A preview of the picks below. Full recommendations and notes throughout the article.
Bought three Januaries ago (how appropriate), my air fryer received my undivided attention for about six weeks. Then it was Sunday-only air fryer, then remembering-I-have-an-air-fryer air fryer. This year, my air fryer has lived on my counter, practically full-time, glaring at me from what could have been mixing-bowl real estate. It’s like an expensive bread bin.
Air fryers aren’t overrated… I’m just over-rating mine I love my air fryer. I really do. I mean, I was disappointed when I realized the magic box couldn’t just cook everything to perfection no matter what. But that’s just unrealistic expectations on my part. If I follow some ground rules for using it, I think I’ll be able to get along just fine with my air fryer. • Don’t overfill the basket. I know it looks like it could hold more but resist the urge. Air fryers work best when there’s space for the air to circulate around the food. • Follow cooking times and temperatures. I’ve been just sort of winging it with my air fryer, which has resulted in a lot of raw food. Going forward I’m going to follow times and temperatures on packages and recipes. • Use parchment liners. They’re washable, inexpensive and available in sizes that fit just about any air fryer. I’m going to use these from now on to avoid having to scrub my air fryer basket. I’m hopeful that sticking to these simple guidelines will reignite my love affair with my air fryer.
From minor to major (and in some cases downright embarrassing), here are 21 air fryer mistakes I used to make, and how to avoid them. The good news? These mistakes are easy to avoid, and in most cases won’t break the bank to remedy. (In fact, some of these mistakes were literally costing me money.) Here’s my list in no particular order (though I will note how much each mistake was costing me where applicable): So on a recent rainy Saturday armed with this list of air fryer mistakes I used to make, I set out to figure out how to use my air fryer more often. Spoiler alert: It’s worked. My takeout spending has decreased significantly since, so in that sense my air fryer has paid for itself many times over.
The Setup Mistakes
Eyeballing every cook time.
Chicken takes twelve minutes. Fries take fifteen minutes. Salmon takes ten minutes. After about two years of on-again, off-again air fryer usage, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m simply no good at using an air fryer. Not the appliance’s fault, I just can’t seem to nail down cooking times. Half the time I’d guess right, and half the time my dinner would emerge either raw or burnt. More often than not, I’d get frustrated and simply order a pizza, logging yet another strike against air fryers.
Take the guesswork out of air fryer cooking with a cheat sheet that lists cooking times and temperatures for nearly every food you can imagine cooking in your air fryer. Just stick it to your air fryer (it’s magnetic.) and refer to it when you’re not sure what temp and time to set. You’ll use your air fryer a lot more when you know you can count on great results.
Two magnetic charts that stick directly to the fryer, one for cook times and one for conversion from oven temps. The cookbook is a nice bonus, but the magnets are the real win. You stop opening your phone and squinting at a recipe halfway through prep. The information is right there on the appliance.
View Pricing on AmazonSkipping the preheat.
I was using my air fryer wrong. My soggy air fryer fries saga continued as I put cold potatoes in my air fryer, set it, and walked away. I came back to soft fries. Again. I did some more research and realized that air fryers need a couple minutes to heat up, so starting with cold potatoes meant that my potatoes weren’t getting properly crisped. Who knew?
Preheat. Preheat your oven. It’s such a game changer and it’s so easy to forget. I’m talking perfectly crispy fries, beautifully golden skinned chicken thighs, frozen foods that aren’t sad and soggy. I could go on and on but you get the idea. It’s worth it. Set your oven to the desired temp and let it heat up for at least 3 minutes before you load up your goodies.
Overcrowding the basket.
My #1 air fryer faux pas has got to be loading up my air fryer with too much food at once. Especially with french fries, I always felt like they didn’t crisp up and took forever to cook. But that’s because an air fryer cooks food by circulating hot air around your food, and that doesn’t happen very well when you’re basket is overfilled. So my #1 air fryer tip is don’t fill your air fryer to capacity because it defeats the purpose of having one and turns it into little more than a microwave.
Spread the food out in a single layer, don’t try to cook it all at once in an effort to save time. Yes, it will take longer, but trust me, it’s worth it. Food cooks better (much, much crisper) when cooked in batches, as opposed to all at once.
Forgetting to shake or flip.
After about 15 minutes I checked in on the fries, and they were a mess, half of each fry had been exposed to the convection and had crisped up and gone golden, but the other half had just sort of dried out. They were sort of like French fry versions of people who only tan on one side at the beach.
