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The complete list of air fryer cook times in a free printable chart! Use this as a reference or a cheat sheet to make figuring out how long to air fry meat, seafood, vegetables, and frozen foods a breeze!
Table of Contents
🧑‍🍳 Why It Works
Whether you’re new to air frying or a seasoned pro, this helpful cheat sheet gives you the temperature and cook times for some of the most common air fried foods.
From meat, seafood, and eggs, to vegetables and favorite frozen foods, you can use this guide as a printable quick cheat sheet to keep on hand for when you’re in the thick of cooking!
The charts are available in Fahrenheit or Celsius, so choose the one that works best for you and let’s get cooking!
👉 I printed my chart and keep it on my fridge to reference when I need to know cook time information quickly.
Some of my personal favorite air fryer recipes? Pork Tenderloin, Zucchini and Onions, Pigs in a Blanket, and homemade Tortilla Chips! But the recipe possibilities are quite literally endless.
You may also like: Freezer Inventory Printable, Whole30 Meal Plan, 10 Healthy Chicken Marinades, 11 Salmon Marinades.
Reasons Air Fryers are Great
- Air frying is much healthier than deep frying. Because air fryers cook food using convection, you don’t need much oil to get food super crispy and delicious. Just toss or spray whatever food you’re cooking lightly with oil, and you’ll be in business!
- Air fryers cook food much faster than a conventional oven. Get ready for your favorite recipes in a fraction of the time!
- There are so many options! Depending on factors like your budget and cabinet space, there’s an air fryer out there that works well for your needs!
If you’re new to air frying, welcome and hurray! You’re going to LOVE your air fryer. If you’re an old pro, let me know if I missed any of the amazing benefits of air fry cooking!
Favorite Air Fryers
- Most Versatile Air Fryer: I’ve had this one for over two years and can’t recommend it enough! It works as an air fryer as well as a dehydrator, countertop oven, and indoor grill.
- Best for Small Spaces. It’s small, skinny, and lightweight, perfect for cooking smaller portions or if you don’t want it to take up a lot of counter space.
- Best for Big Jobs. This air fryer has an 8 quart capacity! It’s incredible!
Air Fryer Accessories
- Silicone muffin cups. I use them to make my Prosciutto Egg Cups!
- Perforated Parchment Liners or Reusable Silicone Liners: These liners make cleanup a breeze and help to keep your basket in tip top shape. Just double check you buy the right size and shape for your air fryer.
- Silicone Tip Tongs: They allow you to grab and turn hot foods without the risk of scratching the basket! It’s especially helpful if your air fryer has a deep basket, and I prefer the long (12+ inch) tongs.
- Instant Pot Air Fryer Lid. You can actually turn your existing Instant Pot into an air fryer with this lid! I love it for crisping up pressure cooked recipes.
đź’ˇAir Fryer Cooking Tips
Always preheat your air fryer.
Treat air fryer cooking like you would oven cooking. You always preheat your air fryer, unless you’re making one of the very rare recipes that call for a cold-oven start.
👉 No preheat setting? That only means you won’t be alerted once the air fryer reaches temperature, but you still need to preheat your air fryer! Just turn it to the desired cooking temperature, then wait about 4-5 minutes before you start cooking.
Don’t overcrowd.
This is a very common mistake. The air needs to be able to easily circulate in order to cook the food evenly, so try to place the food in one layer and leave a bit of space between pieces of food. Don’t pile anything too high.
It’s far better to cook your dish in batches than it is to try to add too much to your air fryer. A good rule of thumb is to never fill your air fryer basket more than 1/3 of the way to the maximum capacity.
Turn or shake halfway through cooking.
Most recipes will benefit from rotation during cooking. Stop the cooking process around the halfway mark, and either shake the basket well, or use either a spatula or tongs to turn the food. This will help ensure evenly cooked food that’s crispy on all sides.
👉 Please note that there are few exceptions to this rule (you don’t need to turn “boiled” eggs, for example), but in most cases, turning will lead to the most even cooking.
Always test meat for doneness with a meat thermometer.
Always use a meat thermometer to make sure your meat is cooked properly. Follow USDA guidelines for safe minimum cooking temperatures for meat and seafood, and be sure you food is cooked properly.
Use this information to guide your cooking.
This is super important! Both the size and power of your air fryer AND the size of the food can make the cook times vary slightly. So use the temperatures and times on the sheet as a guide or rule of thumb only, and make adjustments as needed.
Close to the end of cook time, peek into the air fryer and see if your food is getting close to done, beginning to brown too much, or if it needs more time. Adjust, always use a meat thermometer to double check for doneness, and keep it moving!
Converting Recipes to Air Fryer
It’s simpler than you might think to convert your favorite oven recipes to the air fryer!
👉 To convert an oven recipe to air frying, reduce the temperature by 25°F, and cut the cooking time by about 20-25%. This is a general rule of thumb and may need adjusting based on what you’re cooking.
Remember to stop halfway through cooking to rotate the food inside the air fryer basket. When you’re close to the end of cook time, open the air fryer basket and make sure nothing is burning or overcooking.
🍴 Air Frying Recipes
Now just remember that all air fryers cook a little differently depending on their size and power, and the amount of and thickness of your food items, as well as fullness of your air fryer basket, will all work together to affect cooking time.
This cheat sheet is meant to be a guide to reference, but you’ll have to do a bit of experimenting too!
These are the recipes included in the guide:
🥩 Air Fryer Meat & Seafood
- Bacon or Turkey Bacon
- Chicken breasts, boneless
- Chicken drumsticks
- Chicken thighs, bone in
- Chicken nuggets, homemade
- Chicken, whole (rotisserie-style)
- Chicken wings
- Burgers, 1/4 lb.
- Hot dogs
- Kielbasa, sliced
- Meatballs, mini
- Pork Belly, cubed
- Pork chops, boneless
- Pork chops, bone in
- Pork tenderloin
- Salmon
- Sausage Links, ~1/4 lb. each
- Shrimp
- Flank steak
- Ribeye steak
- Sirloin steak
- Whitefish
🥦 Air Fryer Vegetables
- Acorn squash
- Asparagus
- Beets
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli florets
- Brussels sprouts
- Butternut Squash
- Carrots
- Cauliflower florets
- Green Beans
- Kale
- Mushrooms
- Potato Wedges
- Spaghetti Squash
- Sweet potatoes
- Zucchini
🍟 Air Fryer Frozen Foods
- Tater tots
- French fries
- Pizza Rolls
- Meatballs
- Mozzarella sticks
- Fish sticks
- Mini pizzas
- Chicken nuggets
