Air-Fryer Chicken & Egg Breakfast Meal Prep
Chick-fil-A Inspired — Sandwich or Breakfast Bowl
First, about the picture! The one pictured above is my bowl version, made with hash browns instead of an English muffin. The Chick-fil-A breakfast that inspired this recipe is actually served as a sandwich on an English muffin. Since this is the only picture I have right now, I wanted to clear that up right from the beginning!
While on vacation, we ate at Chick-fil-A for a quick breakfast, and I would always get their grilled chicken, egg white and cheese English muffin. I really liked it, especially because of the amount of protein it gave you to start the day.
When I got home, of course I started thinking, I can make this myself.
The first time I made mine, instead of using the English muffin, I put the chicken, egg and cheese over hash browns and made it into the breakfast bowl you see pictured. It was really good, and then that got me thinking about meal prepping these for my son.
Why not make one basic high-protein breakfast and give him two ways to eat it?
For the Chick-fil-A-inspired sandwich, we'll use a lightly toasted English muffin with grilled chicken, egg and American cheese.
For the breakfast bowl, we'll skip the muffin and use roasted diced potatoes with the same chicken, egg and cheese. You could also use hash browns like I did in the picture.
Since he has an air fryer, I wanted to figure out a way he could make the whole batch in there, portion everything out, and have breakfast ready to grab throughout the week.
For meal prep, I'm also changing things just a little from the one pictured. Mine has a whole egg. For his batch, we're going to use mostly egg whites with one whole egg mixed in. That keeps the protein high but still gives us a little of the flavor and fat from the yolk.
So here we go—one basic breakfast prep, two ways to make it, and a really nice amount of protein to start the morning.
What You'll Need
This makes 6 breakfasts, and you can make them all as sandwiches, all as bowls, or do a few of each.
For the Chicken & Eggs
About 1¼ lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup liquid egg whites
1 whole egg
6 slices American cheese
Seasoning
Cooking spray
About 1¼ lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup liquid egg whites
1 whole egg
6 slices American cheese
Seasoning
Cooking spray
For the Sandwich Version
6 Thomas' Light Multi-Grain English muffins — the 100-calorie ones
6 Thomas' Light Multi-Grain English muffins — the 100-calorie ones
For the Bowl Version
Potatoes, diced
A little oil
Seasoning
Potatoes, diced
A little oil
Seasoning
Let's Start With the Eggs
For meal prep, I thought an 8×8 brownie pan would make this really easy. It fits right into the air fryer, and once the eggs are cooked, you can just cut them into portions for the sandwiches or bowls.
Spray the 8×8 pan with cooking spray.
Whisk together:
1 cup liquid egg whites
1 whole egg
A little seasoning
Pour into the pan and air fry at 300°F for about 8–12 minutes, checking it around 8 minutes.
Don't cook these to death! You just want the eggs set. Remember, they're going to be reheated later, so keeping them a little soft now will give you a much better egg later.
Let the eggs cool and cut into 6 pieces.
That one whole egg mixed into the egg whites gives us a little yolk for flavor and fat, while we're still getting most of our egg portion from those protein-packed whites.
Now for the Chicken
Slice the chicken breasts horizontally so you have thinner pieces, somewhere around ½-inch thick and roughly the size of your English muffin.
Give them a little seasoning and lay them on the flat tray in the air fryer without overlapping.
Air fry at 375°F, starting to check them around 8–10 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of your chicken.
You do want your chicken completely cooked and to reach 165°F, but here's the important part for meal prep: once it reaches temperature, take it out.
We're going to reheat this chicken later, and cooking it way past done now is just asking for dry, rubbery chicken when we heat it again.
Let the chicken rest and portion it into about 3 ounces of cooked chicken per breakfast.
Option One: The Chick-fil-A-Inspired Sandwich
This is the version that started the whole idea.
Split your English muffins and put them in the air fryer at 350°F for just 2–3 minutes.
