were finished:

I put the last remaining 4 in the basket and cooked them for the same amount of time. Finished off with a side salad using the last of the absolutely delicious tomatoes that my neighbor gave us along with some cauliflower rice for a keto-friendly dinner!

With the second batch of four thighs, I turned them over halfway through the cooking time. Not that I needed to (because – air fryer!) but I thought perhaps that would help them evenly cook a little faster since they were so thick. It shaved off maybe 2 minutes on the cooking time – so not a huge difference there.

The skin was so crispy, yet not dry, and the chicken itself was moist and just melted in your mouth. I have to confess, I couldn’t resist, I ate an entire thigh myself waiting for the second batch to cook – it was that good! The fam loved it also – so double win!

Leave me a comment if you try the recipe out and use a different variation – would love to get some feedback or your thoughts on the recipe!