Crispy Pickle-Brined Chicken Sandwiches (Air Fryer or Oven)
These Crispy Pickle-Brined Chicken Sandwiches are a delicious, lightened-up way to replace your favorite fried chicken sandwich! I love the pickle-brined flavor of a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A, but at just 377 calories or 6 WW Points each, these sandwiches are healthier than their fast food counterparts, and just as tasty. The chicken can be cooked in your air fryer (recommended) or oven and will be perfectly crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside when finished. I like to add lettuce, tomato, a bit of light mayo and more pickles and serve it on a soft sandwich roll – perfection! To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app, click here.
Air Fryer or Oven?
I’ve made the chicken for these Crispy Pickle-Brined Chicken Sandwiches in my air fryer and in my oven and provided direction for both in the recipe instructions below. If you have both options available, I recommend cooking the chicken in your air fryer because the outside gets crispier, which I prefer. If you don’t have an air fryer, the oven is still a great option and will make delicious chicken for your sandwich.
Do I need to pre-heat my air fryer?
I’ve seen lots of mixed information about this. Some sources say you absolutely must pre-heat your air fryer and some say you needn’t bother. I think it probably depends on the brand of air fryer you own, so you may want to check your manual. I have a COSORI brand air fryer and do not pre-heat for this recipe. I see that Philips (another popular brand) also says you don’t need to pre-heat. If you’re not sure about your particular model, feel free to just run it for a few minutes before you add the chicken to be sure.
Recipe Notes
- Pickles: I love Claussen kosher dill pickles and in my opinion, nothing else compares. However, if you have a different brand of dill pickles on hand, definitely use what you have! I used the pickle juice left over after using all the pickles in a 20 ounce jar, which was about 1 ¼ cup. I did use a fine strainer to get all the floating ingredients out of the pickle juice before I poured it over the chicken.
- Sandwich Rolls: I used Martin’s Potato Sandwich Rolls and they are super tasty in this recipe! These are one of the sandwich rolls/hamburger buns my family buys often.
- Re-heating: To re-heat my chicken cutlets when there’s leftovers I usually just transfer a cutlet from the refrigerator right back into my air fryer and heat it up at 350 for about 5 minutes until it’s crispy on the outside and heated through again.
Chicken Cutlets
Thinly cut chicken cutlets are sold in the meat section of most grocery stores, so definitely feel free to just grab those for this recipe. I often buy big bulk packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts at my grocery store and then use kitchen shears to trim them down into the shapes and sizes I use frequently in recipes. It’s cheaper to buy the breasts in bulk and since I use chicken breasts a lot in my recipes it makes sense for me! I generally cut the big chicken breasts widthwise into cutlets (usually 4 oz – 6 oz each) like the ones used in this recipe. Any chicken that is cut off to make those I then cut into small chunks to make chicken bites. It’s easy to weigh out 1 lb or more of chicken chunks or tenders and some 4, 5, or 6 oz cutlets and freeze them for later in quart size freezer bags. That way, I always have some cutlets and some chicken bites on hand to use in my recipes! I recommend cutting the chicken down using kitchen shears rather than a knife, it just works more quickly and easily, in my opinion.
More Tasty Lightened Up Chicken Recipes:
Looking for more tasty, lightened up recipes using chicken breasts? Check out my Crispy Chicken Caesar Sandwiches, Spicy Chicken Sandwiches, Air Fryer Chicken Tenders, Cheesy Garden Vegetable Baked Chicken, Barbecue Rubbed Chicken Bites, Mexican Street Corn Chicken, Cheesy Broccoli Stuffed Chicken, Lemon Pepper Chicken Bites, Nashville Hot Chicken Bites, Crispy Chicken Parmesan, Apple and Brie Stuffed Chicken, Strawberry Balsamic Grilled Chicken, Blackened Chicken Bites, Cream Cheese and Herb Stuffed Chicken, Tuscan Olive Chicken, Barbecue Bacon Wrapped Chicken Tenders, Pimento Cheese Stuffed Chicken, Cream Cheese Stuffed Everything Chicken, and many more in the Chicken section of my recipe index!
Crispy Pickle-Brined Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 1 cup pickle juice, (the leftover brine from a pickle jar)
- 4 (4 oz each) thin uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast cutlets, (1 lb total)
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried dill weed
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- 2 large egg whites, beaten
- ⅔ cup plain panko breadcrumbs
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley flakes
- 4 sandwich rolls or hamburger buns, (I used Martin’s Potato Sandwich Rolls)
- 4 leaves green leaf lettuce
- 4-8 slices tomato
- 4-8 "sandwich slice" style pickles, (I used Claussen Sandwich Slices)
- 2 tablespoons light mayonnaise, (I used Hellmann’s light)
Instructions
- Place the chicken cutlets into a gallon zip-seal plastic bag or a shallow bowl. Pour the pickle juice over the chicken. Seal the bag or cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours to marinate.
- Place a colander in your sink and dump the chicken and pickle juice in to drain the chicken. Let it sit for a couple minutes to drain while you make your seasoning mix.
- In a small dish, mix together the flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, dill, paprika, and sugar. Place the brined and drained chicken cutlets into a mixing bowl. Add the seasoning mix to the chicken pieces. Stir the contents of the bowl until the chicken cutlets are coated with the spices.
- In a shallow dish, beat the egg whites thoroughly. In a separate shallow dish, stir together the bread crumbs and parsley until mixed.
- One at a time, take the seasoning-coated chicken cutlets and coat them in the egg white mixture. Allow any excess egg to drip off and then press the chicken cutlet into the bread crumb mix and flip so that both sides are coated in crumbs.
- Air Fryer (recommended): Transfer the crumb-coated chicken to the basket of your air fryer in a single layer without the cutlets touching each other. Lightly mist the tops of the chicken with cooking spray. Set the air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 6 minutes. Flip the cutlets over and mist the tops with cooking spray. Continue to air fry your chicken for another 6 minutes until cooked through. Oven: Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. When the chicken cutlets are crumb-coated, transfer them to the baking sheet and lightly mist the tops with cooking spray. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 8 minutes. Flip the cutlets and mist again with cooking spray. Return them to the oven for another 8 minutes or until cooked through.
- To build each sandwich, place a lettuce leaf on the bottom half of a sandwich roll and top it with 1-2 slices of tomato. Place a cooked chicken cutlet on top of the tomatoes and place one or two pickle slices on top of the chicken. Spread 1 ½ teaspoons of light mayonnaise onto the inside of the top half of the bun and then place the top bun on top of the sandwich. Repeat to make four sandwiches (if you aren’t serving all four at once, keep the ingredients separate and build the sandwiches as needed). Serve immediately.
Notes
377 calories, 42 g carbs, 7 g sugar, 7 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 38 g protein, 2 g fiber, 497 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com) Weight Watchers Points Plus:
10 per sandwich (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition information below)
Holy Moly! This is AMAZING!!!!! If you were in my presence right now, I would full-mouth kiss you!!! The pickle brine is genius and gives the chicken great flavor and keeps it moist. The seasoning is perfect and spot on like Chick-Fil-A’s. Thank you for coming up with the recipe. WOWZER!
This made me smile, thank you so much for posting! I’m so glad you loved it 🙂
So yummy, I love it so much, thanks for the recipe. I’ll try it and let you know how it turns out
So yummy, I love it so much, thanks for the recipe. I’ll try it and let you know how it turns out
Glad I stumbled on this site. This was the first one I tried and will definitely try many more! Thank you!