This easy air fryer ground chicken recipe shows you how to make the most tasty, moist and tender pieces of pre-cooked chicken. Simply season and air fry, and in 20 minutes or less the ground chicken is ready to use in all kinds of dishes from tacos and casseroles to soups, and more!
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Ground chicken is a lean, delicious, and versatile protein that happens to be wonderfully easy to cook. And sure, you can brown the meat in a skillet pretty effortlessly. But making air fryer ground chicken is even easier, is less messy, and leaves your stovetop open for cooking other dishes!
Like cooking on the stove, my recipe takes only about 10 minutes to make from start to finish. But what I really love about this method is that you don't have to stand in front of the skillet constantly stirring to brown the meat. Instead, the raw ground meat goes right into the air fryer basket (with a parchment liner for less mess) to season and cook mostly hands-off.
In this basic recipe we season the meat with just a bit of garlic powder, salt and pepper. However, you can can absolutely adjust the seasonings to fit nearly any type of cuisine! Change up the spices and use the cooked chicken to make your favorite American, Central and South American, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and European dishes... Really, whatever dishes you want!
Recipes to make with ground chicken
Use precooked ground chicken to make all kinds of popular dishes from nearly any nationality!
North America. Use simple spiced ground meat to make chicken pot pie, casseroles, stews, sloppy joes, and stuffed peppers. It's also great to add onto pizza before baking.
Central and South America. Season the chicken with with Tex-Mex-style taco seasoning. Then use to make tacos, burritos, quesadillas, enchiladas, nachos... Or any of your favorite Mexican cuisine recipes!
Africa and Middle East. Add air fried ground chicken to peanut stew, chicken pie, stewed chicken and rice, chicken kofta bowls, chicken hashweh, or lahmacun (Turkish pizza). You can use whatever coordinating seasonings you like, such as za'atar or your favorite baharat!
Asia. Use the chicken in west Asian dishes like samosas, chicken kheema, all kinds of curries, stuffed paratha or naan. For east Asian recipes, I like to use the meat to make dumplings, rice bowls, stir fry dishes, egg rolls, noodle dishes, and lettuce wraps.
Europe. Cooked ground turkey is my go-to for making classic eastern European recipes like cabbage rolls, piroshki, stroganoff, and borscht! It is also handy to use in Italian and Mediterranean dishes like pasta, lasagna, manicotti, gyros, and pastitsio (Greek lasagna). And I love to include the meat in British-style pasties (hand pies) and shepherds pie.
Frequently asked questions
Absolutely, yes! Our favorite countertop appliance is perfect for cooking raw meat.
I recommend using a parchment liner made specifically for the air fryer. Or simply line the air fryer basket with a square of parchment paper. Either way be sure to place the parchment after preheating, when you are ready to add the raw chicken.
Cooking the ground meat in a parchment-lined air fryer basket is a great way to keep the chicken moist. Chicken is a lean protein, but cooking it in the little bit of oil that naturally releases from the meat helps make it perfectly juicy.
Check the chicken every minute or so after the initial 5 minutes. The remove the meat as soon as it is no longer pink so that it doesn't dry out.
Nope, no need! The ground chicken cooks in the air fryer without oil.
It should be browned throughout the meat, with no pink color. The chicken needs to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees to be safe to eat.
More like this
- Chicken nuggets with ground chicken in air fryer
- Air fryer Costco chicken bake
- Maple chicken in air fryer
- Air fryer sweet chili chicken
Hope you will like this air fryer ground chicken recipe as much as we do. Rate the recipe if you made it and leave a comment below if you have any questions or suggestions.
Recipe
Air fryer ground chicken
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- pinch of salt
- ground black pepper
Instructions
- Place the ground chicken into the air fryer basket. Break up the ground chicken with a wooden spoon or meat chopper. Season the meat with salt and black pepper and garlic powder.
- Air fry at 400°F for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, stir the chicken and break it up more, mixing it up.
- Air fry at 400°F for 3 minutes or until the chicken is fully cooked. Serve immediately.
Leave a Reply