I Made a Whole Chicken in My Air Fryer and, Well…Just Look – CNET

Roasted chicken on a Sunday afternoon is about as comforting as comfort food gets. I make one a few times per month and enjoy tinkering with the seasoning, recipe and cooking times. In my biggest tinker yet, I cooked a whole chicken in an air fryer. It was the fastest I’ve ever roasted the bird. The skin was impossibly crispy, and the meat as tender as a love song. 

My only burning question after my first, but certainly not last, air fryer roast chicken is why it so long to try it.

I’m fully versed in the joys of air fryer cooking — nothing outside of a deep fryer gets food crispier, faster — but the idea of making a whole roasted chicken in an air fryer oven evaded me until now.

I served the chicken with rice made quickly in my trusty rice cooker, but I could have just as easily dropped diced root vegetables in the air fryer with the chicken, and had myself with a full dinner to feed four or five cooked completely in the confines of one nontick air fryer basket.

My only suggestion is to keep a close eye on the chicken, especially toward the end. The heat from an air fryer is intense and could easily burn the skin if you have it cranked up too high. If your skin is getting brown quicker than you think the chicken is cooking inside, pull back on the heat and continue monitoring.

You’ll know the meat is cooked when an internal thermometer reads 160 degrees Fahrenheit when plunged into the thickest part of the breast.

How to make air fryer roast chicken

1. Preheat air fryer to 360 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Whisk olive oil, mustard, seasoning blend, salt and pepper together
3. Rub mustard marinade over the entire chicken
4. Place chicken in air fryer basket breast down on top of the wire rack and cook for 25 minutes
5. Flip the bird breast up and cook for the remaining 25 minutes
6. Remove when juices run clear or an internal thermometer reads 160 degrees Fahrenheit
7. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving and pour juices from the air fryer basket over sliced chicken