Name: How to Make a Rotisserie Chicken in a Ninja Foodi Air Fryer
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 4.5-5 lb Whole chicken (remove the gibles if the chicken came with any in its cavity0; 1 tbps baking powder; 1 tbsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 1 tsp garlic powder; 1 tsp smoked paprika; 1 tsp thyme

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This Healthy Whole30 and Keto Rotisserie-Style Roasted Chicken is so easy to make and absolutely delicious and juicy! By simply adding some spices to the chicken and placing the chicken in the air fryer for about 45 minutes, you can make a quick and easy keto Whole30 weeknight dinner in a flash! Simple, delicious, and significantly healthier than any rotisserie chicken you can buy at the store.

cooked rotisserie chicken in the air fryer basket

Every year I complete a Whole30 month-long challenge in January and sometimes I will challenge myself for a week or two at a time during the rest of the year.

There is nothing better after some pretty big indulgences over the Fall holidays than a healthy and clean eating month.

Since my first Whole30, I have learned a lot, and each year, with more experience and cleaner products on the market, completing the Whole30 program has gotten a lot easier.

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And this Whole30 Rotisserie-Style Roasted Chicken is a MUST-HAVE in your arsenal of recipes.

Keto, gluten-free, and all-natural, this easy rotisserie chicken is made on a weekly basis in our house. Use the leftover chicken for my Whole30 Chicken Lo Mein (Keto, Paleo) recipe, or in my Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip (Whole30, Paleo, Keto), anyway, you use it, you are sure to have a healthy meal in no time!

IF you are thinking about doing a Whole30 program, check out my My Whole30 Experiment as well as my Tips for Successful and Easy Whole30 posts.

Homemade Rotisserie Chicken

There are several reasons why I make my own rotisserie chicken at home.

it is very easy to do
it is made in either an Ninja Foodi All-In-One or in any other brand of air fryer that is large enough to hold a chicken
you control the ingredients and spices to flavour it however you want
it only requires 5 minutes of "hands-on" time
you can save the bones and make delicious chicken stock using the Pressure Cooker feature on your Ninja Foodi (recipe soon to come!)

Store-bought Rotisserie Chicken Ingredients

Believe it or not, although you would think that a rotisserie chicken would simply involve a chicken and some spices, unfortunately, this is not the case when you buy it commercially.

Food dyes, corn, and other weird chemicals (including MSG) are often found in store-bought rotisserie chickens.

Here is the ingredient list from Sam's Club rotisserie chicken:

water, sodium phosphate, salt, yeast extract, maltodextrin, natural flavours, chicken fat and chicken broth, seasoning ingredients: corn flour, salt, spices (including paprika), garlic, sugar, citric acid, onion, cornstarch, paprika oleoresin (for colour), and natural flavours.

Here are the ingredients in a Costco rotisserie chicken:

whole chicken, water and seasonings (salt, sodium phosphate, modified food starch, potato dextrin, carrageenan, sugar, dextrose, spice extractives).

Now do you understand why it is important to make your own roasted chicken at home?!!

3-Ingredient Homemade Roasted Chicken

Chicken - I usually buy my chicken in a 2-pack from Costco. They usually come to about $5 per chicken. Make sure that you remove the giblets (if the chicken has any) before placing it in the air fryer.

Seasoning - You can get as creative as you like with the spices. I typically stick with poultry seasoning, BBQ spice mix, or any other Italian seasoning mix I have on hand. To season the chicken, lift up the skin and take the spice mix and rub it all over the breast meat of the chicken. Then cover the skin with additional spices.

Baking powder - This ingredient is optional but does help to get a really crispy skin

How Baking Powder Works

This is a trick I learned from America's Test Kitchen.

The night before you are going to make your roasted chicken, rub the skin of the chicken with some baking powder, salt, and pepper. Place the chicken in the fridge, loosely covered with aluminum foil.

The baking powder helps to change the pH of the chicken skin and helps to also dry out the skin (as does leaving it in the fridge overnight).

If you don't have time, don't worry about taking this extra step as the chicken will still be absolutely delicious!

Is Baking Powder Whole30 compliant?

Technically speaking, it is not as it contains corn starch.

However, if you want to make your own Whole30 approved as well as Paleo-approved Baking powder it is very easy to do!

Whole30 Baking Powder Recipe:

4 tablespoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoon baking soda
2 tablespoon arrowroot flour

My Favourite Air Fryer

I have a Ninja Foodi "All-in-One" which means that it is an air fryer, pressure cooker, slow cooker and it can even be used as a dehydrator!

I ABSOLUTELY love it since I don't have a ton of storage so instead of having 4 different appliances, I only need to store 1!

Are you ready for the Step-by-Step directions for making this Whole30 Rotisserie-Style Roasted Chicken?!

pat the outside of the chicken dry and add the spices - leave it in the fridge overnight to help dry out the skin (this step is completley optional so feel free to omit the "overnight" and just season the chicken)_
place the chicken in the air fryer basket breast side down so that the chicken legs are actually on the bottom of the air fryer basket.

Turn the air fryer on "air fry" - turn the temperature to 350 degrees and turn the time to 30-35 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and add an additional 10-15 minutes
The chicken is officially done when it hits 165 degrees F.

The Secret to Super Juicy Chicken

The secret to keeping your chicken super juicy is two-fold.

First, I typically turn my air fryer off and remove it when the thickest part of the chicken reaches about 160 degrees F. The chicken will continue to cook from the inside and in about 5-10 minutes, the chicken meat will hit 165 degrees.

The second trick to a juicy chicken is to not cut into it right away. If you cut into your chicken immediately, the juices will run out of the chicken as opposed to staying inside the meat.

So, really, by resting your chicken for 5 - 10 minutes before cutting into it, you are making sure that it fully cooks without drying it out as well as making sure that the juices get reabsorbed by the meat.

The result...the best chicken ever!

Is the chicken skin healthy?

If you’ve been avoiding eating crunchy, crispy chicken skin because you think it’s unhealthy, here’s good news. There’s no need to steer clear of it. Leaving the skin on your chicken adds only 30 to 50 calories per serving and it packs a whole lot of juicy flavor, plus that irresistible crackle. And the little bit of added fat is mostly unsaturated—the good kind according to Taste of Home.

Plus, since chicken skin contains around 55% water, 35% connective tissue (mostly collagen), you can skip your collagen supplement and just eat the skin for the same health benefits!

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