Air fryers have revolutionized home cooking, offering a healthier, faster, and more efficient way to prepare meals—but they aren’t foolproof…especially when cooking frozen foods. Below, “The Queen of Air Fryers” Cathy Yoder shares some essential tips, tricks, and common pitfalls for perfecting frozen food in the air fryer. From achieving the ideal crisp without excess oil to avoiding rookie mistakes, this comprehensive guide ensures delicious results every time. Perfect for food and lifestyle coverage, this piece offers value to novice and seasoned air fryer enthusiasts, alike.

Avoid Frozen Food Air Fryer Cooking Fails: 15 Do’s & Don’s

Can you cook frozen foods in the air fryer? Yes, you can! In fact, the air fryer cooks up frozen food items faster than the regular oven.
While the air fryer is something different than a deep fryer, it can also do most if not all of the same things that a deep fryer can do, but in a healthier fashion.  By using less oil, you can cut down on the fat content of some of your favorite fried foods.

Tips and tricks for cooking frozen food in the air fryer:

Food will cook slightly differently in the air fryer than in a deep fryer.  So, you will have to do some adjusting of cook times and temperatures, as well as a few other ways to make sure you are cooking frozen food well. There are very extensive internal temperature charts available that can be very helpful as well.

Best Practices:

1. Preheat the air fryer: this can help get the air fryer to the right temperature and potentially cook faster. However, it is not always necessary in order for frozen food to cook properly. 
2. Do not overcrowd the air fryer basket: make sure to leave space between the food always for it to cook through evenly without undercooking parts, leaving them unsafe to eat.
3. Shake or stir the food: Most air fryers will require the food to be shaken or stirred in order to get the food cooked evenly, especially for foods like fries.
4. Use oil sparingly. Lots of frozen foods already have oils in them and so they don’t need a lot of oil, just a little. So don’t use too much oil to make it too greasy or unhealthy. Or, if you want it to be extra crispy, then spritz a little extra oil and bump up the heat.
5. Check internal temperature. The recommended internal temperature of most frozen foods is 165 degrees F or 74 degrees C.

Top Frozen Food Air Fryer Mistakes

1. Only using an air fryer for frozen foods. Avoid this by branching out and committing to make one new air fryer recipe a week! 
2. Using aerosol sprays in the air fryer – these are full of propellants and chemicals that you not only don’t want to consume, but it’s not good for the air fryer basket coating. Instead, buy an oil sprayer and put pure avocado oil in it (which has a high smoke point, is healthier than other oils, and tasteless). 
3. Using metal utensils with the air fryer. Protect coating the air fryer basket by using silicone coated tools. I also like to use air fryer parchment paper liners which also protects the basket AND makes cleaning the air fryer so much easier (see mistake 7).
4. Overcrowding the basket – depending on what you’re making, you want to allow room for air flow around the food you’re cooking. If you’re doing a mix of veggies with protein for example, the food does not need to be in a single layer, but you also don’t want to fill the basket up so much that the food has a hard time cooking. Generally I try and keep it no more than ⅓ full and be sure to stir food around during cooking so everything can cook evenly. 
5. Following oven directions. Since the air fryer is essentially a mini convection oven, foods cook faster since the heat is contained in a smaller space and the air flow is more powerful. A good rule of thumb is to reduce the temperature by 25˚ and cut the cook time in half. Then you can add more time as needed. 
6. Not using an instant read food thermometer… Using this will help you know when your food is actually cooked. That way you stay safe by not undercooking foods AND your food tastes better because it won’t dry out because you’re over cooking. 
7. Not cleaning the air fryer basket after each cooking session – which leads to a gross build up of grease and food that will be harder to clean later! After using the air fryer I will let it cool slightly and then I usually wipe up any grease or food drippings with a paper towel, then spray on some Dawn Powerwash and let it sit for a few minutes. Then I’ll wipe up any remaining grease and then wash it down with some hot water. That usually cleans it all up with minimal effort. Don’t forget to wipe the inside of the air fryer and around the heating element with a damp cloth. With some of the foods you cook in the air fryer, consider using air fryer parchment liners to avoid any large messes in the first place. 
8. Cooking fatty foods wrong! First, you likely do not even need to use oil because the protein already has fat. Second, the fattier the food, the more grease that will drip thru the tray. Depending on your air fryer, this might cause alarm because the air fryer will start smoking! One tip is to place a piece of bread between the basket and tray of the air fryer to catch greasy drippings. 
9. Relying too much on preset buttons. Just because the button for fish or chicken has a set time and temperature, doesn’t mean you should follow that exact time and temp. Defer to mistake #6 – use the food thermometer to know when your food is actually done. Otherwise, you will likely overcook your food if you just push the button and walk away. “Roast” “Broil” “Bake” in most cases, this does not change the function of what is happening inside the air fryer, but is actually just adjusting the programmed temperature and time. 
10. Expecting the air fryer to perform just like a deep fryer. This means battered foods will not turn out well in the air fryer, save those for your deep fryer instead. Yes, some things do just taste better deep fried, but in many cases air frying is a close 2nd and the health benefits of way less oil in your food make using an air fryer worth it. 

Yes, the air fryer is a great tool to cook frozen foods, like those included on my list of my list of “Frozen foods to make in the air fryer.” This handy appliance can cook frozen foods fast and just as crispy as a deep fryer … but with less fat. All great things. For the Silo, Cathy Yoder.

Widely regarded as the “Queen of Air Fryers,” Cathy Yoder—a mother of eight—wanted to prove that air fryers could do more than reheat frozen foods and leftovers. So, she documented her journey on YouTube. Today she boasts over 742,000 YouTube followers and yet more across other socials, over 6 million video views and tens of thousands of cookbooks sold.