The Best, Quickest Strategy to Crispy, Juicy Hen Thighs

A crispy-skinned hen thigh paired with a couple of sides—like a cucumber and tomato salad, steamed or air-fried broccoli, or mashed potatoes—is certainly one of my favourite straightforward dinners. It’s easy and dependable, and one thing I can do with out a lot effort. There’s a motive why many residence cooks, together with myself, flip to hen thighs after they’re seeking a zero-fuss meal: They’re juicy, flavorful, and inexpensive, to not point out extremely versatile. Win, win, win, win. I sometimes bake thighs, however now I’ve a good quicker, extra environment friendly strategy to cook dinner them: the air fryer. As we have famous earlier than, the equipment is principally a mini convection oven that circulates scorching air to cook dinner meals rapidly and evenly.

As we identified in our recipe for primary air-fryer hen breasts, the air-fryer is an undeniably fast and straightforward strategy to make hen, nevertheless it’s not a on condition that that hen might be juicy and flavorful. So we requested our take a look at kitchen colleague and veteran recipe developer Julia Levy to give you what we described as a primary methodology for air-fryer hen thighs which might be ultra-tender and flavorful with splendidly crispy pores and skin. By way of quite a few assessments and tweaks, Levy did simply that. Learn on for the fundamental recipe, together with ideas for getting the moistest, most appetizing hen within the air fryer. You’ll additionally discover 5 variations on the fundamental recipe, together with lemon-pepper, za’atar mint, chipotle-lime, and miso-ginger, which certainly one of our testers described as having a “pretty caramelized crust that was simply on the sting of being burnt,” including, “It tasted like they simply got here off the grill, which is a taste that’s laborious to duplicate in an air fryer.”

3 Easy Ideas for the Finest Air-Fryer Hen Thighs

1. Select bone-in, skin-on thighs. Whereas boneless, skinless thighs do not dry out as simply as boneless, skinless breasts, we nonetheless assume it is price choosing bone-in, skin-on right here for essentially the most succulent outcomes. Not solely will you get optimum juiciness, however you may additionally get superbly browned pores and skin that certainly one of our recipe testers described as “past crispy.”
2. Dry-brine the thighs for juicier, extra flavorful meat. We’re longtime advocates for dry brining—this easy course of makes for a lot juicier, extra flavorful meat, and, not like moist brining, you needn’t fuss with a container of liquid taking on house in your fridge. On this recipe, we name for merely rubbing the meat with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper, and baking powder, then letting it sit for at least an hour (and as much as 24 hours) within the fridge. 
3. Add some baking powder to the dry brine for crispy pores and skin. As we’ve famous earlier than (see Niki Achitoff-Grey’s article about crispy hen and turkey pores and skin), baking powder is barely alkaline and raises the pH stage within the hen pores and skin. This enables proteins to interrupt down extra effectively, resulting in crispier, evenly browned pores and skin. Achitoff-Grey notes that because the baking powder comes along with the hen’s pure juices, carbon dioxide gasses type, producing “a layer of tiny bubbles” that “enhance the pores and skin’s floor space, permitting it to develop a crunchy texture as soon as cooked.”

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