Name: Sesame Encrusted Air Fryer Chicken
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Ingredients: 2 cooked chicken breasts (cut into strips); 2 eggs; 6-8 tbsp sesame seeds (mix of black and white); 1/2-1 cup all-purpose or cake flour; kosher salt (to taste)

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Up your breaded chicken game by coating your chicken in sesame seeds and cooking it in the air fryer.

Sesame Encrusted Chicken Tenders on a plate with honey mustard dipping sauce

Who doesn’t love a good chicken tender?

It’s one of the first foods we eat as kids. Hard to find a restaurant that isn’t serving chicken tenders on the kid’s menu. Kids just love them.

Admit it. You as an adult love them too.

Maybe you are feeling a little embarrassed or you think they are a kid’s food.

Today I want to share with you a recipe that will be bring out the kid in you but at the same time make you feel like a sophisticated adult.

🛒 Ingredients

Here is what you will need on your shopping list to make this recipe

Chicken
Flour
Egg
Sesame seeds
Kosher salt
Cooking spray oil
Honey + mustard for dipping (optional)

Generally you would use all purpose flour, but I actually think the finer cake flour makes for a crispier chicken. I actually couldn’t find all purpose flour in the store, only cake flour and it worked well – I wrote this in May 2020, so I’m sure you can understand why!

For the sesame seeds I used a combo of black, brown, and white seeds. I would try to at least get two colors of sesame seeds just for the stunning visual.

💡 Best Tip

To make this process easier I like to use leftover/already cooked chicken. That way I am not concerned about the chicken being cooked through, just the outside crust being done. The chicken I made was still plenty moist in the center.

It also helped that the leftover chicken I had was cooked via the sous vide method, see more on how to do that. My chicken was not overcooked to begin with.

If you want to cook from scratch completely, you will need to lower the temperature and cook it longer, you will find that info in the recipe notes below.

🍞 How to Bread

Let me show you how I do the breading for the chicken.

Put flour, eggs, and sesame seeds in separate bowls. Cut chicken into strips.

It’s a 3-part breading system – flour, eggs, and sesame seeds. Each ingredient goes into it’s own container.

Chicken into the flour first, then the eggs

First the chicken is coated on both sides in the flour. Then it is coated in the egg.

Tip – use on hand for the flour and a different hand for the egg, so that you don’t end up with your hands covered in breading.

Chicken then into the sesame seeds, then into the air fryer basket.

Then place the chicken into the sesame seeds, coat both sides.

Yes, that’s a lot of sesame seeds. It will give the chicken a nice crunch and be delicious.

🌬️ Air Fryer Instructions

Then it’s time to air fry. I use a Power XL Air Fryer.

Don’t crowd the chicken in the air fryer. Give them enough space so they don’t touch each other.

Cook at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes until starting to brown. If you are using raw chicken then increase the time to 15 minutes and lower the temperature to 350 degrees.

➕ More Recipes to Try in Your Air Fryer

Baked Potato Fries

Kale Chips

Biscuit Donuts