If you want fast, clean and healthy meals, an air fryer is a great choice. These small machines make bacon, fries, chicken and more perfectly crispy without the mess of greasy splatters. Whether you're a beginner or use one every day, a few smart tips can take your cooking skills to a much higher level. It's a tool that truly changes how you handle dinner. But you still need to know how to actually use it.Â
That's where we come in. We're going to help you know exactly what you're doing when you make that air-fried dinner you've been dreaming of. From must-have accessories to rookie mistakes to avoid, these expert-backed hacks will help you squeeze every last bit of crispy, juicy goodness out of your air fryer.
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1. Buy an air fryer that's the right size
Larger air fryers have advantages, but you'll need to cook food for longer than smaller machines to achieve the same crispiness, which can lead to drying out.
If you haven't bought an air fryer yet, the first decision to make is arguably the most important: What size to get. Air fryers are often measured in quarts, the smallest being around 2 and the largest about 8.
Because of the wide range of sizes, before buying, check the air fryer's measurements and make sure you have the counter space and wall outlets to accommodate it.
2. Invest in the right air fryer accessories
When you're cooking french fries in the air fryer, it'll do its best work if each piece of potato is a uniform size. Cutting by hand can be challenging, so my advice is to buy a cutter that'll help you out. It's one of the fastest, easiest-to-use tools you can add to your kitchen.Â
Additional air fryer accessories, such as tongs, silicone basket liners, meat thermometers and olive oil sprayers can elevate your air-frying experience.Â
3. Don't forget to shake and flip
Fries especially benefit from a flip.
For making fries or something similar (tater tots, chicken fingers, brussels sprouts, and so on), you'll want to give the basket a good shake at least once during the cooking process. This will move the food around and ensure nothing sticks to your air fryer.Â
If you're cooking something like chicken wings, make sure to flip them halfway through the process so they end up perfectly crispy on all sides. Â
4. Don't overload or layer
Remember, your air fryer is essentially a little oven. If you were cooking, let's say, chicken breasts in a regular oven, you wouldn't stack them on top of one another, would you? No, so it's the same deal here. You'll want to spread them out as best you can, and don't overload the basket. And never, ever layer your chicken wings, tenders or anything of the sort.Â
Try to never overcrowd your basket.
If you want more room in your air fryer, you can purchase metal racks that can give you double the amount of cooking space.Â
Don't pile sprouts and other food in the basket or they won't cook evenly.
Overloading the air fryer will cause your food to heat unevenly, knocking down the quality of your food. If you're cooking a lot of food, doing it in batches is best to ensure quality.
5. Adapt oven recipes
If you want to make an old favorite in your air fryer, there's an easy way to adapt nearly every oven recipe for air fryer use.
Typically, you'd lower the cooking temperature by about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. If the oven recipe says 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176 Celsius), the fryer gets set to 325 degrees (160 Celsius). Similarly, you'll need about 20% less cooking time, though this can certainly vary, depending on the kind of food, the cooking temperature and so on.
If you need help with the math, this air fryer calculator is here to help. It'll convert standard cook times and temperatures.
6. Don't forget to clean this part of your air fryerÂ
Clean the coils above your air fryer cooking basket for a safer kitchen and better tasting food. Â
Though the air fryer can occasionally seem like magic, there's one task it can't handle: cleaning itself. Unfortunately, that step is solely on you, but we've rounded up our best air fryer cleaning tips to help you out, including information about how to clean one of the most forgotten areas of your air fryer.Â
7. Go easy on the oil but don't ignore it
An inexpensive oil sprayer will come in handy when making air fryer fried chicken.
One big selling point for air fryers is that food cooked in them requires less oil that other methods. That's good news but it doesn't mean you won't need any oil. I find that certain foods such as chicken, vegetables and fish benefit from a gentle mist of olive oil, but be careful not to soak food in oil since the superconvection heat has a way of supercharging whatever fat and oil is in the basket.
The best way to spread a light and even coating is with a cheap $8 oil sprayer or this.Â
8. Think outside the box
You can make a whole chicken in the air fryer in 15% less time than in the oven.
Yes, fries and chicken wings are some of our favorite air fryer staples, but you can make many other foods as well. CNET has a rundown of some of the best air fryer foods, and if you want specific recipes, we have those too. Below, I've gathered seven additional recipes you'll definitely want to try:
Are you sold on the air fryer magic but still don't know which fryer to buy? Here are the best air fryers of 2025, ranked by CNET's resident expert, to help you decide.Â