Kale crisps in an air fryer
Fresh — the short answer
150°C (302°F) for 10–12 min
- For
- 400g in total, At room temperature
- In
- Multicooker with air fry, single layer, pieces not touching
- Preheat
- Yes, before the food goes in
- Check
- The leaves shatter rather than bend
- Safety
- Plug an air fryer directly into a wall socket. Do not run one from an extension lead. Full rule below.
Ten to twelve minutes at 150°C — fifty degrees below everything else in the chart.
Fresh
The quick answer
150°C (302°F) for 10–12 min
Leaf thickness and how wet the kale was when it went in. The published quantity is 400g torn into pieces with the stems removed.
- Assuming
- 400g in total, At room temperature
- In
- Multicooker with air fry
- Loaded
- Single layer, pieces not touching
- Preheat
- Yes, before the food goes in
- Result
- Crisp throughout
Preparation
Torn into pieces with the tough stems removed, dried thoroughly, tossed in about a tablespoon of oil.
About 15ml of oil.
How to load the basket
Single layer, pieces not touching. The reference condition. Air reaches every surface, and times are the shortest the food will achieve.
How to tell it is done
- The leaves shatter rather than bend
- Still green, with no black frilled edges
Where these figures came from — fresh
- Applies to
- Specific to this model
- Why this rating
- A published row with a stated quantity, a stated preparation and an oil quantity, from the manufacturer's own guide for this appliance. Quantity is what makes a chart row checkable against the food in front of a reader, and this chart states one for almost every row.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-13
What this does not cover
- Published by the manufacturer for this appliance. It is evidence about this machine and is not general advice.
- This is a lidded cooking pot rather than a shallow drawer. Depth affects how much fits in one layer, and the quantity in the chart assumes the crisper basket.
Sources (1)
Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer AG551UK — Inspiration Guide and cooking charts (PDF)
SharkNinja Europe Limited — Manufacturer cooking chart (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: The temperature, time and quantity for kale crisps.
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 735/0124, published alongside the instruction booklet as a second document.
Chilled
No time or temperature for this, and not by accident
Kale crisps is sold and cooked chilled, so the question is a real one. AirfryerHQ holds no published figure for it: not one of the manufacturer manuals read for this catalogue gives a chart row for this food in this state.
We are not going to produce one by adjusting the fresh figure above. A time arrived at that way would appear on this page looking exactly like a time somebody measured, and you would have no way to tell the difference.
What we do hold for kale crisps: fresh. Those are a different question, not a starting point for this one.
What usually goes wrong
Black bitter frills round a limp middle, from cooking them at the temperature everything else in the basket wants. Kale is also light enough to be blown into the element, which is a fire question rather than a cooking one.
Running the appliance safely
These apply to every food and every air fryer, so they are here once rather than repeated under each state above. They come from Electrical Safety First, from UK product-safety notices and from the manufacturers’ own manuals.
- Plug an air fryer directly into a wall socket. Do not run one from an extension lead.
- An unusual smell, an unusual noise, or scorch marks on the plug mean stop using it and contact the manufacturer.
- Do not overfill. Food touching the heating element is a fire risk, not a cooking problem.
- White smoke from fatty food is usually normal. Black smoke means unplug it immediately.
- Do not leave an air fryer running unattended.
- Leave clear space above and around the appliance, and never cover the air intake or the outlet.
- Aim for a golden yellow colour or lighter on starchy foods such as chips and roast potatoes, rather than a darker brown.
- Buy from a reputable retailer rather than a third-party marketplace seller.
- Clean the drawer, the plate and the element after use. Accumulated grease is what smokes, and then what burns.
- Register the appliance with its manufacturer. It is how a recall reaches you.
- Do not rely on the appliance's own thermal protection. A UK recall was issued because it did not operate.
Each links to its own page, with what it means in practice, what to do if it has already happened, and the source it comes from. Every safety rule AirfryerHQ holds.
Why kale behaves this way
A kale leaf is a few cells thick with an enormous surface area for its mass and almost no thermal buffer. At 200°C the edges reach the temperature at which the leaf's sugars and proteins scorch long before the middle of the leaf has dried, so the result is bitter black frills around a limp centre. At 150°C the water leaves slowly enough that the whole leaf dries at roughly the same rate and becomes brittle rather than burnt. It is dehydration with a bit of browning, not roasting, and the ten-to-twelve-minute time is what drying takes. It is also light enough to be picked up and blown around by the fan.
Where to go from here
The pages that answer the questions this one tends to raise.
- How food actually gets crispyWhy patting it dry, spacing it out and a little oil are all the same instruction — so you can apply it when a page runs out.
- Why published timings differIf another chart says something else, this is usually why — and which one to believe.
If it went wrong
The ways kale crisps specifically tends to fail, each with the fastest thing to check first.
- Light food is being blown around inside — A cooking nuisance and a fire risk in the same symptom, because what the fan lifts it lifts into the element.