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.
Here’s all our Healthy Air Fryer Recipes with Less Oil
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More Healthy Air Fryer Recipes:
- Low Carb Air Fryer Sriracha Cauliflower Recipe
- Awesome Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts Recipe
- Air fryer Homemade French Fries
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!
The chicken and broccoli will cook down and shrink, so if it the basket feels full at first, there will be less volume after everything is cooked. Check out the step by step photos on the website recipe write up.
Try to cut the broccoli about the same size as your chicken or a little larger. If the broccoli is too small, it will burn and charr too quick. OR, if you like your brococli small then add it to the air fryer after the chicken has cooked for about 5 minutes first.
Cooking time will vary depending on your air fryer (different models all cook at varying rates) and on the size you cut up the chicken and vegetables. This recipe was tested in basket style air fryers.
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast , cut into bite sized pieces
- 1/4-1/2 pound broccoli , cut into florets (1-2 cups)
- 1/2 medium onion , sliced thick
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil or grape seed oil
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 Tablespoon fresh minced ginger
- 1 Tablespoon low sodium soy sauce , or to taste (use Tamari for Gluten Free)
- 1 teaspoon sesame seed oil
- 2 teaspoons rice vinegar (use distilled white vinegar for Gluten Free)
- 2 teaspoons hot sauce (optional)
- additional salt , to taste
- additional black pepper , to taste
- serve with lemon wedges
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In a large bowl, combine chicken breast, broccoli and onion. Toss ingredients together.
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Make the Marinade:
In a bowl, combine oil, garlic powder, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and hot sauce. Add the chicken, broccoli and onions to the marinade. Stir thoroughly to combine the marinade with chicken, broccoli and onions.
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Air Fry: Add ingredients to air fry basket. Air fry 380°F 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.
Recipe Video
- Recipes were cooked in 3-4 qt air fryers. If using a larger air fryer, the recipe might cook quicker so adjust cooking time.
- If cooking in multiple batches, the first batch will take longer to cook if Air Fryer is not already pre-heated.
- Remember to set a timer to shake/flip/toss the food as directed in recipe.
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!
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.