How To Convert Any Recipe For Your Air Fryer (2024)

You probably already have your favorite tried-and-true recipes that take forever but don't reallllly require "frying." Good news: Converting those recipes to work in your air fryer (and therefore, making them more convenient!) is possible. Here's how to take any of your beloved faves and make them work in an air fryer.

For most recipes, you will want to lower your air fryer temperature by 25 to 50 degrees. So if the original recipe says to cook at 425° in the oven, expect to set the air fryer to 400° at the highest. Starchier vegetables, like roasted potatoes, love higher heats and most meats do well at a wide range of temperatures. We don't recommend cooking anything lower than 350° in the air fryer—you likely wouldn't get any crispiness! Check your food about halfway through, and if you feel the food is already getting too dark or feel the heat is too high, you can turn down the heat another 25 degrees.

The biggest factor to keep in mind with this conversion is the cook time. A lot of recipes take half the time in the air fryer as they would in the oven. Unsure of how long to cook something? It's always best to set the timer lower and add more time as you go. For the most part, the air fryer will have a shorter cook time even though the temperature is lower (another reason to love it).

The air fryer typically requires a longer cook time than a deep fryer would. A lot of fried items cook in a matter of a few minutes, so you'll likely only need to add one a couple of more minutes. Start with the original cook time and go up as needed from there.

For fried doughs or things with shells (see: cannoli), you'll usually want to air fry them at 350°.

Most breaded items that really need to crisp up (hello, fried chicken) will take roughly the same amount of time to cook in the air fryer as they would in hot oil, potentially a little longer. We recommend air frying these at 400°. A spritz of cooking spray on breaded items will help them crisp up.