Air Fryer Chicken Tenders

These AIR FRYER CHICKEN TENDERS are ready in about 15 minutes! The best part is there isn’t a big mess to clean up after!

Everyone likes chicken strips right? Every kid I know will choose chicken strips over just about anything else at a restraunt, every single time.

But we adults love them too, especially when they are so crispy you can hear it when you bite into it.

I am a huge fan of homemade honey mustard dressing and I was craving it with some crispy chicken strips so I started working on whipping up a batch and was out of bread crumbs.

So, I figured I would make this mistake a happy little accident and enhance the chicken tenders with some Ritz cracker crumbs to make them EVEN CRISPIER!

How to make chicken tenders in an air fryer:

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You will need three small dishes to get started. And this is also part of what makes clean up pretty easy. The mess is pretty well contained to these dishes.

In one dish add the flour and seasonings, using only half of the salt and pepper. In a second dish add the eggs and mix them together. In the last dish, add the crumbled crackers, salt, and pepper.

Dip your chicken strips first into the flour, then the egg, and then into the cracker crumbs. Be sure to cover both sides of the chicken in each dish!

Get your favorite cooking spray, I like to use avocado oil spray and liberally apply it to your breaded chicken.

When cooking it in the air fryer, cook each side for 5 minutes and check that it is cooked through. You will find the breading to be crispy and golden!

Recipe Substitutions:

Most air fryer chicken strip recipes call for bread crumbs, but we used Ritz. You can also use Panko if you want. The Panko will also give you a good crispy breading.

If you don’t want to use eggs to get the breading to stick to your chicken you can try some melted butter or yogurt.

Which air fryer do you recommend?

I only have experience with one brand/model of air fryer, but I’m very happy with it and it has amazing reviews on Amazon, which is why I purchased it.  I am not recommending one brand over another, just sharing what I use.

I use the OMORC Air Fryer XL. It’s 5.8 quarts which means that it’s large enough to hold plenty of food. Some of those air fryers are tiny (which is fine for small households!), but I wanted a bigger one for my family of four.

It’s dishwasher safe, too. Always a win in my book.

More recipes you can serve with your chicken tenders:

• I love waffle fries, and they go great with these chicken strips!
• Salad goes great with chicken tenders also. I like this avocado and tomato salad with them.
• When you are feeding the kiddos, go for this million-dollar mac and cheese!