Healthy Air Fryer Chicken and Broccoli “Stir Fry”
Healthy Air Fried Chicken and Broccoli “Stir Fry”
We love Asian stir fries like chicken and broccoli stir fry. Our new favorite is healthy air fryer chicken and broccoli in the air fryer. With such little oil, this low fat dish “stir fry” dish is easy made in the air fryer. It’s a fantastic quick and easy chicken dinner for weeknights when you need an easy healthy dinner. Best of all, there’s little clean up and all finished in one vessel.
Video: Air Fryer Chicken And Broccoli
The flavor of the chicken and broccoli from the air fryer is fantastic. It’s crispy, with toasted edges and super flavorful. The texture is more like roasted chicken and broccoli, which is just as fantastic. This healthy air fryer chicken recipe is low fat and fantastic when served with some wild rice or brown rice. It’s not greasy and the broccoli is wonderful crispy and flavorful. Give it a try and you’ll be obsessed with air fryer recipes from now on. Dinner comes together so quickly and easily. Again, the benefit is that there’s such little oil when it comes to healthy air fryer recipes!
How to Make Air Fried Chicken and Broccoli
Combine chicken, broccoli and onions in bowl. Add marinade and toss evenly with ingredients. Add all ingredients to air fryer.
Gently toss and stir ingredients once during cooking. Do this twice if needed.
Check one last time, if chicken need more time, stir and cook for additional 3 minutes.
What are the Best Air Fryers?
There’s so many on the market now. You just need to research and find the ones that fits your needs, capacity and style. We group the basket style air fryers into 2 main size groups: 3-4 qt range & the 5-6 qt. range. Here’s our favorites:
Cosori 3.7 qt. Digital Air Fryer – “That’s a stylish Air Fryer” was said as we unboxed the Cosori. Beyond being stylish, it has cooked great. The basket is not as tall and wider than most in its size group, which is perfect. You’ll have a lot better results in an air fryer with single layered, spread out foods, then with ones piled high and thick.
The non-stick basket style (non-wire base) & smoothness of the basket tray is also great for clean up.
Ninja 4 qt. Digital Air Fryer – Has a great ceramic coated basket, one of the longest lasting we’ve used. Super powerful fan that will often cook recipes even faster than other air fryers. We initially returned our first one because we thought we wouldn’t like the basket style. After reconsidering, we bought another and are super glad we did. We love it’s basket and just a platform insert. One less bulky thing to wash. This is a great air fryer.
Good Larger Air Fryers
Tiluxury 5.8 qt. Digital Air Fryer – It’s a good larger air fryer capable of cooking for larger families, especially when you need to cook more food. It’s great for cooking bigger batches (ie 4 salmon fillets instead of 2 or 2 lbs of fries instead of 1).
We like that this Tiluxury 5.8 qt has the non-stick basket (non-wire base). Makes for less sticking for delicate meals (ie baked fish fillets). And we like the digital interface (easier cleaning).
Gourmia 6 qt. Digital Air Fryer – This is quickly becoming one of our favorite larger basket style air fryers. Great basket size, good controls, cooks nice. Clean up is great. It has become one of our kitchen favorites. We’ll often find it as Costco at a great price too!
Air Fryer Chicken & Broccoli
Ingredients
- 1 pound (454 g) boneless skinless chicken breast or thighs , cut into 1-inch bites sized pieces
- 1/4-1/2 pound (113-226 g) broccoli , cut into florets (1-2 cups)
- 1/2 medium onion , sliced thick
- 3 Tablespoons (45 ml) olive oil or grape seed oil
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) garlic powder
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) fresh minced ginger
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) low sodium soy sauce , or to taste (use Tamari for Gluten Free)
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) rice vinegar (use distilled white vinegar for Gluten Free)
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons (10 ml) hot sauce (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt , or to taste
- black pepper , to taste
- serve with lemon wedges , optional
Equipment
Instructions
Option 1: Regular Cooked Broccoli
- Make the Marinade: In a bowl, combine oil, garlic powder, ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, optional hot sauce, salt, and pepper.
- Place the chicken in one bowl. Place the broccoli and onions in another. Divide the marinade between the two bowls, stirring to coat each completely.
- Air Fry: Add just the chicken to the air fryer basket/tray. Air Fry at 380°F/195°C for 10 minutes. Stir in the broccoli and onions with the chicken (make sure to include all the marinade). Continue to Air Fry at 380°F/195°C for 8-10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Make sure to stir halfway through cooking so broccoli gets cooked evenly.
- Add additional salt and pepper, to taste. Squeeze optional fresh lemon juice on top and serve warm.
Option 2: For Crispy, Charred Broccoli
- In a large bowl, combine chicken, broccoli and onion. Toss ingredients together.
- Make the Marinade: In a bowl, combine oil, garlic powder, ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, optional hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken, broccoli and onions to the marinade. Stir thoroughly to combine the marinade with chicken, broccoli and onions.
- Air Fry: Add ingredients to air fryer basket/tray. Air Fry 380°F/195°C for 16-20 minutes, shaking and gently tossing halfway through cooking. Make sure to toss so that everything cooks evenly. Check chicken to make sure it’s cooked through. If not, cook for additional 3-5 minutes.
- Add additional salt and pepper, to taste. Squeeze fresh lemon juice on top and serve warm.
