Air fryer Cornish game hens are an easy and elegant alternative to a traditional turkey or chicken dinner. This air fryer recipe uses traditional poultry seasonings coupled with an additional blend of spices to create tasty and succulent meat coupled with a crisp skin. It's a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!
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Air Fryer Cornish Hens
Cornish game hens are an easy and elegant alternative to a traditional turkey or chicken dinner. This air fryer recipe uses traditional poultry seasonings coupled with an additional blend of spices to create tasty and succulent meat coupled with a crisp skin.
Ingredients
- 2 Cornish game hens
- ¼ cube salted butter
- โ cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
- 1 teaspoon fresh sage
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
Instructions
This recipe does not require pre-heating of the air fryer
- Approximately 30 minutes before cooking, place the hens skin-side up on an appropriately sized plate.
- Melt the butter in the microwave.
- Finely chop the thyme, rosemary, and sage.
- Mix thyme, rosemary, sage, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Mix in the melted butter and olive oil and stir to achieve a consistent texture.
- Pat the hens dry with a paper towel.
- Loosen the skin of the hens breast to prepare them for seasoning (to be added to both the hen’s meat and skin). Start by sliding your fingers between the meat and the skin at then neck of the hens and then slowly separate the meat and skin to the greatest extent possible.
- Using your fingers to push the butter between the skin and meat, use half of the butter mixture to coat between the meat and skin as evenly and thoroughly as possible.
- Rub the other half of the butter mix on the outside skin and cavity of the hen.
- Put the hens in the air fryer breast-side down.
- Set air fryer to 350 degrees and cook for 25 minutes.
- Open the air fryer and turn over the hens so that they are breast-side up.
- Set the air fryer to 350 degrees and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes or until the hens reach an internal temperature of 160-165 degrees.
- Pull the hen out of the oven, cover with tin foil and let rest for approximately 10 minutes during which time they will continue to cook. The hens are ready to serve when their internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
Notes
The Cornish game hens used for this recipe weighed 23 and 31 ounces respectively. The heavier hen took approximately 5 minutes longer to cook at 350 degrees.
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