18 Air Fryer Tricks You Should Know About

Just like an oven, an air fryer benefits from a few minutes of preheating. To do so, just turn it on before adding your food to the basket. It's a simple step that many people overlook but can help shed a few minutes off your cooking time.

Even though most air fryer baskets have nonstick coatings, you'll still want to grease the basket to make sure nothing sticks. Oils with high smoking points (such as safflower or soybean oil) are ideal for using in air fryers, as the temperatures within the machine can get very hot.

Pro tip: If you want to use olive oil in your air fryer, avoid extra-virgin varieties, which have smoke points between 350⁰ and 410⁰F, and go with regular (or light-tasting) varieties which have smoke points between 390⁰ and 470⁰F.

Items that render off a lot of fat (such as burgers, bacon, or meatballs) might cause your air fryer to start smoking, because of the fat that collects in the air fryer pan and heats up. If this happens, you can turn off the machine, drain the fat, and start cooking again — or you can add water to the tray before you start cooking to prevent it from happening. The water will prevent the grease from getting too hot and smoking.

You might think that coating your food in lots of oil will cause it to become more crispy in the air fryer, but less is actually more when it comes to oil. Too much olive oil and your food could actually get soggy instead of crisp. Go easy on the olive oil for maximum flavor and texture.

If you add too many items to your air fryer basket, the air won't be able to circulate properly and your food won't get crispy. If you're making a large amount of something, cook items in batches instead of all at once. This advice is especially important for fries, diced veggies, and other small items you want to get super crispy.

Things like steaks, pork chops, fish fillets, and burgers need to be cooked in a single layer in the air fryer. If you try to stack them, the sides that are touching will end up colorless and soggy. If you can only fit three steaks at a time in the bottom of your air fryer basket and want to cook more, you'll need to cook them in batches.

If you're not sure how long or at what temperature to cook frozen food in the air fryer, check out this handy chart.

For super-messy items (like wings coated in a sticky sauce) you can place them on a sheet of tinfoil or parchment paper on top of the air fryer basket to make cleanup easier. The force of the hot air circulating can cause the sheets to fly around, so just make sure the food is heavy enough to weigh it down.

Learn more: Check out some helpful tips for using tinfoil or baking paper in your air fryer.

Air fryers rely on hot air circulation to crisp up food, so it's important that you give your machine enough space on all sides to account for proper air flow. A good rule of thumb is to allow 5 inches of clearance on all sides, and make sure your surfaces are heat-proof. You don't want to cook with an air fryer that's pushed against a wall.