Notes
- Recipes were cooked in 3-4 qt air fryers. If using a larger air fryer, the recipe might cook quicker so adjust cooking time.
- Do not pre-heat the air fryer for this recipe.
- Remember to set a timer to shake/flip/toss the food as directed in recipe.
Video
Nutrition
Here’s all our Healthy Air Fryer Recipes with Less Oil
More great Air Fryer Recipes from Best Recipe Box
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38 Comments on “Healthy Air Fryer Chicken and Broccoli “Stir Fry””
I can’t believe how easy it is to make a savory meal in the air fryer. This one is my favorite of them all.
Thanks so much and so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
This is super delicious! I never would’ve thought of cooking chicken and broccoli in the air fryer. I love how healthy this is.
Yay! Happy you’re enjoying our healthy chicken and broccoli!
does the sauce ruin the air fryer? i want to try this but im nervous that the sauce will hurt the machine!
Hi Caroline, we’ve never had issues with our air fryers. But there’s so many different models out there that work differently. If you’re concerned, what you can do is lightly oil the chicken and broccoli and cook that without the sauce in the air fryer. Make the marinade and heat that separately in a saucepan on the stove top for about 3-5 minutes until all the flavors combine. And then after the air fried chicken and broccoli is cooked, toss the chicken and marinade in a separate bowl. Hope this helps!
Hi! This recipe looks amazing but I am not a fan of broccoli, could one use peppers instead?
Hi Therese! Yes, you can definitely use peppers. They will cook in the same time that the chicken cooks.
Hi. This recipe sounds AMAZING! I want to try it, but I have the air fryer oven (no basket). Do you think it would work on one of the mashed trays?
Hi Charissa! yes it would work fine when air fryer on the mesh trays.
This was one of the easiest recipes I’ve made. The taste is amazing! I will be making this over and over and over again!
Thanks Michele for making this and sharing your results! So glad you enjoyed this!
Very easy and family enjoyed!
You said to place in a basket. Does this have a sauce??
Just the marinade which gets mostly absorbed into the broccoli.
Is it okay to put the raw chicken in the air fryer with the broccoli?
It is. Just the same way you’d put raw chicken and veggies together in a pan and cook on the stove or in the oven.
Everything is very open with a really clear explanation of the challenges. It was truly informative. Your site is useful. Thank you for sharing!
Made this for dinner tonight. Super easy and delicious! Will definitely be making this again! Thanks for a great recipe!
thanks Kim! We appreciate the feedback.
Can you use frozen broccoli?
Hi Katelyn, yes you can use frozen broccoli. Depending on the size, it might not cook around the same time as the chicken. Try a small batch first to see what the exact timing is for your brand of frozen broccoli.
Easy to prepare and cook. Thanks for sharing your recipe. Will definitely cook this for my family back home.
Very good. I modified it just a bit. I added more soy sauce before cooking it and put some more on afterwards. I also cooked white rice on the side.
Thanks for sharing this Asheligh and glad you added more soy sauce. It definitely bring out the flavor more when food is seasoned well. Happy you enjoyed the recipe!
I really liked it, specially the seasonings. However the broccoli was too dried for my taste. Maybe I cut it too small? I did reduce the portions since we were only my son and I. He did like it too!!
Thanks!
If I like extra sauce should I heat up extra marinade to add when food is done
Thanks For Sharing this Amazing Recipe. The first time I made it I cut the broccoli too small. Then the second time was perfect because I understood more of how my air fryer model cooks.
Excited to try this. You said to prepare marinade and add chicken and veggies. But do we marinade it for several hours before cooking? Or no? You didn’t specify.
Hi Sherry! No, you don’t have to marinate it too much ahead of time. We usually just add the marinade, stir to evenly combine and then air fry. It’s a super quick and easy recipe. Enjoy!
I don’t have a basket like this one you have. My basket turns. Would it be getter to cook it on the tray?
Hi Sharon, what try are you referring to? The tray in an oven style, or a tray to put in the basket?
I loved how flavorful this came out with an extra drizzle of soy sauce. And my kids love very crispy broccoli, so I cooked the broccoli for 4 minutes in our air fryer oven. It’s a big one so the extra cooking time really helped. Really great recipe.
I enjoyed this, made some rice to go underneath it but what could I add to it after to make it a bit more “saucy”? More like a stir fry?
Hi Heather! Thanks for asking and we’ve been working on an additional sauce to add to the air fried chicken and broccoli. We hope to have the new and easy sauce recipe soon.
This is an amazing…and it looks soo yummy & sound so delicious…i will trying to make it …Thanks for sharing….
Love it!
Absolutely delicious. Your instructions were so clear, precise and informative. I’m thinking of meal prepping and batch cooking this recipe.
If I double up on the chicken and broccoli, naturally I would double all the other ingredients but what about cook time? Would the cook time be the same if I was to double up?
Hi Mohammed, so glad you enjoyed the recipe! For doubling, we just suggest cooking it in two different batches. Overloading a basket style air fryer with a double batch might be too much and the chicken won’t cook property. Or if you have an oven style, it might work if you cook the double batch on two separate racks. Cooking a double batch in an oven style air fryer will require more time too. Just make sure to rotate the racks so everything cooks evenly.