Halfway through the cook time, open the drawer and give the basket a good shake (or, if you’re air frying larger items, turn them over using tongs). It’ll only take 30 seconds, but it can mean the difference between food that’s cooked evenly and crisply on both sides and food that’s not. Again, this seems like a small thing, but it’s these seemingly minor tips and tricks that distinguish air fryer pros from those of us who’ll soon relegate this appliance back to a cabinet.
The Liner & Cleanup Mistakes
No liner, then fifteen minutes of scrubbing.
I use my air fryer a lot. A LOT. So much so that by Friday the basket needed to be scrubbed down with steel wool and some colorful language to get clean. It’s not the most time effective cleaning method and I was beginning to dread using it because I knew what awaited me come clean up time.
Liners: Air fryer liners (either parchment or silicone) make cleaning your air fryer so much easier and help to prevent your food from sticking to the bottom of the air fryer basket. Simply line your air fryer basket with your liner and place your food on top. After cooking you can either discard or save the liner for future use (silicone liners can be washed and reused) and your air fryer basket should take no more than 30 seconds to rinse and be back in tip-top shape. This little trick has taken my air fryer from something I was afraid to clean to an appliance I use over and over.
Two liners, food-grade silicone, and they sit flat in the basket without curling up. The square shape uses the full footprint, which the round ones never quite did. They go in the dishwasher when they need a real wash, but most days a quick rinse is all they need.
View Pricing on AmazonUsing parchment without holes.
Don’t use parchment paper that isn’t perforated. Air has to be able to circulate around your nuggets for them to cook up crispy and golden. I once made the mistake of using non-perforated parchment paper. I set it in my fryer’s basket, laid nuggets on top, hit start and walked away. About 45 seconds later I heard a sizzling sound. I rushed into the kitchen and opened the fryer. The parchment paper had risen up against the heating element and was smoking. After that experience I vowed never to use parchment paper in my air fryer again.
You can also pick up perforated parchment paper sheets for your air fryer. They’re designed to keep from blowing around and allow the air to circulate around the food. These are an absolute MUST for air fryers and are super inexpensive (I bought a box of 100 for less than a pizza costs and will last me months.). They make clean up a breeze as well since everything pretty much slides right off.
A hundred liners that are perforated correctly, sized for an 8-inch basket, and disposable when you cook something genuinely messy and don’t feel like washing a silicone one. I keep both the silicone and the paper liners on hand and use them for different jobs. The paper ones are perfect for fish or anything saucy.
View Pricing on AmazonNot cleaning the heating element.
I kept the fryer basket nice and clean, but I don’t think I ever once cleaned the heating element on the top of the fryer. After a year of frying bacon and chicken thighs and anything else with a little fat, it started to smell kind of bad when I’d turn the fryer on. Like my kitchen smelled like an old diner. I figured my fryer must’ve been dying.
If you’re seeing a lot of smoke coming out of your air fryer, chances are you need to clean your heating element. Just unplug and let it cool down, then give it a good wipe down with a damp cloth and a little grease-fighting dish soap. It takes five minutes and can save your air fryer.
It cuts air-fryer grease faster than any soap I have used. Spray, wait a minute, wipe with a damp cloth. The heating element is the place this earns its keep, but I also use it on the basket and the drawer. The bundle gives you a sprayer and refills, so you are set for months.
View Pricing on AmazonLiners that don’t fit your basket.
First batch of liners I got were too small. I would load the basket and try to get food out of the way from the edges only to find it plopping right back on the metal basket. What was the point? I’d still have to clean the blasted thing. The next set I got were too big. The extra liner material would curl up around the sides and prevent air from circulating around one corner of the basket. Raw food in one corner. Apparently I’m not the quickest learner.
Invest in a set of liner papers to fit your basket, since a poor fitting liner can waste as much as one third of your frying space. Most fryer baskets are between 6″ and 8″, but make sure to double check whether yours is square or round, and measure just to be sure.
If you have a larger Corsori or similar 6 to 8 quart fryer with a square basket, these are the right shape and the right size. The handles on the sides mean you can lift the whole thing out without burning your fingers, which is more useful than it sounds at six in the evening with hot fries.
View Pricing on AmazonThe Cooking Mistakes
Way too much oil.
