Air fryer chicken things are the perfect, easy weeknight meal

Here at AirFryDay we often test trending, TikTok-born recipes. Your tortilla pizzas and biscuit doughnuts, if you will. They're often tasty, sure, but more of a novelty than something you make all the time — the kind of thing you might make in a dorm room or for a group of kids begging for a treat.

But air fryers are good for more than hacks and college snacks. They're effectively compact, electric, easy-to-clean convection ovens. That's perfect for crispy, delicious weeknight meals. And I've got a staple food you should absolutely be cooking in the air fryer: chicken thighs.

I've devised a recipe for you below, but this is the sort of food made to be revised to your liking. You don't have to marinade your chicken. Or you could use a different marinade. Maybe your grocery store has only skin-on thighs. That's fine. Or maybe it only has boneless thighs. That's cool, too. Just pop them in the air fryer and you're set.

Anyway, here's our recipe, which can serve as a base for you moving forward.

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Ingredients

• chicken thighs, as many or as few as you want or can fit in your air fryer

• salt and pepper

• other seasonings of your choosing - I used cayenne pepper and dried herbs

• optional, for marinade: about 1/2 cup soy sauce, 3 cloves of crushed garlic, about 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1 small can of crushed crushed pineapple, a big squirt of sriracha

Directions

1. If marinating, put your chicken in the marinade as soon as one day before cooking. I whisked together all the marinade ingredients and dunked the chicken thighs in the mixture the night prior to cooking. This marinade is not, by any means, the only way to go. It's what I had on hand that day. In general, I try to mix together salt (in this case, soy sauce), acid (balsamic), sweetness (pineapple), and heat (garlic and sriracha). Play around and use what you like.

2. Before cooking your chicken thighs, remove them from the marinade and pat dry. Allow them to sit at room temperature for a bit.

3. Pre-heat your air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Season your chicken thighs with salt and pepper, while adding other seasonings you enjoy. I usually salt quite liberally, but if your marinade was particularly salty be careful not to go overboard. The chicken will absorb the flavor and saltiness of the marinade. For reference, I cut my usual amount of salt in half since my marinade had a lot of soy sauce.

5. Once pre-heated, coat your air fryer basket with nonstick spray, then air fry the chicken for about 20 minutes. The cook time will depend on the size of your thighs and if they are bone-in. Juices should run clear when the chicken is done. The best method to gauge cooking time is to use an internal thermometer to register a reading of at least 165 degrees at the thickest part of the thigh.

The details

Again, this is a recipe meant to be tinkered with. Have at it! In fact, I often use boneless thighs marinaded in a Greek yogurt-based mixture instead of soy sauce. This recipe is not gospel to even me.

The important thing is to use your air fryer to cook chicken thighs. It works well for a couple of reasons. First: I love marinated chicken thighs on the grill. The sugars in the marinade gets charred while the dark meat in the thigh stays juicy in the high heat. The air fryer approximates that result by swirling around hot air. No charcoal or propane required. And, secondly, the air fryer is easy to clean and simple to use. The marinade washes right off the nonstick grate and basket. A pan, on the other hand, will often turn into a sticky mess. Just a few buttons pressed and you've got a solid dinner.

I don't see a way you can mess this up. Here is how my final product looked.

Not bad for very little effort. Credit: Mashable

See the blackened parts of the chicken? That's the grilled texture you're looking for. The meat also maintained a juicy, tender interior because chicken thighs are perhaps the most forgiving thing in the world to cook. The marinade had time to penetrate and flavor every bite, meaning you get a salty, spicy, sweet punch with the entire thigh and not just the seasoned exterior.

In short: This is the perfect weeknight entrée. It tastes like it took a lot of effort but really took about 20 minutes total. The air fryer is for more than TikTok hacks, and this recipe proves it.