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–+ servings
A bowl containing fried chicken, avocado slices, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, carrots, and leafy greens, topped with crumbled cheese.
4 from 2 votes

Hot Honey Chicken Salad Recipe

Enjoy hot honey at its finest with this hot honey chicken salad recipe! It checks all the boxes: crispy, sweet, spicy, and creamy. After trying it, you may find yourself craving it every day, just like we do!
Prep 40 minutes
Cook 20 minutes
Total 1 hour
Fat 27
Carbs 58
Protein 36
Yield 6 people

Ingredients

Salad

  • 4 oz. romaine lettuce mix
  • 1 large carrot peeled and sliced into thin half-moons
  • ½ medium cucumber sliced into half-moons
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes halved
  • 2 large avocados pitted and sliced

Dressing

Hot Honey Chicken

  • 1/2 cup honey not raw honey
  • 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes or 6 Thai chiles minced with seeds
  • 1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 garlic cloves sliced
  • 1.5 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast
  • 4 cups corn flakes
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour or 1:1 gluten-free
  • 2.5 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 2.5 teaspoons coarse salt
  • 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
  • 1.5 teaspoons ground mustard
  • 1.5 teaspoons paprika
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 3-4 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil

Instructions

  • Add all of the ingredients for the salad in a large bowl and toss. Set aside.
  • Prepare the dressing by adding all of the dressing ingredients to a bowl and mix until combined. Use the back of a spoon or fork to smash the feta into small pieces, if needed. Add water by the tablespoon to thin out the dressing to your liking. Set aside.
    A bowl of crumbled feta cheese mixed with seasonings and yogurt on a textured surface.
  • Make the hot honey sauce. Add the honey, red pepper flakes or chiles, apple cider vinegar, and garlic to a small saucepan and mix. Heat the honey over medium/high heat and bring to a gentle boil.
    hot honey in pan.
  • Remove the honey from the heat and pour the honey into a mason jar. Set aside to cool.
    A spoonful of chile sauce in a glass jar.
  • Preheat the air fryer to 370-375ºF.
  • Now, prep the chicken. Slice the chicken into 1.5-2-inch pieces and set it aside.
  • Place the cornflakes, flour, garlic powder, salt, pepper, ground mustard, and paprika into a food processor and pulse on low until the mixture has turned into the consistency of bread crumbs. Pour the cornflake mixture into a medium-sized bowl.
    cornflake topping in food processor.
  • Crack the eggs into another medium-sized bowl and add the water. Whisk the two ingredients together until combined.
  • Coating the chicken is going to be a double-dredge process. Dredge a piece of chicken through the egg mixture. Let the egg drip from the chicken, and then dredge the chicken through the cornflake mixture until the chicken is coated. Next, dredge the chicken through the egg and cornflake mixture one more time and set the chicken on a plate. Repeat this step until all the chicken is coated.
    dredging chicken.
  • Air fry the chicken. Spray the air fryer basket with cooking spray or oil. Place as many chicken pieces in your air fryer as you can manage without crowding the basket. We could fit about 11 small pieces of chicken in our air fryer. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of oil over the chicken and cook chicken for 4 minutes, flip and cook for an additional 4 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. The second cook time could vary based on what air fryer you use. Repeat this step until all the chicken is cooked.
    air frying chicken.
  • Place the crispy chicken into a large mixing bowl, drizzle ½ cup of hot honey over the chicken, and gently toss the chicken with the honey. If you would like more hot honey, add more honey!
    drizzling honey onto chicken.
  • Top the salad with the dressing and then the hot honey chicken and serve.
    A colorful salad bowl with quinoa, mixed greens, avocado slices, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and topped with crumbled cheese and breaded chicken pieces, accompanied by two small bowls.

Tips & Notes

  • Layer this salad however you would like! If we are serving this salad immediately, we like to have all of our vegetables on the bottom of a large bowl (except the avocado). Then, we dress the lettuce and top it all with chicken and chunks of avocado.
  • If we are serving this salad later or making it for meal prep, we keep the salad, dressing, and chicken all separate until right before serving.
  • The double dredge is important if you want to end up with very crispy chicken.
  • Keep in mind that everybody dredges differently. If you run out of the egg mixture, it could be because you used a different-sized egg or didn’t allow the egg to drip off for long enough. If you run out of egg mixture, just whisk up another egg. If you run out of cornflake mixture, you can also make more cornflake mixture!
  • How large or small you cut your chicken will determine how long it needs to cook in the air fryer. Feel free to cut your chicken into larger chunks, it will just take a bit longer.
  • Air fryers and air fryer users can vary greatly. Some air fryers are stronger, have different temperature settings, etc. Get your temperature as close as you can to 370-375ºF.
  • Don’t skip the oil in this recipe. The oil is an essential ingredient to air fry as it circulates in the air fryer and fries the chicken.

Watch it

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 598kcal | Carbohydrates: 58g | Protein: 36g | Fat: 27g | Fiber: 8g | Sugar: 29g