I’ve used an air fryer before and loved how little oil it required, so when I fired mine up for the first time I assumed I’d need to add very little oil myself. But I’ve been cooking with oil my whole life, so when I tossed a bag of potatoes in for a fry-up I added about two tablespoons’ worth of olive oil, figuring that was reasonable. By the end the potatoes were sitting on a slick pool of grease at the bottom of the fryer. I repeated this process with chicken thighs, adding a hearty glug of oil to the basket before I started cooking. Both the potatoes and chicken came out greasy, and my new air fryer was covered in oil spatter. My old ways of cooking had defeated the whole point of an air fryer.
I’ve found that a good rule of thumb for oiling my air fryer basket is one teaspoon of oil sprayed down with an oil sprayer. You want it to be a fine mist that evenly coats the basket. This way, you’re still getting that crispiness from the oil but not overdoing it. Plus, it makes cleanup so much easier, and you get the health benefits of an air fryer.
Non-aerosol, so no propellants, no clogging, and the spray is genuinely fine. Two bottles means one for olive oil and one for a neutral cooking oil. I have had mine three years and they are still spraying as evenly as the day I bought them, which is more than I can say for any of the aerosol cans I used to go through.
View Pricing on AmazonGuessing at doneness on chicken and pork.
I have done this way too many times. I would pull chicken thighs out of the oven, cut one open to check the doneness and if it looked white all the way through, well, it’s good to go. Only to hear later, “Hey, the chicken was a little undercooked.” (aka there was still a bit of pink right up against the bone). I would then make sure the next chicken was thoroughly, maybe even overly, cooked. You know, chicken that is more of a chewy texture. I never found the in-between. It was always vibes based.
Buy an instant-read thermometer. I know, I know, everyone has one. But if you don’t use yours (like I didn’t use mine for years.), consider this your sign to start using it. Insert it into the thickest part of your meat/fish and you’ll know exactly when it’s ready. Chicken is ready to eat at 165 degrees. Pork at 145. Salmon at 125. No more wondering, no more overcooking, no more “hmm, that salmon should’ve stayed in for three more minutes.” (All of my favorite chicken recipes involve a thermometer these days. I’m still shocked I cooked chicken for so long without one.)
Rechargeable, so you stop replacing batteries. Reads in under two seconds. Waterproof, which matters because cooking is messy. The folding probe means it lives in a drawer without stabbing anything. It paid for itself the first time I stopped overcooking a pork tenderloin.
View Pricing on AmazonPutting wet food straight in.
When I took the chicken thighs out of the bags, they were dripping wet. Into the basket they went. Half-way through cooking (say, after 8 minutes in the air fryer), the chicken was still pale. Why? Because all that moisture on the surface of the chicken has to evaporate before the chicken can brown. So really, instead of air frying the chicken for, say, 8 minutes, you steamed it for 8 minutes. Want crispy chicken? Cook it longer. Want juicy chicken inside? Don’t cook it longer. Lose-lose.
Pat your food dry. Moisture is your enemy. The best pro tip I ever got was to always make sure I was patting whatever it is I’m cooking dry with either a paper towel or (clean) dish rag before I throw it on the grill/skillet/pan/etc. This little habit takes about 30 seconds and has made such a huge difference in how quickly my food starts cooking/crisping up. It’s crazy. Instead of waiting several minutes for my food to start crisping up, I notice that it starts crisping up almost immediately.
Cooking one tray at a time when you could stack.
Meanwhile, I forgot the air fryer can be stacked. I fried chicken thighs in the fryer and in 20 minutes, switched to broccoli. Then, 20 more minutes later, I fried potatoes. Dinner took an hour because I fried one thing at a time. But, I could have easily cut that in half because you can put a rack in the fryer and the fryer circulates the heat up so you can fry two things at once.
Potatoes go in the fryer basket and chicken goes on the stackable rack (this is a game changer.). I can’t stress enough how important the stackable rack is, as it allowed me to take my fryer use from once a week to almost every day. We’re talking chicken and potatoes cooked at the same time in the same heat. Dinner on the table in 25 minutes, not 50.
Three racks that stack inside the basket, with silicone feet that keep them stable and protect the basket from scratches. You triple your cooking surface without buying a bigger fryer. I run chicken on the top and roasted vegetables underneath, and they finish together. Game-changer is overused, but here it earns the word.
View Pricing on AmazonSkipping the skewers.
Chicken kebabs. Who knew that my air fryer was secretly a kebab maker?. Just some chicken cut into cubes, peppers, a marinade and 15 minutes in the air fryer and you have a kebab that tastes like it was made on a grill in July. (For the record, I’ve been wasting money for years getting kebabs from the kebab shop around the corner for $10 each when I could be making 4 of these for the same price.)
