Harissa Chicken in the Air Fryer with Zucchini

Introduction

Harissa chicken is one of those dinners where the jar in your spice cupboard does most of the work. And on a busy evening, that’s exactly the kind of help we appreciate. Harissa is a North African chile seasoning, most closely tied to Tunisia, where the traditions around making it are even recognized by UNESCO. It’s warm, a little fiery, and full of flavor. Rub it onto chicken with some olive oil and lemon, and you’ve already done most of the work before the air fryer is even on.

We’re using boneless, skinless chicken breasts here, along with a dry harissa spice blend, olive oil, and plenty of fresh lemon. The chicken gets its turn in the air fryer first, then the zucchini goes in while the chicken rests. No juggling everything in the basket or wondering why half your vegetables are still soggy. And because harissa brings a little heat, we like serving it all with a cool, creamy Greek yogurt sauce with another pinch of harissa and a squeeze of lemon.

It’s the kind of dinner that feels a little more exciting than your usual chicken and vegetables, without asking much more of you. And with no breading or added sugar, it fits right into a low-carb meal.

What Is Harissa, and How Hot Is It?

The harissa UNESCO recognizes is Tunisian harissa, which is a chile paste, and store-bought harissa paste in jars and tubes follows the same idea. This recipe uses something different: a dry harissa seasoning, a commercial blend of crushed dried chiles and spices that you sprinkle on rather than spoon out. The two aren’t interchangeable, and the amounts here are for the dry blend.

How spicy your harissa chicken turns out depends on the blend you buy. Some are gentle and some are properly hot, and salt varies the same way: some blends have it and some don’t. So before you start, taste a pinch of yours. It tells you whether to go a little lighter on the chicken, and how much salt to add.

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

Chicken breasts: Pick breasts close to the same size and thickness, so they finish around the same time. The recipe counts on about 1½ pounds for four of them, which is on the small side for a lot of supermarket chicken. Bigger ones work too; they’ll just take longer to reach temperature.

The lemon does two jobs. Its zest and the juice of one half go on the chicken, and the other half goes into the yogurt sauce, so hang on to it after you squeeze the first half.

Yogurt: Use plain, unsweetened whole-milk Greek yogurt. It’s thick, and it stays thick once the harissa and lemon juice are stirred in. A flavored or sweetened yogurt has no business next to chile and lemon.

Why the Chicken and Zucchini Cook Separately

It’s tempting to tip everything into the basket at once, but the chicken and the zucchini want different things. The chicken needs room for the hot air to move around each breast. The zucchini needs room too, and lots of it: piled up, the slices cook soft rather than browning at the edges. Doing them one after the other gives each a basket to itself.

The timing works out neatly. The chicken takes 10 to 12 minutes at 380°F, then rests on the platter while the zucchini cooks. Each batch of zucchini takes 8 to 10 minutes, turned once halfway through, and depending on your basket, three zucchini may need two batches. So the chicken rests for anywhere from about 8 to 20 minutes, well past the 5 it needs.

The half hour of cooking time assumes all four breasts fit in the basket in one go, plus up to two batches of zucchini. If your chicken needs two rounds, allow extra time. Preheating isn’t counted.

Cook the Chicken to 165°F, Not to the Clock

The 10 to 12 minutes is a guide. A thick breast takes longer than a thin one, and no two air fryers run quite the same.

What decides when it’s done is temperature. Chicken is safe to eat at 165°F (74°C), measured with a thermometer pushed into the thickest part of the breast. Check every breast, not just the biggest one, and take each out when it gets there. Chicken breast doesn’t have much fat to protect it, so leaving it in long after 165°F is what dries it out.

Serving It

Slice the chicken once it has rested, pile it next to the zucchini, and put the yogurt sauce on the side so everyone can take as much as they want. For a bigger low-carb dinner, add our shaved Brussels sprouts salad or a batch of cauliflower broccoli fritters. And if you bought extra zucchini, our zucchini slices with Parmesan and bacon are a good way to use it up.

Storing Leftovers

Get leftovers into the refrigerator within two hours of cooking, in an airtight container. They’ll keep for three to four days, which is the USDA window for cooked poultry. Keep the yogurt sauce in its own covered container in the refrigerator, and serve it cold rather than heating it with the chicken.

Reheat the chicken until it’s hot all the way through, to 165°F.

If you make it, tell us in the comments which harissa blend you used and how hot it turned out.