Air Fryer Chicken Thighs Recipe – delicious crispy, crunchy keto low carb air fried chicken thighs that are bursting with flavor!

If you love chicken thighs for their tender, delicious meat – and their crispy, crunchy outside (both with or without skin), this recipe is going to be your next go-to.

We’re going to show you the basics of air frying chicken thighs, so you can add sauces, herbs, or any other flavors you’d like to this recipe later – making this a truly adaptable dish you can use for your favorite meals.

Chicken thighs are great on their own served with vegetables or a simple side dish as a keto main dish – but can also be chopped up and served over salad, in tacos and burritos, sandwiches, wraps, and more!

Chicken thighs – and this recipe in particular – are a great option for people on keto or low carb diets, they are packed with protein and are filling, and can be bought on any budget – especially if you grab bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

This chicken thigh recipe is also great in our BLAT Chicken salad recipe, or tossed in Nando’s sauce like our Air Fried Nandos Chicken Wings Recipe.

It is delicious with Air Fryer Broccoli, Roasted Asparagus Carbonara, or used in our Semi Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe!

We hope you love this recipe as much as we do!

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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. My goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

Air frying chicken thighs is super simple – you can use the higher fat content in thighs to get a crispy crunch with no breading or excess oil with the air circulation and high heat an air fryer brings to food.

If you want to buy chicken thighs in bulk, it can sometimes be much more economical to buy skin-on, bone-in thighs.

You can cook them as-is with the modifications below, or remove the skin, or the bones – it is all up to you.

One tip… if you want super crispy-crunchy thighs that taste fried, but have no additional breading – just like our Easy Keto Fried Chicken Thighs Recipe – you can remove the bone from the thigh and unroll it to lay it flat in your air fryer basket.

This will reduce the amount of thighs you can cook at one time, but will get you insanely crispy, crunchy, and tender juicy chicken – reduce your cook time by about 5 minutes overall, as the thigh will cook faster and more evenly.

Chicken thighs with the bone in are one of the most economical picks of meat you can buy in the grocery store – you can trim the bone out, but you can also just leave it in and air fry!

To air fry bone in chicken thighs, please add an additional 2-4 minutes cook time to the times listed below.

Take care to not get the thermometer too close to the bone when inserting your digital thermometer, as the bone will give you an inaccurate temperature reading.

We designed this recipe for a skin-on or skin-off boneless chicken thigh recipe, so you do not need to adjust cooking time below.

If you would like to get extra crispy, crunchy chicken with boneless chicken thighs, consider unrolling them and laying them flat in the air fryer basket to cook. When doing this, you will reduce cooking time by about 2 minutes overall, but go by your digital thermometer to gauge when your chicken is done.

For skin-on chicken thighs, it is essential you get a golden brown, ultra-crispy skin.

Let the fat render on your chicken skin as you air fry. When your chicken is done, broil for an additional minute or two to let the skin crisp, directly under the broiler (if you are using a ninja foodi or instant pot with dual function, be sure to switch from the convection/air fry mode to the broil mode) and let the skin finish crisping fully so you have a great crunch!

If your air fryer isn’t crisping fully or doesn’t have a broiler function, pop it under your oven’s broiler for just a minute or two, just to make sure you get a final burst of direct heat on the skin to get a crunch to prevent flabby, greasy chicken skin.

Chicken thighs that don’t have skin need just a touch of additional fat to cook properly without sticking to the air fryer.

Since we’re using an herby marinade in this recipe, you’re covered – but if you want to make them without it, we’re adding some tips for air frying skinless chicken thighs:

• Spray or brush skinless chicken thighs with a bit of olive, avocado or other oil to make sure they do not stick to air fryer basket.
• Be sure to preheat air fryer before adding in skinless thighs to help prevent sticking.

Because chicken thighs have a higher fat content than chicken breasts, they don’t strictly need a marinade.

We’re using a marinade in this recipe to add more flavor with herbs and garlic, but you don’t need to worry about time in the marinade as much as you would with a leaner piece of meat like pork tenderloin or chicken breasts.

We love serving chicken thighs with our BLT salad, air fried asparagus, farro salad, Loaded Veggie Cous Cous, Quick and Easy Shrimp Boil, or Pull Apart French Bread Pizza!

They are also super tasty swapped in to Chicken Green Chili Stuffed Sweet Potatoes, Chicken and Squash Jambalaya Stew instead of starting with raw chicken.

Chicken thighs are delicious and easy with tons of sides – but we’re round up some of our favorites below:

Zucchini CousCous

Loaded Nacho Fries

Easy Sour Cream Cornbread

Funeral Potatoes

Spicy Mediterranean Perserved Lemon Cous Cous

Mediterranean Focaccia Bread

Roasted Brussels, Parsnips, and Squash

Roasted Eggplant

Click here to find our complete side dish recipe archives.

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