If you’re into Mediterranean- or Korean-inspired food, consider picking up a set of stainless steel skewers that will fit in your basket. Suddenly air fryer dinners become satay nights and Korean BBQ-esque meals. Instead of spending your hard-earned dollars at restaurants and takeout places, you’ll be cooking these dishes at home.
Twenty-four reusable stainless skewers and a vertical stand that holds them upright in the basket so they cook evenly on all sides. The kit also comes with a roast chicken stand, which I use for half-chickens about twice a month. It pays itself back the first time you stop ordering kebabs.
View Pricing on AmazonThe Accessory & Capacity Mistakes
Using metal tongs and scratching the basket.
Do not use metal tongs. I know it is easier to use tongs than to wash dishes, but I have already chipped/scratched the nonstick part of my air fryer’s basket and that’s only been three weeks. It will probably continue to chip/flake off as more and more food gets stuck onto the basket and I try to remove the stuck on food. So basically I didn’t want to spend thirty seconds washing my tongs and now my $40 air fryer basket will need to be replaced.
Silicone Tipped Tongs: Metal tongs can easily scratch your basket and I didn’t want to use plastic as I was afraid they would melt. These silicone tongs were the perfect solution. They’ve lasted much longer than my other plastic pair of tongs and they still look brand new after using them for a couple months. They grab onto food well and do not melt. I highly recommend.
Heat-rated to 600 degrees, which is more than the air fryer ever gets to, so the tips never warp. The grip is precise enough to flip a single thin fry, the stainless handles feel solid, and the tips come off for the dishwasher. I bought a set of two because I use them constantly.
View Pricing on AmazonNo starter set of accessories.
What else can I cook in my air fryer? This is probably the most important question to answer. Before accessories all I had to work with was the air fryer basket and a prayer. Before accessories the only things I knew how to cook in my air fryer was anything that could fit in the basket like chicken thighs and fries. I had no idea I could make cupcakes (with silicone cupcake liners), bake eggs (in ramekins), make pizza (pizza pan) and more.
Baking is a great way to use your air fryer as an oven. Mini quiche, cupcakes, little pizzas and strata for breakfast are just a few examples of what you can do. With one (well, twelve piece.) accessory you’ll find a whole world of baking possibilities.
Cake pan, pizza pan, multi-purpose rack, silicone mat, skewer rack, egg molds, oven mitts. Twelve pieces means you can finally try the cupcakes, the personal pizzas, the egg cups, all the things you had been quietly assuming required a different appliance. The compatibility list covers most major fryer brands.
View Pricing on AmazonNot using the dual-basket properly.
For example, if you have a dual-basket/chamber air fryer like the Ninja, do you utilize each basket/chamber independently? I waited a good year before learning how to do this on my Ninja. Now I can cook chicken nuggets and fries at the same time (programming the longer cooking item first, then adding the shorter cooking item so that they’re both ready at the same time). If you have a dual-basket/chamber air fryer, have you used it for anything other than cooking two of the same thing? Have you taken advantage of the different times and temperatures for each side so that both items are ready at the same time?
With four cooking levels (basket plus rack on each side), you’ll be able to cook a full meal in one go, meaning you can have the chicken and fries cooking on one side and the salmon and asparagus on the other. It’s this kind of versatility that makes a dual basket air fryer more than just another kitchen appliance, and this is the kind of dual basket air fryer you’ll reach for every night.
Sized exactly for the Ninja dual baskets, two racks so each basket gets one, and stainless steel that handles heat without warping. You go from two cooking surfaces to four overnight. It is the single most useful Ninja accessory I own and I genuinely wish I had bought it the day I bought the fryer.
View Pricing on AmazonIgnoring the dehydrate function entirely.
This is super simple recipe to make dried apple chips in your air fryer. I didn’t even realize my air fryer had a dehydrate setting until two years into owning it. Once I learned how to make apple chips in the air fryer, I’m embarrassed we didn’t do this sooner. It’s easier than you think.
I’ve also gotten a dehydrator rack which has made using my dehydrator SO much more worthwhile. I can now dehydrate an entire tray of apples or make jerky instead of just making small batches at a time (which takes forever). It’s surprising how much money I save by making my own jerky and dried fruit.
