Cheesy Air Fryer Chicken Rice

This cheesy air fryer chicken rice is inspired by one of my favorite Korean street food dishes: cupbap (컵밥). Cupbap literally means “cup rice,” and it’s the kind of casual, satisfying meal you can find at Korean street food stalls, usually packed with rice and flavorful toppings in a convenient bowl or cup.

This version takes that idea and turns it into an easy, cheesy one-basket meal. You get juicy marinated chicken, flavorful fried rice, sweet corn, vegetables, Japanese mayonnaise, and plenty of melted mozzarella, all finished in the air fryer.

The best part is that you don’t need to stand over a frying pan. The air fryer does most of the work for you, and the chicken juices and marinade drip down onto the vegetables underneath, creating a flavorful sauce for the rice.

Why Make Chicken Rice in an Air Fryer?

You might be wondering why you would use an air fryer instead of simply cooking everything in a frying pan or baking it in the oven.

For this recipe, the air fryer has a few major advantages over the oven.

First, it heats up much faster. You don’t need to wait for a large oven to preheat, which makes the air fryer particularly convenient when you’re making a quick meal for one or two people.

It also cooks the chicken efficiently because the hot air circulates around the meat. This gives the chicken beautifully browned edges while keeping the inside juicy. You can also get some of the roasted, slightly charred flavor that you would normally associate with oven-roasted chicken without having to heat up your entire oven.

The smaller cooking chamber is another advantage. Since we’re making a relatively small portion, an air fryer is simply more efficient than turning on a full-sized oven.

Most importantly for this recipe, the two-level setup allows you to cook the chicken above the vegetables. As the chicken cooks, its juices and the flavorful marinade drip down onto the vegetables below. Those juices then become the sauce that coats the rice.

That’s what makes this method particularly delicious.

What Vegetables Can You Use?

For the vegetables, you can really use whatever you have in your fridge.

I used long beans because I had some that needed to be used up. I chopped them into small, fried-rice-sized pieces so they would cook quickly and mix easily with the rice.

Other vegetables that work well include:

• Peas
• Broccoli
• Bell peppers
• Carrots
• Corn
• Green beans
• Mushrooms
• Zucchini

The main thing to keep in mind is that you want vegetables that air fry well and won’t release an excessive amount of water while cooking.

You also want to chop them relatively small. Since the vegetables sit underneath the chicken while it cooks, smaller pieces will soften more evenly and become easy to mix with the rice afterward.

This is also a great clean-out-the-fridge recipe. Don’t feel like you have to use exactly the same vegetables I did. If you have a handful of leftover broccoli, some bell pepper sitting in the fridge, or a bag of frozen peas, throw them in.

Why Use Day-Old Rice?

I recommend using day-old cooked rice for this recipe if you have it. Freshly cooked rice contains more moisture and tends to be softer and stickier. When you’re making fried rice, slightly dried-out rice is ideal because the individual grains are firmer and can absorb the sauce without turning mushy. The leftover rice also gives the vegetables and marinade something to cling to when you mix everything together.

If you’re making this recipe from scratch, simply cook your rice ahead of time and let it cool completely before refrigerating it.