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Your kitchen should have the right tools. Welcome to A Guide to Gearing Up Your Kitchen, a series where I help you outfit the space with all the small appliances you need (and ditch the ones you don’t).
The air fryer has blessed us all with quick convection heating at affordable prices, and the unparalleled reheating of leftover fried food. What more could a girl ask for? Compared to a microwave or stand mixer, it’s an appliance I haven’t lived with for very long, but I can’t imagine living without it now. Whether it’s your first time using an air fryer or your 500th, you’ll love these fool-proof dishes. Here are some of my favorite air fryer recipes to date.
Easy mushroom chips
Air fryers bring speed, ease, and efficiency to our kitchens and there is no recipe that honors this cooking appliance more than these mushroom chips. It's a two-ingredient recipe that requires hardly any preparation and you are rewarded with a savory, crunchy snack. These mushroom chips can be eaten on their own or as a crunchy topping for soups, salads, or casseroles. They're also naturally gluten-free and vegan.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Air-fried pierogies
There are few things more satisfying than a soft pasta pocket full of potatoes, meat, or vegetables. But a crispy-shelled pasta pocket might be just the thing. These air-fried pierogies are easy, thanks to the frozen food section in the grocery store, but make sure you follow my tips here so you end up with a light and shattering shell.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Meatball shots
Prepackaged supermarket meatballs make quick and easy work of these cheese-filled meat bites. I enjoy them particularly as a Super Bowl snack, but let's be honest: Sometimes there are no sports on but a savory craving hits nonetheless. These are the three-ingredient snack for you. Simply hollow out the center of a meatball and fill it before crisping up the edges in your air fryer. Read here for the full recipe.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Stuffed mushrooms
Stuffed mushrooms are easily in my top three favorite snacks. They're satisfying, bursting with umami and extremely quick to make in the air fryer. My recipe uses sausage, spices, and a bit of cream cheese to bind it all together but you can easily replace the meat with a different filling of your choice. Once they're in the air fryer, they only take about 10 minutes to cook—a fraction of the time they would take in the conventional oven.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Scotch eggs
Scotch eggs are like breakfast baseballs. A hard-boiled egg is encased in a thick shell of sausage, breaded, and deep fried. This air fryer recipe breaks with tradition, but only just. Instead of using a deep fryer to cook the protein ball, a light spritz of oil and the whipping winds of the air fryer take care of the cooking. The outside crisps up while the sausage remains juicy and the egg doesn’t overcook.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Juicy air fryer steak bites
One of my favorite snacks when I’m eating a high-protein diet (and when I can afford it) is a bowl of steak bites. The air fryer makes quick work of these “popcorn” steak nibbles but beware, the average recipe will have you overcooking them in minutes. Follow my recipe instead and use the freezer to keep your expensive snack juicy and flavorful.
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You’re not late to the air fryer trend, you’re right on time:
Potato-crusted chicken fingers
When you’re after a crisp crust on your chicken fingers, starch is your best friend. It turns out, dried potato flakes are loaded with the stuff. They’re easy to work with, and can even make for a delicious gluten-free “breading.” All you need are a few ingredients to make this recipe, and you’ll have an irresistible batch of potato-crusted chicken fingers of your own.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Bacon-wrapped banana bites
I always suggest this recipe to folks open to giving new combinations a chance. If you’re OK with salty peanut butter on a slice of banana, you’re probably just one flavor adventure away from enjoying these bacon-wrapped banana bites. The recipe couldn’t be easier and the payoff is sensational.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Stuffed shishito pepper poppers
The air fryer makes perfectly blistered roasted veggies in a fraction of the time the conventional oven takes, and that means you can have these shishito pepper poppers ready in less than 10 minutes. Since you can eat the seeds and ribs in a shishito, there’s not much more preparation you have to do than split them and swipe a bit of cheese mixture inside.
Credit: Claire Lower, Ian Moore
Frico gratin potato squares
Frico is when low-moisture cheeses cook to a literal crisp, and it’s one of the most divine cheese experiences you can have. Eat frico as a snack, or cover your leftover gratin potatoes in Parmesan frico with this simple recipe. It’s an easy way to transform leftovers, and give them a new texture and a second life (that might actually be better than the first one).
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Mac and cheese bites
Remember how I said cooked cheese becomes crispy? Well, leftover mac and cheese did all the frico-prep for you. All you have to do is slice it up and stick it in the air fryer. Make bite-sized squares or long mac and cheese sticks for an easy afternoon snack. A quick blast in the convection oven will frico the edges to crunchy cheese glory.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
A simple banana dessert
Part of what draws me to cooking in the air fryer is that it invites simplicity. You can’t stick a spatula in there while it’s cooking and stir things around, there’s no adding a s
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