How-to Recipes for Your Air Fryer
Over the past few years, the air fryer — a countertop appliance that mimics the fan function of a convection oven, crisping and “frying” foods without much oil — has become a hit in home kitchens. There are now whole cookbooks dedicated to this nifty little gadget, and no shortage of online recipes for inspiration. If you’ve just been gifted or purchased an air fryer of your own, it can be a challenge to know exactly where to start. Here, five Eater editors share their go-to recipes to give you some ideas.
Crispy Breaded Air Fryer Pork Chops
SkinnyTaste
This is a recipe that works for the less-than-ambitious, and those of us with a small air fryer. The pork chops actually turn out crispy, and I haven’t had any issues with the coating sticking to the meat. The only drawback is that if, like me, you bought an entire box of cornflakes for a recipe that only requires 1⁄3 cup of it, you may find yourself desperately searching for other recipes that use cornflake crumbs as an ingredient (or needing to make a whole bunch of pork chops in the future). — Missy Frederick, cities director
Crispy Air Fryer Broccoli
Patty Catalano, The Kitchn
If I can praise my air fryer for only one thing, let it be that my it roasts vegetables without simultaneously roasting my tiny LA apartment kitchen. It’s hot enough here (as I write today in February, the high in my area will be 81 degrees) without my oven slowly preheating to my preferred veggie-roasting temperature of 425 and bringing the rest of my kitchen along with it. Roast broccoli is a big part of batch cooking for my family; the first night we eat it as a side dish, and then the rest goes into the fridge to be added to quesadillas, or topped with an egg, or nibbled while making another night’s dinner. At least once a week, I make a batch of air fryer broccoli, using this recipe from the Kitchn as a reminder of what temperature to set and when to check to see if it’s done. I stick with basic olive oil, salt, and pepper for maximum reusability, but you should definitely consider adding some garlic powder, red pepper flakes, or anything else that you like. — Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor
Bow Tie Kichel
Ben Moskowitz, Tablet Magazine
I have never used an air fryer in my life — unless we accept that an air fryer is a countertop convection oven. If that’s the case, great news, I only use an air fryer, because I have a fan-only oven in my London flat. You play the hand you’re dealt. I confess that a lot of food is simply worse in a convection oven, because the fan dries things out, and in baking, drier isn’t usually better. Not so with kichel, an eggy little cookie that’s ideally light and crisp; the air is a real boon to achieving that result. Kichel dough is wet, even gloppy, and made even worse by rolling it in sugar. The good news is you don’t have to be precise about slicing it into strands that you then twist into a bowtie; I use a pizza wheel for this. About half of the sugar you roll the dough in will end up on the floor, but power through, because the way the sugar marries with the oil to make a spangly, slightly sweet glaze is one of those neat baking tricks. Kichel’s primary charm is texture, but if life’s ceaseless drudgery is getting to you, you can mix the sugar with cinnamon, or citrus zest, or both — or, for that matter, cardamom or freeze-dried raspberry powder. Or substitute the sugar with brown sugar or maple sugar. If you can bear splitting an egg (by scrambling and weighing it) I would cut this recipe in half. It makes a lot of kichel. — Rachel P. Kreiter, senior copy editor
Air Fryer Biscuit Doughnuts
Alison LaFortune, Delicious Made Easy
Because I am a pretty incompetent baker, my favorite dessert recipes are those that offer the biggest flavor payoff for the absolute least amount of effort, and there’s no recipe that exemplifies that ratio more than air fryer doughnuts. Making doughnuts in the air fryer could not be simpler. You just crack open a can of refrigerated biscuit dough, cut a hole in the center with a small cookie cutter, and stick it in the air fryer for five minutes. You can certainly get fancy with sprinkles and a DIY chocolate or maple syrup glaze, but my favorite way to serve these is with a little drizzle of butter and then a toss in a tub of cinnamon sugar. — Amy McCarthy, staff writer
Air Fryer Kale Chips
Sarah Bond, Live Eat Learn
An unused bag of kale in the fridge, a craving for potato chips, and refusal to wait for the oven to preheat recently led me to experiment with air fryer kale chips (as is perhaps evident, I also did not have the patience to cut potatoes into slivers). After prepping, I lightly coated the kale in olive oil, sprinkled on some kosher salt, and tossed it in some finely chopped garlic for a fun kick — though other flavor options I read about online (from ranch seasoning to sesame seeds) allow for endless opportunities to taste test. They cook in the fryer at 375 for just four or five minutes, but you need to keep a close eye on them to avoid scorching. They should also be cooked in an even layer; piled too high, they’ll steam and won’t crisp. This means multiple batches will be necessary, but no matter; you can munch on one while you wait for the next. — Nadia Q. Ahmad, copy editor
