Air Fryer Chicken Satay Recipe: A Simple Southeast Asian Must-Try (2024)

Our air fryer chicken satay recipe is a simpler way to prepare this Asian staple.

What Is Chicken Satay?

If you’re into spicy, creamy foods, chicken satay is the perfect dish for you. Small chicken pieces are slathered with spices, skewered, grilled, and served with an iconic rich peanut sauce.

The term ‘satay’ derives from an Indonesian and Malay term, ‘sate’, referring to grilled meat with sauce. Thanks to its addictive nature, this delicious street food soon spread out to other Southeast Asian countries and eventually became known all over the world.

In many Asian restaurants, you’ll often find it served with cooked rice and several slices of refreshing cucumber. Our air fryer chicken satay recipe sticks to this traditional format, but with a variety of fresh, crisp vegetables.

Is Our Air Fryer Chicken Satay Healthy?

Served at the right portion size, the dish should provide a reasonable amount of calories. Each serving of our Chicken Satay gives you around 495 calories, which mainly comes from carbohydrates and lean proteins.

Although the salty, sweet peanut sauce is typically high in sodium and added sugar, we use just enough to coat the chicken. Each serving only has about 573 mg sodium and 4 g added sugar.

Chicken satay and rice also give you plenty of important micronutrients. In the meat alone there are proteins, B vitamins, magnesium, copper, and many more.

Satay chicken, as previously mentioned, is seasoned with hot spices. Although not to a significant degree, spicy foods may help slow your appetite, increase metabolic rate, and promote heart health by improving blood circulation.

Main Ingredients

For our air fryer chicken satay recipe, you’ll need the following:

• Chicken

We chose chicken thighs over breasts because they’re juicier and not as tough when grilled. We removed the bones ourselves and cut the meat into 1-inch chunks.

• Seasonings

The chicken is seasoned with garlic powder, fresh garlic, Italian seasoning for fragrance, salt, and paprika, cajun, and pepper flakes for a spicy kick.

Originally lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves were used instead of Italian seasoning. However, we think this more convenient alternative adds a new delicious twist.

• Chicken Satay Peanut Sauce

The main ingredients for the peanut sauce are surprisingly simple: peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar (we use honey), and vinegar. The key is the ratio, which should result in a salty, sweet sauce with just a hint of tanginess from vinegar.

To this base, we added finely chopped ginger for warmth, black pepper, some oil for extra richness, and chunks of chopped peanuts for texture.

• Vegetables

To mellow out the heat and the richness of the sauce, chicken satay is often served with something crunchy and juicy. Cucumbers, naturally, tick all the boxes and are served with this dish in many restaurants.

In today’s air fryer chicken satay recipe, we’re placing lettuce, red onions, and mint leaves on the side. The cooling nature of mint makes it an interesting refreshment.

• Cooked Rice

Since the sauce is quite salty, this dish often includes cooked rice. Medium or long-grain rice is commonly used for this dish, like Jasmine — but you can use any type of rice you prefer.

If you don’t want to cook rice, microwave/ frozen rice packets are convenient options.

How to Store and Reheat

To store, you can remove the skewers and place all the chicken in a container. If you decide to keep the skewers, you may want to use plastic bags or biodegradable bags. Either way, make sure that the meat is tightly sealed/ wrapped.

Once that’s done, the cooked meat can be kept in the fridge for about 4 days, or the freezer for up to 3 months. To keep track more easily, write the date of storage on the containers or bags.

However, we suggest that you only make enough to eat for one sitting. Reheated grilled meat isn’t as juicy and tender as freshly cooked meat. You can store the marinated chicken in the fridge or freezer, then cook it whenever you want for the freshest, tastiest experience.

What to Serve With

To make your meal more diverse and tasty, we suggest having a Thai mango salad and a glass of lemon water on the side. This salad is a balance between sweetness and sourness, and the lemon water is super refreshing:

Chicken Dishes to Make in Your Air Fryer

This air fryer chicken fajitas recipe may not be 100% authentic, but it sure is healthy, easy to make, and delicious. The chicken is thoroughly seasoned, the peppers are charred a little, and the cheese ties everything together.

When you need a quick, hassle-free dinner, try our air fryer chicken burger recipe. Because the buns and chicken are cooked in the air fryer, you have plenty of time to clean and slice the vegetables once the button is pressed.