The Ultimate Air Fryer Time Chart posted by Taylor Munsell Pin Share Tweet Email SomethingSwanky is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Most air fryers include an air fryer time chart in the box. In other words, they come with a quick air fryer “cheat sheet” that tells you how long and at what temperature to cook different kinds of snacks, from meats to vegetables to frozen foods. Unfortunately, air fryer manufacturers don’t tend to include the best time charts with their machines. They’re often inaccurate and don’t include a lot of the foods commonly cooked in air fryers. Plus, if your organizational skills are anywhere near as lackluster as mine, the little papers that come with your cookware probably get lost almost immediately anyway. For both of these reasons, I’ve compiled what I believe to be a superior air fryer time chart, one which includes all of your favorite foods for frying and their air fryer cooking times. Air Fryer Cooking Tips No matter what food you’re using the chart (found below) for, there are a few tips you should follow to make sure it comes out well after being cooked for the appropriate time. Always make sure to keep the following steps in mind: Preheat Make sure to heat the air fryer to the specified temperature before putting the food in. Pretty much every air fryer model on the market has an indicator light on the front that goes on and stays on once it is preheated to the chosen temperature. Most models also have a loud beeping noise that blares out when the preheating is complete. Air fryers preheat much faster than ovens, so you won’t have to wait very long between setting the temperature and starting the cooking process. The internal temperature of the air fryer during the preheating process is a bit unpredictable. Trying to leave the food in the air fryer during the process and just counting that period as 50% cooking time or something like that will rarely work out and will almost certainly result in an over- or undercooked final product. Don’t Overcrowd the Basket The way an air fryer works is by exposing the surfaces of the food to extremely hot temperatures. Because of that, each side of each piece of food you put in the air fryer will need to be exposed to the air inside for at least part of the cooking process. If you’re using a convection oven-style air fryer, that means arranging the food in one layer. If you’re using a basket-style fryer, it’s okay to arrange the food in a handful of layers as long as they’re very loosely packed. Shake the Basket or Turn the Food while Cooking To ensure everything cooks evenly, you’ll want to rearrange the individual pieces of food in the air fryer during cooking. In the case of a convection oven-style air fryer, that means actually removing the tray of food and turning each piece with a spatula or pair of tongs. If you’re using a basket-style air fryer, you can just slide the basket out and give it a shake or go with the turning method if you’re cooking something more fragile. Either way, make sure to work quickly so you don’t interrupt the cooking process for too long. Use a Thermometer for Meat Meat can be tricky to cook to exactly the right level of doneness because different cuts may contain more or less fat or other natural fillers that affect how fast they cook. The best way to verify the meat is cooked just enough is to use a heatproof meat thermometer and monitor the internal temperature while it is cooking. The cooking time and temperature shown on the chart are a good baseline, but it’s best to also look up the optimal target temperature for that kind of meat online and cook it until it’s at that temperature. Converting Oven Recipes to Air Fryer In recent years, lots of people have begun using air fryers instead of ovens because they’re smaller, quicker, and can accomplish the same or better cooking results. If you’re one of those people, it’s important to know how to adapt recipes that call for an oven so that you can use an air fryer instead. As a general rule, reduce the cooking temperature by 25-50 degrees Fahrenheit, with the lower end of that spectrum being for foods with lower cooking temperatures and the higher end of the spectrum being for ones with extremely high cooking temperatures. Also, reduce the cooking time by 20-40% – again, the higher end of that spectrum is reserved for recipes with high cooking temperatures. Both of these rules are due to the fact that an air fryer is a lot smaller than an oven and so concentrates the heat more in a smaller space, effectively raising the confined space to a higher temperature using less heat. So, for example, if you’re baking chicken breasts and the recipe says to bake in an oven at 375 degrees (a relatively low temperature) for 25 minutes, try air frying them at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. If you’re cooking up some fish sticks and the recipe says to put them in the oven at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, air fry them at 400 for 8 minutes. Air Fryer Cooking Chart And now, without further ado, the air fryer time chart itself. To use this air fryer “cheat sheet,” just find the food you’re making on the chart and cook it for the corresponding time at the corresponding temperature. Don’t forget to adhere to the tips mentioned above! Favorite Air Fryers Before closing the book on this post, let me fill you in on some of my personal favorite air fryers out there. 1. Philips Essential Air Fryer XL by Sur La Table This may be my favorite air fryer because it’s very simple to use and still has lots of great features like automatic shutoff, a cool-wall exterior that doesn’t get hot during cooking, seven presets, and an easy-to-read LCD touchscreen. It also does a great job of mimicking the deep-fried texture. The air fryer also includes an app that delivers recipes every day, which is nice. 2. Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster Oven by [amazon link=”B01K0W8LTE” link_icon=”none” title=”Cuisinart” /] [amazon fields=”B01K0W8LTE” value=”thumb” image_size=”large” image_align=”center” image_alt=”Cuisinart TOA-60 Convection Toaster Oven Airfryer”] Weighing in at 21 pounds, this is definitely a more heavy-duty option and is also more expensive than my other two picks. The good news is that the cooking surface is huge and the heating unit is super-powerful. Pizzas, cookies, whole chickens… all of them are easy to cook in this big boy. Perhaps my favorite feature is the toast shade selector-timer, which actually detects the brownness of the food in the air fryer to ensure it doesn’t burn. 3. Instant Vortex 6-Qt. Smart Airfryer by [amazon link=”B07VM1FT8W” link_icon=”none” title=”Instant Pot” /] [amazon fields=”B07VM1FT8W” value=”thumb” image_size=”large” image_align=”center” image_alt=”Instant Vortex 6-Qt. Smart Airfryer”] This model provides great results at a relatively low price — under $100. What puts it on this list, though, is the easy smart programming feature that allows you to save programs for cooking time and temperature. It works perfectly with the air fryer time chart included above, because you can create programs for different types of food. Air Frying is a Breeze Air fryers have blown up in popularity over the past few years. Since they’re a newer addition to the culinary scene, though, the air fryer cook times that come with the machines are not very well researched yet. Hopefully, this post will allow you to air fry food that blows other baked and fried foods out of the water.
