Chicken jerky strips in an air fryer
Marinated — the short answer
70°C (158°F) for 300–420 min
- For
- about 6mm at the thickest point
- In
- Multicooker with air fry
- Published for
- Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer AG551UK
- Preheat
- Not needed
- Check
- Bends and cracks rather than snapping
- Safety
- Poultry must reach 70°C in its thickest part and stay there for two minutes, or an equivalent pair from the FSA's published table. Full rule below.
Five to seven hours at 70°C — dehydrating raw poultry, which is a safety question first.
Marinated
Before anything else
From national food-safety authorities, not from us. These take precedence over any cooking time below.
Requirement — Food safety (microbiological)
Poultry must reach 70°C in its thickest part and stay there for two minutes, or an equivalent pair from the FSA's published table.
Target: 70°C in the thickest part, or an equivalent from the table below.
How to tell, without a thermometer
- No pink meat anywhere, including next to the bone
- Juices run clear when the thickest part is pierced
- Steaming hot all the way through, not just on the outside
If it has not got there: Put it back in. Give it two to three minutes at the same temperature and check again in the thickest part. Do not judge by the outside: air frying browns the surface long before the centre is finished, and a well-coloured breast can be several degrees short.
Important: If poultry has been left at room temperature for more than two hours before cooking, cooking it thoroughly does not make it safe again — some bacterial toxins survive cooking. Discard it.
| Temperature | Held for | Measured at |
|---|---|---|
| 60°C | 45 min | the thickest part of the meat |
| 65°C | 10 min | the thickest part of the meat |
| 70°C | 2 min | the thickest part of the meat |
| 75°C | 30 sec | the thickest part of the meat |
| 80°C | 6 sec | the thickest part of the meat |
The quick answer
70°C (158°F) for 300–420 min
Published range of five to seven hours for 6mm slices. The chart prints no amount.
- Assuming
- about 6mm at the thickest point
- In
- Multicooker with air fry
- Published for
- Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer AG551UK
- Preheat
- Not needed
- Result
- Cooked but dry
Preparation
Cut in 6mm slices and marinated overnight, as the row prints.
How to tell it is done
- Bends and cracks rather than snapping
- No moist patch when a strip is torn open
Where these figures came from — marinated
- Applies to
- Specific to this model
- Why this rating
- A published dehydrating row, held as the chart prints it. The chart has no amount column, so the slice the row prints is the only measure it gives, and a few rows do not print one. The manufacturer's booklet states separately that the appliance does not preheat in this mode.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-13
What this does not cover
- Published by the manufacturer for this appliance. It is evidence about this machine and is not general advice.
- Dehydrating removes water without cooking. Nothing here is a cooking time and none of these figures brings food to a safe temperature.
- Dehydrating at 70°C for five to seven hours is a drying instruction and not a route to the poultry safety target. The governing rule is shown above and this figure does not satisfy it.
Sources (1)
Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer AG551UK — Inspiration Guide and cooking charts (PDF)
SharkNinja Europe Limited — Manufacturer cooking chart (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: The temperature, time and quantity for chicken jerky strips.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 735/0124, published alongside the instruction booklet as a second document.
What usually goes wrong
Case hardening. The outside of a strip dries and seals before the middle has lost its water, so the piece feels finished and is not — which matters more here than in any other dehydrating job, because the food started raw.
Running the appliance safely
The rules for the machine are the same whatever is in it: plug it straight into a wall socket, leave clear space round it, do not overfill it, do not leave it running unattended, and unplug it at black smoke or an electrical smell. They are set out once, each with its source and what to do if it has already happened, and not repeated on every food. Every rule for running an air fryer safely.
Chicken in fast-moving hot air
Lean chicken muscle holds little intramuscular fat, so once its water has gone there is nothing left to keep it palatable — which is why a breast passes from juicy to dry within a couple of minutes and a thigh does not. Skin behaves as a separate material: it needs sustained heat and dry air to render its fat and crisp, and it will stay flabby at a temperature that cooks the meat underneath perfectly well. Bone conducts heat slowly and shields the meat around it, which is why bone-in cuts finish later than their weight suggests.
Where to go from here
The pages that answer the questions this one tends to raise.
- Using a thermometer, and where to put itThe times above are for a piece that is not the one you are holding. A probe measures yours, which is what the safety rule on this page asks for.
- How food actually gets crispyWhy patting it dry, spacing it out and a little oil are all the same instruction — so you can apply it when a page runs out.
- Why published timings differIf another chart says something else, this is usually why — and which one to believe.
- What the settings on an air fryer actually doMost buttons are a stored time and temperature. A few are a genuinely different way of heating, a few change only the timing — and for many, the manufacturer does not say which.