One of my friends from Cooking Club, Tina – made this amazing Oven Fried Southern Hot Honey Chicken.  She posted it on her blog in January, and I’ve thought about it since she posted it.

But I knew I was going to try to have to make it a tad healthier – not that I didn’t appreciate the 6 tablespoons of butter in the hot honey sauce (because duh, who doesn’t love butter!) but that would add 30 points to the overall dish.

I also reduced the amount of corn flakes and used chicken breasts.

I was given an air fryer to try out from Simple Living Products – I’ll put their link down below.  Since this is new to me, I tried two different methods for this chicken, and the second method won hands down.  I used an egg/almond milk dredge before coating in the breading.  That helped the coating stick so much better to the chicken.

Once breaded, I sprayed with Pam before going into the preheated fryer.

Here is the first version with my friends sauce that I swapped out regular butter with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter light.

So juicy!  

Then I did a second test – dipped in egg wash and almond milk – frozen for 5 minutes . . .then air fried.   That was the better choice – look at how crunchy that breading is!

I added Frank’s hot sauce to the second batch of sauce, and loved this one more.  Served on top of a slice of reduced calorie white bread, and pickles, this is a 5 WW point sandwich.  #winning!

So good!  The chicken is tender and juicy even with the short 30 minute marinade in the mock buttermilk.  The coating is crispy and the sauce is flavorful spicy, not just knock your socks off spicy.

I had to laugh at this pickle though – it looks like its sad I am going to eat it!  But I ate it anyway. 😀

this shows a picture of a breaded and air fried chicken breast with hot sauce and pickles

Nashville Hot Chicken

A flavorful spicy open faced Nashville Hot sandwich is pure comfort food, but healthy!
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Course dinner
Servings 4
Calories 247 kcal

Equipment

  • air fryer

Ingredients
  

For the Chicken

  • 1 pound chicken breasts
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 tbsp vinegar
  • 2 cups cornflakes
  • 1 tbsp parsley
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 large egg

For the Hot Sauce

  • 2 tbsp light butter (I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light)
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 2 tbsp hot sauce I used Frank's Hot Sauce
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Instructions
 

  • Mix the 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk and vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir and add chicken and marinate for 30 minutes.
    Heat the air fryer at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.
    Mix the egg and 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk. Set aside.
    In a food processor, add the corn flakes, flour, seasonings and pulse. Place on a plate.
    Remove the chicken from the marinade, dip in the egg/milk mixture, then into the corn flake mixture, making sure to press the breading into the chicken. Once you have coated all the chicken, place in the freezer for 5 minutes - this will help the breading stick to the chicken. Before placing chicken in air fryer, spray Pam on both sides.
    Reduce temperature to 380 - and bake for 5 minutes per side - this depends a lot on how big your chicken breasts are, but they should be at 160 degrees - let rest and they will continue to cook while they rest.
    For the sauce, put all the ingredients in a small pot, and heat over medium low heat, just until the butter melts.
    Place the chicken on a slice of reduced calorie bread (1) top with the chicken (3) and drizzle with a tablespoon of the sauce over the chicken. Serve with pickles.

Let’s talk about the air fryer shall we?  Long time readers will know that I’ve had a deep fryer for years, and cooked at the right temperature, nothing is every greasy.  I’ve been asked for years “Biz, how would I cook that in an air fryer?”  And my answer was always “I have no idea because I don’t have one.”

Simple Living Products sent me one to test out.  This is the largest one they have, at 5.8 quarts.  It’s large enough that it could probably fit a 5 pound chicken in there.

It came with two cake pans and a rack – my assumption is that you can cook stuff like egg rolls on the rack to get heat all around what you are cooking.

It does take up a fair amount of counter space.  It has a vent in the back so  you need to make sure that is clear from other things on your counter.   It pretty much will cook anything you would cook in your oven in about half the time.

While I don’t see myself using this appliance every single day, simply because I love to cook and this set it and forget it method is a bit lost on me, I do see myself using it on nights when I work late to make myself a quick dinner.  Hannah and Jacob have been testing it out too and love it.  It does make the best french fries and reheated pizza and burgers turned out amazeballs.

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In other news, after tracking all my licks, tastes and bites, going to the gym, avoiding alcohol, I was up 2.2 on the scale this last week.  Not sure if it’s a residual gain from the week before when I was only up .8 after being -48 in my weeklies?  Bodies are weird.  I am not too worried about it, there are worse world problems out there, right?!

I enjoyed my Sunday yesterday hanging out with my daughter and my Mom – we haven’t done that in a long time and it was a lot of fun.  I am sure my Mom loved being with her favorite child and grandchild.  Duh.

Happy Monday – make it a great day!