Air Fryer Recipes - Everything I Have Tested and What Actually Works

Air fryer recipes are the thing I get asked about more than anything else, so I have put everything I have actually tested into one place. The wins, the failures, and the genuinely SURPRISING ones. Below you will find every air fryer recipe on the site, grouped so you can go straight to what you need, plus the tips that make the difference between soggy and properly crispy. Let's get into it!

What's Included

• Dinners and mains - arayes, roast chicken, shawarma, porchetta, satay, rissoles and a full budget dinner
• Sides, vegetables and sauces - the chips that convert people, green tomatoes, vegetarian meatballs and a homemade piri piri
• Snacks and party food - devilled eggs, samosas and cheesy bites
• Something a bit different - classic French pastry, in an air fryer
• What the machine is actually good at, and what it is not
• Seven chef's tips that fix most air fryer problems

Air Fryer Dinners and Mains

These are the ones that get made on repeat in my kitchen. Real dinners, not just snacks, and every one of them tested in my own machine.

Air Fryer Arayes - Crispy Lamb Stuffed Pitas - Spiced lamb mince pressed flat into mini pitas and air fried until golden. Ready in 30 minutes, and the one I would start with.

Air Fryer Roast Chicken with Salsa Verde - A whole roast chicken in the air fryer, cut through with a sharp green herb sauce.

Chicken Shawarma, Juicy and Crispy - Spiced chicken with those crisp, browned edges the air fryer does so well.

Crispy Airfryed Porchetta with Oregano and Orange - Pork belly with oregano and orange. Yes, you can get crackling out of an air fryer.

Greek-Style Pork Meatballs and Air Fryer Chips - A whole budget dinner out of the one machine, meatballs and chips together.

Satay Chicken with Satay Sauce and Pickled Veg Salad - A proper peanut sauce, a sharp pickled salad, and dinner on the table in about 15 minutes.

Asian Rissoles with Rice and Slaw - Spiced mince rissoles with rice and a crunchy slaw. One of the cheapest dinners on the site.

Air Fryer Sides, Vegetables and Sauces

The air fryer earns its bench space on vegetables. High heat, moving air, and a small space add up to browning you would normally need a very hot oven for.

Crispy Crunchy Air Fryer Chips - Boiled first, shaken hard, then air fried. That is the whole trick, and it is the recipe that converts people.

Crispy Air-Fried Green Tomatoes - Green tomatoes taken crisp and golden, and a brilliant way to use up the ones that never ripened.

No Meat Broccoli Ricotta Meatballs - Vegetarian meatballs that crisp up beautifully. Trust me on this one, they are INCREDIBLE.

Brussels Sprout Caesar Salad with Crispy Rice - The crispy rice is the whole point, and it is a brilliant way to use up yesterday's leftovers.

Easy Piri Piri Sauce - A homemade Nando's-style roasted pepper and chilli sauce. Use it as a marinade and your air fryer chicken changes completely.

Air Fryer Snacks and Party Food

This is where the air fryer really shows off. Small things, hot and crisp, cooked in batches while you are doing something else.

Crispy Curried Devilled Eggs - Curried devilled eggs with a crisp finish. Proper party food.

Veggie Samosas - Air Fryer or Deep Fryer - Done either way, with the air fryer version giving you the crunch and far less oil.

Cheesy Crispy Spring Roll Bites - Little cheesy bites that crisp up fast and are built for sharing.

Something a Bit Different

Paris-Brest Cooked in the Air Fryer - Classic French choux pastry with hazelnut praline, baked in the air fryer. If you needed proof the machine does more than chips, this is it.

What Does an Air Fryer Actually Do?

An air fryer is essentially a small, powerful convection oven. It circulates very hot air around your food at high speed, which gives you that CRISPY, golden result with far less oil than deep frying and faster than a conventional oven. The results are genuinely incredible for the right foods. The key is knowing which foods love the air fryer and which ones do not.

What works brilliantly:

• Meat and protein, think chicken thighs, lamb, beef patties, sausages
• Flatbreads and pastry
• Roasted vegetables
• Reheating leftovers
• Snacks and party food
• Eggs, yes, really!

What does not work as well:

• Wet batters: they drip and make a mess
• Large roasts: the basket is just too small
• Big batches of anything: overcrowding kills the crisp, more on this below

Chef's Tips for Air Fryer Success

After all my testing, here are the things that make the BIGGEST difference between good results and great ones.

1. Do not overcrowd the basket: Air needs to circulate around your food to crisp it up. If you pile everything in, you will steam your food instead of fry it. Cook in batches if you need to, it is worth it every time.

2. Pat your meat dry before cooking: Moisture is the enemy of crispiness. Before putting meat in the air fryer, pat it dry with paper towels. More surface contact with hot air equals better browning.

3. Preheat your air fryer: Just like an oven, a preheated air fryer gives better results. Most models only need 3 to 5 minutes to come up to temperature. Do not skip this step!

4. Use a light coating of oil: You do not need much, a light spray or brush is enough. This helps with browning and stops food from sticking to the basket.

5. Shake or flip halfway through: For even cooking, shake the basket or flip your food halfway through the cooking time. This is especially important for smaller things like vegetables or anything bite-sized.

6. Check earlier than you think: Every air fryer runs slightly differently and they cook faster than you expect. Start checking a few minutes before the recipe says, especially the first time you make something new.

7. Use it to reheat leftovers: This might be my FAVOURITE air fryer trick. Pizza, roast chicken, spring rolls, chips, the air fryer brings them back to life in a way a microwave never can. 5 to 8 minutes and you have got crispy, delicious leftovers. Absolute game changer.

Will It Air Fry? The Ebooks

After testing dozens of recipes, I put my absolute favourites into two ebooks, and between them they cover just about everything you could want to cook in an air fryer. Every recipe is one I have personally tested, with the times and temperatures already dialled in, so there is no guessing and no wasted ingredients.

Will It Air Fry? Vol.1 is the place to start, with 30+ tested recipes for $7.99 NZD, ten of them exclusive to the book. Will It Air Fry? No.2 is the follow-up with even more, including the arayes above, for $5.99 NZD. Both are instant digital downloads.

Why This Collection Works

I will be honest with you: I was sceptical. After 20 years in professional kitchens I looked at the air fryer and saw a gadget, a fad, one more thing to find bench space for. Then I started testing properly, and I was completely converted.

What changed my mind is that it does a specific job better than anything else in the kitchen. It gets small amounts of food crisp, fast, without heating the whole house or filling a pan with oil. That makes it genuinely useful on a weeknight, genuinely cheaper to run than the oven, and the single best thing I have ever used for bringing leftovers back to life, which matters if you hate throwing food away as much as I do.

Everything on this page has been through my own machine. The recipes that did not work are not here, which is rather the point of a page like this one.

Related Pages

Zero Waste Recipes for Every Kitchen Scrap - Where the leftovers thinking goes next, with a recipe for nearly every scrap.

3 Budget Dinners Under $50 NZD - Curried Pork, Creamy Ragu and Indian Nachos - Three dinners, one shop, and a lot of crossover ingredients.

The Ultimate Indian Vegetarian Feast - Six recipes for a proper spread, several of which suit the air fryer.

If you have had an air fryer sitting on the bench gathering dust, start with the arayes and work your way down. If you are already using yours every week, there will still be something on this list you have not tried, and I would bet on the Paris-Brest. I am adding to this collection all the time as I test new things, so it is worth coming back to. And if you have made something brilliant in yours, tell me about it, I want to hear it.

Enjoy!

Del x

Every air fryer recipe I have tested, grouped by what you are actually cooking, with the tips that make each one work.