Air Fryer Chicken Gizzards

Hate wasting food and wondering what to do with the organs inside a whole chicken? Air frying chicken gizzards are a delicious snack your kids will even love! Just one of many air fryer recipes our family loves.

Chicken Gizzards Recipe

Organs such as these, including fried chicken livers and gizzards, need a little more pampering before being cooked. If you skip steps, they will be tough and not pleasing to your palate. Follow them to a tee, and you may be surprised at how much you like them.

Frozen Chicken Gizzards in Air Fryer

You can use fresh or frozen for this. The only difference between the two is the latter will take a little bit longer in the boiling process to get tender, maybe an extra 5 minutes. That step is necessary whether these are baked, fried or cooked in your Ninja Foodi. One thing about cooking gizzards is to not rush things. Other than that you would follow the same directions below as far as temp. and timing.

Cooking Tips

We have a few different machines at home, they all work just fine to make these. I don’t have a huge preference between my Cosori or Air Wave but I do love all Ninja air fryer recipes for sure. As you can imagine these are quite bland as is. There’s a trick on how air fry chicken gizzards. When you soak them in salt water first you’ll add flavor and that will help to break down the protein cells making it softer.

Do you have to boil chicken gizzards?

Yes you want to boil them after soaking in water. This next step will continue to break down the tough nature of these bites. If you skipped this step they would be quite chewy and not pleasant. After THAT you’re ready to coat and fry.

Pressure Cooking Gizzards before Air Frying

To make this process faster you could boil in your electric pressure cooker instead. For this method you would add them after soaked in the bowl of salt water. Drain that, rinse, pour into your IP with water 2″ above the top of your meat. Cook time is dramatically faster than on the stovetop for sure. Close lid and steam valve. Set to high pressure for 15 minutes. Allow for a 10 minute natural release at the end. Drain and follow the process at the bottom to air fry after that

How long do chicken gizzards take to cook?

Once your water reaches a boiling point you’ll want to leave them on there for a good 30 minutes so you have to start there. Then you will need a few minutes to allow them to cool so you can handle them and bread as necessary as directed below, then air frying takes 6-8 minutes so I would say in total you need 45 minutes.

Seems like a bit of a lengthy process but you can prep, walk away and just come back. Set a timer and when they’re on the stovetop leave it at a low rolling boil so you don’t have to pay much attention to them.

Ingredient Notes

You want chicken gizzards to be rinsed under cool water when you start this process. Use a colander and run cool water over the top of them moving around to remove any debris or ick off the outside.

Egg will help the breading to stick nicely. There are other options of how to bread chicken without eggs if you need an alternative.

Breadcrumbs were used for the outside. You could use Italian style or Panko which is lighter gluten free substitute.

And to add more flavor to the outside I included some grated parmesan cheese. Loved that duo and would definitely do it again next time.

As far as seasonings go you could use whatever you wish. Dry taco seasoning works really well though for this air fryer snack. Brings a ton of flavor to an otherwise bland bite and it’s already mixed together in a jar so no need to add more prep.

You really could follow these same steps with our Chicken Liver Recipe but I would cut into smaller bite size pieces too in order to get them tender.

How to Serve

If you like dipping sauces to serve with these there are a few popular choices. We share how to make fry sauce which is great, tartar sauce, or ketchup work too. You can work on these when these are cooking and especially with kids it is likely a must for added flavor.

Are fried gizzards a Southern thing?

I mean you can be from any part of the U.S. to enjoy these but for sure they are found more often in restaurants in Georgia and those areas. You can get the same crisp result this way without the added calories and fat. Yes you can deep fry for 4-5 minutes after boiling if you’d prefer but why?? They are actually quite healthy, here are nutrition facts as is.

If you want more of a down South flavor I might choose to use a spicy dry mix. About 1 Tbsp should do it unless you use substantially more than I did. Old Bay is another favorite to add a lot of YUM and an Old Fashioned favorite amongst my family down South too.

FAQ

Pretty much. Follow our recipe to soak and then boil them first in order to make sure they get tender. Then dry and we like to toss in a mixture of parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs and seasonings before laying into the air fryer to cook into bite size crispy pieces.

Well the air fry cook time is only about 8 minutes once they’re breaded BUT you do want to soak, then boil them first before that. If you just bread and throw them in right away they will be very tough and chewy. Tenderizing them first in a pot of boiling water will change the consistency to fork tender.