• I made seven dinners in an air-fryer and found a few easy recipes I'd make again. 
• Though most of the recipes I tried can be made in an air fryer, some shouldn't be cooked this way.
• The chicken thighs were my favorite because they came out with crunchy skin and juicy, tender meat.

I'm obsessed with my air fryer, and I've used it to cook dishes from chocolate-chip cookies to corn riblets.

To put the appliance to the test, I decided to try making a week's worth of dinners in my air fryer.

Here's what I will and won't be making again. 

First, I tried making air-fryer eggplant

The eggplant recipe I found from food blogger Melanie Cooks couldn't be more straightforward.

First, I chopped the eggplant into 1-inch cubes. Then, I tossed them in olive oil, garlic powder, red pepper, paprika, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

I placed my seasoned cubes into the preheated air fryer at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, shaking halfway through.

I'd make this again as a side dish 

This was my first time cooking eggplant, and I thought the dish turned out surprisingly well.

The bites were flavorful and a bit crispy — not overly mushy, which can happen often with eggplant dishes.

Overall, this was super easy to make and delicious, just not super filling. I'd make it again as a side for a heartier main course.

The next recipe was for hot dogs, which seemed weird to me

Food blogger Little Sunny Kitchen said these were the "best hot dogs" I would ever make.

I was skeptical about making a hot dog in an air fryer, but I loved not having to boil them and deal with the gross-smelling water that results from that. 

It was too easy to mess up

After preheating the air fryer to 390 degrees Fahrenheit, I made a few shallow cuts on the hot dogs to prevent them from inflating or exploding.

Next, I put them in the air fryer for six minutes. I also toasted my buns in the air fryer. 

These hot dogs were great

The buns were the true game changer. Before this, I'd eat my hot dogs with untoasted buns because I found them difficult to crisp properly in a regular toaster. 

But, after just a few minutes in the air fryer, they were perfect for the well-cooked hot dogs. I will definitely make this recipe again.

The next dinner was an air-fryer pizza

I loosely followed a recipe from the blogger Fabulessly Frugal, who wrote you could make this pizza in the oven for 10 minutes and get the same results as doing so in the air fryer. 

This recipe calls for premade crust, but I used a frozen pizza as my base. Fortunately, this wasn't an issue.

My air-fryer baskets are small, so I had to cut my pizza before cooking it. I put the pizza in the air fryer for about six to seven minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The crust cooked quickly. Then, I followed the directions like it was a plain crust and topped it with slices of mozzarella and tomato.

The recipe said to use Campari tomatoes, but I used cherry ones. They were so small that they slid off my pizza while it heated up in the air fryer. 

Still, I popped my pizza slices back into the air-fryer baskets and cooked them for five or so minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cheese quickly melted, and I topped my slices with fresh basil and olive oil.

The finished product came out tasty, with good texture and flavor

I liked how crispy the crust turned out, and the pizza had a nice flavor. 

Although this was delicious, it was more complicated than just placing a whole pizza in the oven. My air-fryer baskets are small, so I had to cook four slices at a time instead of an entire pie at once.

I'm sure it'd be just as tasty with a plain crust, too. Even so, it seemed unnecessary to use an air fryer instead of my oven.

Next up was air-fryer chicken

Food blog Low Carb With Jennifer's recipe requires only bone-in, skin-on chicken (trimmed) and some spices.

I shook my chicken thighs in a large bag with kosher salt, smoked paprika, garlic powder, oregano, and onion powder to coat it in seasonings. Once the air fryer was preheated to 380 degrees Fahrenheit, it was time to cook them.  

First, I sprayed the baskets with oil and placed the thighs skin-side down for 12 minutes. I then flipped them and cooked them for another 10 minutes.

This recipe was my favorite

I was impressed by how quickly and easily this recipe came together.

The resulting chicken thighs had crispy, well-seasoned skin and juicy, tender meat. 

I had fun making mozzarella sticks

The food blogger Kimspired's quick mozarella-stick recipe calls for light string cheese, Italian breadcrumbs, an egg, and flour, plus marinara sauce for dipping.

First, I put my egg, breadcrumbs, and flour in three separate containers.

After unwrapping the cheese, I coated it in flour, dipped it in egg, and then breadcrumbs. My favorite part was making sure each stick was perfectly coated in crumbles, which felt therapeutic and oddly satisfying. 

Then, the cheese sticks needed to be frozen for about an hour so they could firm up before being fried. 

Once they were done chilling, I popped the sticks into my 400-degree-Fahrenheit air fryer for four minutes, flipped them, and cooked them for another four minutes. 

These came out cheesy and delicious 

Some of the cheese ended up oozing out of the breading, especially after I flipped them.

Still, they stayed together pretty well and tasted delicious. I also liked dipping the sticks in marinara. 

Next, I tried making vegan air-fryer taquitos

The vegan taquito recipe I used is from Allrecipes, and its main ingredients include potato, onion, and corn tortillas.

