Air Fryer Sesame Chicken - crispy chicken pieces cooked in the air fryer and served in a simple sticky-soy-sesame sauce. A quick and easy dinner that cooks in less than 20 minutes.
Prep Time10 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time30 minutesmins
Course: Dinner
Cuisine: Asian
Keyword: Fakeaway, Healthier, oven baked, Take away favourites
Place the chicken in the bowl with the cornflour, and mix, ensuring every piece of chicken is completely covered.
Drizzle the oil over the chicken in the bowl and mix it all up. You should end up with the chicken pieces looking well-coated and quite sticky.
3 tbsp oil
Place the chicken in the airfryer basket and cook at 190C/375F for about 15-18 minutes - until the chicken is fully cooked and no longer pink in the middle. Check on the chicken and give it a shake at least 3 times during cooking, to ensure the chicken doesn't stick together. You may have to work in two batches if you have a small airfryer.
While the chicken is cooking make your sauce. Add all of the sauce ingredients to a microwave-safe bowl and stir together. Microwave on high for about 3 minutes, stirring every minute, until the sauce is hot and slightly thickened (see notes for saucepan alternative).
Remove the chicken from the air fryer and toss in the sauce (either in the saucepan or in a bowl).
Sprinkle on the sesame seeds and spring onions and serve. I like to serve with egg fried rice.
boiled or egg fried rice, chopped spring onions (scallions), sesame seeds
Video
Notes
Want to make the sauce in a saucepan instead?Place all of the sauce ingredients into a saucepan and mix together to combine. Heat over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce starts to bubble and thicken slightly (this should take about 3-4 minutes). Then turn off the heat.Make the sauce aheadPlace all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir together. Cover and refrigerate (for up to a day), then heat up when ready.Add vegetablesYou could add some chopped vegetables to the air fryer with the chicken for the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. Just ensure the chicken is fully cooked before serving. It should be piping hot and no longer pink in the middle (internal temp of 79C/175F)Some examples include:
Chopped peppers
Chopped mange tout or sugar snap peas
Chopped babycorn
Sliced mushrooms
The sauce amountEverybody raves about this sauce, and they usually want extra helpings when I make it, so I've increased the amount of sauce in this recipe compared to my original sesame chicken recipe (increased by 50%). This should give enough sauce to coat the chicken, with extra for drizzling over your rice/noodles too. If you only want enough sauce to just coat the chicken, reduce the amount of sauce ingredients by one third. It should take around 1 minute less to heat though too.Nutritional Information is per serving, without serving suggestions.