How to Get the Most From Your Air Fryer

For a busy home cook, adding an air fryer to your roster of small appliances provides a chance to rethink the way you prepare meals.

You may find out that your favorite foods, quick and crisp, with little or no oil.



So what sets one air fryer apart from another?

We found that they differ when it comes to convenience: How easy are they to clean, how easily can you read and use the controls, and how noisy are they during operation?

5 Tips for Better Air Frying

1. Pat foods dry. Before air frying, pat dry anything unbreaded that you want crispy or browned, such as meat, fish, and vegetables. 

2. Avoid overfilling the basket. An air fryer relies on a fan to circulate hot air to cook food quickly. Crowd the basket and you’ll prevent the hot air from reaching all the food, which slows down cooking and could give you uneven and soggy results. As a rule, our experts say not to fill the basket more than 3⁄4 full if there is no max-fill line marked on the basket.

3.Check food often. Unlike cooking food in the oven, you can’t flip on the light and check a food’s progress through the window. With an air fryer, you can’t see the ingredients as they cook—they’re tucked away in a drawer-style basket—making it harder to get a sense of how it’s going. And our staffers found that cooking times can vary significantly. To avoid overcooking, check on your food every so often while it’s cooking.

4. Flip the food as it cooks. Use tongs or shake the basket during cooking for more even results.

5. Experiment with homemade favorites. Sure, store-bought fries taste great, but an air fryer makes easy work of the real thing: For crispy homemade french fries, cut potatoes into uniform pieces, and soak in water for 30 minutes. Then drain, rinse, pat dry, and coat lightly with oil before air frying.