Three stackable tiers of stainless rack, sized for the Ninja Foodi 6.5 and 8 quart, which means you can do a serious batch of apple chips or jerky in a single go. The stainless cleans up easily and the spacing is right for airflow. The first batch of homemade jerky pays this back twice over.
View Pricing on AmazonThe Habits That Cost The Most
Letting the air fryer leave the counter.
The air fryer, which I forgot about so thoroughly one winter that it sat in its box in a kitchen cabinet for a month (yes, I resorted to ordering in that many times rather than deal with the hassle of un-boxing my air fryer and figuring out where the heck to put it). The energy efficiency of an air fryer is far worse than that of an oven, and preheat times can run up to 30 minutes. But, since it’s not an oven, it’s got to use at least four times as much energy.
If your air fryer lives on your counter top, leave it there. If it lives elsewhere, continue storing it out of sight. Otherwise, give yourself a reason to not use it. Move your air fryer somewhere inconvenient. For example, if your air fryer currently lives on your counter top, store it elsewhere. Research shows that the easiest predictor of air fryer use is whether it lives on your counter top or not, so if you’re serious about using it less often, make it less convenient to use.
No meal rotation that includes the fryer.
Meal planning with an air fryer can be challenging at first. I would plan out what I’m having for dinner, and then think of a way to make that dinner using the oven or on the stovetop. I wouldn’t think of my air fryer at all. I thought it was important to use everything I paid for.
Pick two or three nights a week that are reliably fryer nights. Tuesday is chicken thighs and roasted vegetables, Thursday is fish and asparagus, Sunday is whatever experiment. Once it is on the calendar, the fryer earns its place in the rotation. Mine pairs beautifully with my instant pot dinner recipes for the nights I want the air fryer doing the protein while the instant pot handles the side.
Buying accessories that don’t fit your fryer.
The accessories I bought for my air-fryer during that zealous buying stage (a cake pan that was half-an-inch too wide, a pizza pan with handles that didn’t allow me to close the drawer on it, a silicone mat with the wrong type of perforation) are sitting in a donation bag in my closet because they are incompatible with my model of air-fryer. I must’ve spent close to sixty dollars on air-fryer equipment that I haven’t used.
The first rule of buying air fryer accessories is: know your size. Every air fryer is different, even within the same brand. The second rule? Measure your fryer basket before you shop for accessories. Make a note of the size, and bring those numbers with you when you shop for accessories. Stick to accessories that fit your fryer. When you find the perfect air fryer accessory, it will likely become one of your most-used kitchen tools. The wrong accessory, however, will be tossed into the depths of a junk drawer.
Treating it as a fryer when it’s actually a small oven.
The limiting factor for me has been my own perception of what an air fryer is for. For me, it’s been chicken wings, french fries and nuggets. Chicken wings, french fries and nuggets. It’s actually a mini convection oven that circulates air around food at a high velocity to cook it more quickly and evenly. I could have used it to roast veggies faster and better than my conventional oven (and without having to turn it on ahead of time to preheat.) or bake a small cake or bread, reheat things without getting that gross, limp, soggy texture you get from the microwave, or even toast nuts to make a quick trail mix or topping for a salad (three minutes, tops.).
I reheat my Instant Pot mashed potatoes and whatever’s left in the freezer from meals I made that week. Dinner in ten minutes. I don’t even turn on my oven anymore, this thing gets used more. Broccoli (half a head, roasted), apples (baked), pizza (reheated from last night), etc. Don’t limit yourself to foods that have the word “fry” in the name. Start thinking of all the things you can make and you’ll be surprised how much you use it.
One small habit that ties the whole thing together. After every cook, take the basket out, give it a thirty-second rinse while it is still warm, and put it back. The grease never builds. The smell never starts. The next cook is always ready to go.
Twenty-one ideas to get you cooking in your air fryer again That’s a wrap on my twenty-one ideas to get you cooking in your air fryer again. None of them are particularly earth-shatteringly brilliant. None of them involved forking over cash for a flashier model. Most of them are small, being little accessories, little habits, little reframings. But collectively they’ve turned my air fryer from a sad bread bin into an appliance I use almost every single night (and our takeout budget has noticed the difference.). And if you’re looking for inspiration on easy meals to get you cooking again, check out my list of easy chicken dinners (this whole chicken in the slow cooker is perfect to make alongside whatever you’re whipping up in the air fryer.). My air fryer situation isn’t flawless, as I still cram too much food into the basket when I’m impatient and hungry, but these ideas have helped my air fryer earn its keep on my counter, and for me that’s what counts.