The potato had to be cooked so I could make my filling, so I microwaved it for a bit to try to speed up the process.

While the potato cooked, I made the sauce by simmering minced garlic and chopped onion in vegan butter. Next, I mashed my potato and combined it with salt, pepper, almond milk, and the buttery mixture.

Then, I put the filling aside and heated my tortillas so I could roll the taquitos up.

I heated the tortillas on the grate of a gas stove to make them easily rollable. This was tedious, and I found they could burn quickly if I looked away for even a minute. 

Once I had my tortilla perfectly heated, I put a spoonful of my mashed-potato mixture inside it and rolled it up.

Finally, I put the rolled taquitos in the preheated air fryer at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

After seven minutes, I flipped them, sprayed them with oil, then cooked them for three more minutes. 

These came out OK but were more work than I'd prefer

These taquitos took a little more time to prepare than I'd anticipated. 

The filling was good and tasted like garlic mashed potatoes, but I would've preferred to eat it without the semi-crunchy tortilla wrapper that almost overpowered its flavor. 

It's nice that these were vegan, but I almost wish I'd chosen a recipe with meat to add some texture. Even so, the taquitos weren't too hard to make and tasted good enough for a snack.

The last thing I made was air-fryer grilled cheese

Food blogger This Old Gal makes her grilled cheese with three simple, classic ingredients: bread, cheese, and butter.

I buttered one side of each piece of bread, placed cheese inside, then cooked my sandwich in a preheated air fryer at 370 degrees Fahrenheit for four minutes on each side.

My sandwich turned out wonderfully cheesy 

The recipe recommends using toothpicks to hold the bread down, but I didn't have any, so I had to rearrange the bread midway through cooking, as it had blown off.

Still, these sandwiches came out cheesy and fabulous — though I could've almost as easily made them in a pan.

Each recipe was good enough to try, and I'd probably make all but 2 again

I wouldn't cook the pizza or taquitos in the air fryer next time, but everything else felt surprisingly easier to make in the small-but-mighty appliance.

The hot dog, grilled cheese, eggplant, and mozzarella sticks were all winners — and the chicken thighs took the crown for most filling and worthwhile.

This story was originally published on June 29, 2021, and most recently updated on December 9, 2024.

• I made Gordon Ramsay's air-fryer steak with a coffee and chili rub and was blown away.
• His rub had 11 ingredients that created a complex, spicy, sweet, and salty flavor.
• In 20 minutes I had a juicy, perfectly cooked rib-eye steak. I can't wait to make this again. 

I never even thought you could — or should — cook a nice steak in the air fryer, but Gordon Ramsay's coffee-and-chili-rubbed rib-eye recipe has proved me wrong. 

Here's what it was like making the chef's air-fryer steak. 

I chose a thick rib-eye steak to cook in my air fryer

I am a huge fan of rib-eye steaks. I love the fattiness of the cut and the tender juiciness of the meat.

This 2-inch-thick, 1 1/2-pound steak was hefty, and it looked like it would be a pain to cook properly without an air fryer. 

The rub includes 11 different ingredients and was easy to put together

I combined ground coffee, ancho chili powder, paprika, dark-brown sugar, salt, pepper, ground coriander, ground mustard, ground ginger, and dried oregano.

The only ingredient I couldn't find was the Aleppo pepper, so I substituted it with cayenne. 

Ramsay recommends letting the steak sit for 15 minutes with the rub on

I completely coated my room-temperature steak with the spice mixture, making sure to get the sides.

Ramsay suggests letting the steak sit for 15 to 20 minutes with the rub on because the longer it sits, the more the flavors of the spices soak into the meat.

I heated the air fryer to 390 degrees Fahrenheit and tried to cook my steak to a medium finish 

I slightly sprayed the basket with oil and cooked the steak for 10 minutes on each side. 

Before cutting into it, I let the steak rest for about 10 minutes.

The steak came out perfectly juicy and tender

The steak came out absolutely melt-in-your-mouth delicious. No parts got burnt or charred — it was just a perfectly cooked, juicy steak all around. 

The air-fryer steak recipe seemed easy to adjust depending on preference. It was a solid medium with a light-pink center. If I'd wanted, say, a more medium-rare steak, I probably could've cooked it for about eight minutes on each side. 

The rub was complex and super flavorful with salty, sweet, and umami flavors with a slight punchiness. The coffee really balanced the flavor profile of the rub, and the peppers gave it a nice kick that contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the brown sugar.

As a bonus, this recipe was pretty much foolproof and required hardly any cleanup.

I'm glad I know how to make steak in an air fryer now, and I'd definitely make Ramsay's recipe again. I highly recommend this cooking method and. recipe for anyone who doesn't like to handle high heat, sizzling pans, or hot oil.

This story was originally published on September 16, 2021, and most recently updated on December 3, 2024.