Air Fryer Orange Chicken

One of my favorite dishes to make from scratch is a stir fry. We switch it up constantly making different sauces and vegetables, but one thing stays the same – I love making them in my air fryer. And that’s exactly where this Air Fryer Orange Chicken was made.

While I love eating Chinese takeout, I find a lot of the bottled sauces they use include a lot of processed ingredients to make them last longer. Some even use artificial flavoring!

How to Make Air Fryer Orange Chicken

Preheat your air fryer to 400 degrees and cut your chicken into 1 1/2-inch cubes. They don’t need to be perfect, but you want them as consistent in size as possible.

This allows them to cook evenly without some being overcooked and dried out and others still undercooked.

Place the cubed chicken into a bowl or Ziploc bag and add in the cornstarch or potato starch. Mix or shake to combine and coat the chicken evenly.

I recommend adding half the cornstarch at first and adding a little at a time to ensure there is no extra cornstarch in there. You want just enough to cover the chicken.

Here is what the starch should look like on the chicken.

Read more below on what happens when you add too much potato or cornstarch to the chicken then air fry it — hint: it’s not good at all.

Add coated chicken into the air fryer tapping any extra cornstarch off beforehand and cook for 7-9 minutes until the chicken just reaches 165 degrees internally.

Shake the basket every few minutes for even cooking. If pieces are stuck together, try to separate them if possible.

While the chicken is cooking, you can start putting together the orange sauce.

Combine the orange juice, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, red pepper flakes, and orange zest into a small saucepan on medium heat.

Bring the mixture to a simmer and let it simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a separate small bowl, mix the additional cornstarch and water to create a slurry. This will help thicken the sauce so it’s not as thin.

Mix the cornstarch and water mixture to the sauce and simmer for one additional minute then remove from heat. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.

Remove the chicken from the air fryer and combine it with the sauce.

Serve with green onions and sesame seeds if desired and enjoy!

Air Fryer Orange Chicken

Print Recipe

Air Fryer chicken cubes are covered in an sweet orange citrus sauce.

• Author: Julia
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 2 1x
• Cuisine: Asian

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or potato starch

For the Orange Sauce

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger or 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• dash of red pepper flakes
• zest of one orange
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 2 teaspoons water

Optional to serve

• green onions chopped
• sesame seeds

Instructions

1. Preheat air fryer to 400 degrees.
2. Combine chicken pieces and cornstarch into a bowl and mix until chicken is just fully coated (see notes above about not overcoating them).
3. Cook chicken for 7-9 minutes shaking the basket halfway through or until chicken is just at or above 165 degrees internally.
4. Meanwhile, combine the orange juice, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, red pepper flakes, and orange zest into a small saucepan on medium heat.*
5. Bring mixture to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Mix cornstarch and water together in a small bowl and add it to the orange sauce.
7. Let simmer for one additional minute while stirring then immediately remove from heat.
8. Remove chicken from the air fryer and combine with sauce.
9. Top with green onions and sesame seeds if desired and enjoy immediately!

Notes

*This will make just enough sauce to coat the chicken. If you would like extra sauce for a full stir fry, you can double the recipe.