Baking and dishes
Oven-safe dish
It turns an air fryer into a small oven for the things that need a container. You almost certainly own one already, and the only real question is whether it fits with room for air round it.
AirfryerHQ’s verdict
Useful for a specific job
Right for one particular job. If you do not do that job, it will sit in a drawer.
For wet food a container is not a compromise, it is the only way to cook it, and manufacturers say so — Tefal names the permitted dish materials, and Philips specifies a dish for reheating. So the accessory is legitimate. It is rated situational because what you are buying is a size, not a capability: any dish marked oven safe does the same job, and the 'air fryer' label adds nothing but the dimensions. Two things decide whether it works. It must leave a gap all round, or the fan has nowhere to push air and the top browns while the middle stays cold. And it is still a dish in an air fryer — the food in it bakes rather than crisps, more slowly than the same food loose in the basket.
What it actually does
Holds liquid or loose food in the basket so it can be baked or reheated with heat from above and around, and often lets you store and reheat in the same container.
A glass, ceramic or metal dish placed in the basket to hold food that would run through a crisper plate: a lasagne, a gratin, baked eggs, a crumble. Dishes are now sold specifically 'for air fryers', usually in glass with a lid for storage. The lid is for the fridge; the dish is an ordinary oven dish in a size that fits a drawer.
When it helps and when it does not
When it helps
- Saucy and layered dishes — lasagne, gratins, baked beans, shakshuka — that have no other way into a basket
- Reheating leftovers that would dry out or fall apart loose in the basket
- Cooking for one or two without heating a full oven for a small dish
When it gets in the way
- A dish that fills the basket wall to wall, which blocks the airflow the appliance depends on
- Anything you wanted crisp underneath, which will be soft
- Deep dishes in a shallow drawer, where the surface ends up scorching close to the element
- Lifting a hot, full, handle-less dish out of a deep drawer, which is how most spills and burns with these happen
What it does to the airflow
Shelters what is inside it from moving air
The food is heated from the top and through the dish walls rather than by air passing over every surface. Leave a clear gap between the dish and the basket on every side; expect longer times than the same food loose, and stir or turn where the food allows.
What to use instead
The oven dish already in your cupboard. Measure the inside of your basket, take off a centimetre or two all round, and see what you own in that size before buying anything sold for the purpose.
Using it safely
- It must be marked oven safe. A dish that is merely heatproof, or decorative, is not the same thing.
- Glass must not go from cold to hot or hot to cold quickly: no fridge-cold dish into a hot basket, and no hot dish onto a wet or cold surface.
- Check your manual's list of permitted materials if it has one. Manufacturers differ, and at least one names materials without including glass.
- Lift it with proper gloves or a lifter. The dish, the basket and the food are all at cooking temperature.
What specific manufacturers say
Statements read from a named model’s own documentation. AirfryerHQ does not infer that an accessory fits a machine from its advertised capacity, and no manufacturer here publishes the dimensions that would let anybody do so.
Tefal Easy Fry Max EY245B40 5L Air Fryer
The manual names the materials permitted for an oven dish placed in the bowl: silicone, stainless steel, aluminium and terracotta. Glass is not on that list.
Tefal Easy Fry Max EY245B40 5L Air Fryer — Instruction Manual
Philips 5000 Series Megabasket Airfryer with Steam NA565
The manufacturer states that only glass, aluminium foil, ceramic or stainless steel plates should be used as containers when reheating.
Philips Airfryer 5000 Series Megabasket with Steam NA565/92 — product specifications
Which machines it suits
Makes sense in: Basket air fryer, Dual-basket air fryer, Flex-drawer air fryer, Oven-style air fryer, Countertop oven with air fry.
Looking after it
Let it cool on a dry board or trivet before washing. Thermal shock, not heat, is what breaks oven glass.
Evidence and confidence
- Applies to
- Applies generally
- Why this rating
- Two manufacturers permit a dish and name materials, and they do not name the same ones — which is why this page sends the reader to their own manual rather than giving one list. The airflow advice is reasoning from the mechanism.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-09
What this does not cover
- No manufacturer we have read publishes a required clearance around a dish. The advice to leave a gap is reasoning from how the appliance moves air.
- The two manufacturer lists differ, and neither is a statement about any other appliance.
- AirfryerHQ has not bought, fitted or used any accessory. Every judgement here is reasoned from what the accessory does physically and from what manufacturers and the cited test report.
Sources (4)
Tefal Easy Fry Max EY245B40 5L Air Fryer — Instruction Manual (PDF)
Groupe SEB (Tefal) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: A manufacturer permitting an oven dish in the cooking bowl and naming the materials it accepts.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 328/8568.
Philips Airfryer 5000 Series Megabasket with Steam NA565/92 — product specifications
Versuni Netherlands B.V. (Philips Domestic Appliances) — Manufacturer support documentation (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: A manufacturer naming glass, ceramic and stainless steel as the containers to use when reheating.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-10-09 from philips.co.uk
8 great accessories for your air fryer
Which? — Reference work, archive or contemporaneous report (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That glass dishes are being sold as an air fryer accessory, with the advice to make sure one fits. The article states that it did not test them.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-10-09 from which.co.uk
AirfryerHQ assessment of airflow, element proximity and material behaviour
AirfryerHQ — Calculated or inferred by AirfryerHQ (Not jurisdictional)
Relied on for: The mechanism this is read against: forced convection, boundary-layer disruption and a small chamber.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Citation checked — the document exists and is described correctly
AirfryerHQ sells nothing and earns nothing here. There are no affiliate links, no sponsored placements and no brand recommendations anywhere in this section. The verdict above is what we think, arrived at before anybody asked whether it would sell anything.
Can it go in? The material questions
- Oven-safe glass — Explicitly permitted by one manufacturer for baking. Thermal shock, not heat, is the thing to manage.
- Ceramic and stoneware — One manufacturer prohibits it for air frying outright. That single prohibition is why this answer depends on your model.
- Metal tins, trays and cookware — Explicitly permitted by one manufacturer for baking, and recommended by three others whenever a batter is involved.
- Baking tins — Not optional for baking. Every chart in this catalogue that has a cake row also says to use a tin.
If this is why you are here
- Burnt outside, raw inside — The temperature is too high for the thickness. Heat is finishing the surface before it can reach the middle.
- Food cooks unevenly — Airflow is not reaching every surface equally, and where it does not, food does not cook.
Cooking pages this affects
Worth reading
Others in this category
Useful for a specific job
Silicone baking moulds
Useful if you bake in an air fryer, because a batter needs a container and small ones let the air between them. Not the same judgement as a silicone liner, for a reason worth understanding.