We're only giving them a light toast. This helps dry that cut surface a little so when we put our eggs and chicken on there and then refrigerate or freeze them, hopefully we aren't coming back to a soggy muffin.
And this next part is important:
Let everything cool before you put the sandwiches together.
Warm chicken and eggs wrapped up with bread are going to create steam, and steam is going to give us exactly what we don't want—a wet muffin.
Once everything is cool, layer:
Bottom English muffin → Egg → 3 oz grilled chicken → American cheese → Top muffin
Wrap each sandwich individually in parchment paper, then slip the wrapped sandwiches into a large freezer bag and remove as much extra air as you can.
Approximate Macros — One Sandwich
About 320 calories
37–39g protein
27–29g carbs
About 8g fat
For comparison, the Chick-fil-A sandwich that gave me this idea was 300 calories with 27g of protein.
So yes, our homemade version is around 20 calories more, but we're getting roughly 10–12 more grams of protein out of it. I'll take that trade!
And for someone who wants a little more breakfast, throw some hash brown crowns, tater tots or a hash brown patty in the air fryer while the sandwich is reheating.
Option Two: Make It a Breakfast Bowl
And this brings us right back to the picture at the top of this post.
Mine was made over hash browns, and you can absolutely do it that way. For meal prep, though, I thought little roasted diced potatoes might hold up even better in the refrigerator or freezer.
Dice your potatoes into fairly small pieces. Toss them with just a little oil and seasoning and spread them out on the flat air-fryer tray.
Air fry at 400°F until they're browned on the outside and tender inside, tossing them a couple of times as they cook.
For each bowl, add:
4 oz roasted potatoes → Egg → 3 oz diced grilled chicken → American cheese
Let everything cool completely before putting the lid on your container.
When you're ready to eat, just heat it up and give everything a little stir. The cheese melts down into the chicken, egg and potatoes, and you've got a completely different breakfast from the sandwich using almost exactly the same ingredients.
And if you'd rather have it like mine in the picture, skip the diced potatoes and use hash browns instead.
Approximate Macros — One Potato Bowl
Using about 4 oz roasted potato and roughly 1 teaspoon of oil:
About 340 calories
34–36g protein
About 25g carbs
About 10g fat
You can also cut back on the oil if you want to bring the calories down a little.
How I Would Meal Prep Them
Personally, I think I would do 3 sandwiches and 3 bowls.
Same chicken.
Same eggs.
Same cheese.
We're just changing the English muffin for roasted potatoes, and suddenly breakfast doesn't feel quite so repetitive.
Keep what you'll eat during the first 3–4 days in the refrigerator and freeze the rest.
For the sandwiches, wrap them individually in parchment and put them together in a freezer bag. Pull a frozen one out the night before and put it in the refrigerator.
The bowls can go into individual freezer-safe containers. Again, just move one from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before you need it.
In the morning, all that's left is to reheat breakfast. If it's a sandwich morning and you're extra hungry, you can get those hash browns or tots going in the air fryer while the sandwich heats.
So now you've got a breakfast that's already made, easy to grab, inexpensive, and packing somewhere around 35–40 grams of protein to start your morning.
And all of this came from one quick Chick-fil-A breakfast on vacation and me thinking, there has to be a way to make this at home.
Until Next Time...
I hope this gives you an idea or two for making those busy mornings a little easier. Sometimes all it takes is seeing something we like and figuring out how to make it work a little better for our own family.
Thanks so much for checking in and spending a little time with me. If you try these, change them up, or have another idea, leave me a comment and let me know! Or follow along for more of my cooking, meal-prep and use-what-we-have ideas.
And even if you don't have anything to say, just stop by and say hi. I love hearing from you. ❤️
Until next time, remember—
Be the change. Spread kindness, give grace, and share a little love wherever you can. The world can always use more of it.
Love,
Louise ❤️
