Quiche in an air fryer
What the manufacturers publish
One published figure, for Tower T17067 4L Digital Air Fryer (under a safety recall: check the recall before using this machine)
It is 180°C for 20–22 min, printed for that machine and its own quantity. The manufacturer does not say whether this is chilled or precooked. AirfryerHQ shows it as published and keeps it apart from the answers for each state, instead of guessing which state it was written for.
Twenty to twenty-two minutes at 180°C, in a tin or oven dish.
Manufacturer figures with no state given
This is a published figure for one named machine. The manufacturer does not say whether this is chilled or precooked. So it is kept apart from the answers for each state below, and not used as the answer for any of them.
Tower T17067 4L Digital Air Fryer (under a safety recall: check the recall before using this machine): 180°C for 20–22 min
Printed against 500 g, one weight and not a band. The same manufacturer prints the same time and temperature for its 9-litre two-drawer model, with no weight.
Leftover (reheating)
Before anything else
From national food-safety authorities, not from us. These take precedence over any cooking time below.
Requirement — Food safety (microbiological)
Cool cooked food and get it into the fridge within one to two hours, keep the fridge between 0 and 5°C, and eat leftovers within 48 hours.
How to tell, without a thermometer
- There is no sensory test for this rule, and that is the point: food held too long at the wrong temperature does not necessarily look, smell or taste different
If it has not got there: Throw it away. This is the one rule in this catalogue where the remedy is not 'cook it longer', because cooking does not reverse it.
Important: Cooked rice is the sharpest case: Bacillus cereus toxins form at room temperature and survive reheating. Rice left out for more than an hour goes in the bin.
Requirement — Food safety (microbiological)
Reheat leftovers until steaming hot all the way through, and only reheat them once.
Target: 70°C in the thickest part, or an equivalent from the table below.
How to tell, without a thermometer
- Steam rising from the centre, not just the edges
- The middle is hot to the touch, tested after removing it from the appliance
If it has not got there: Keep going, and break dense food up or spread it out so the heat can reach the middle. If it will not heat through evenly, a microwave to get the centre hot followed by the air fryer to crisp the surface is a better tool for the job than the air fryer alone.
Important: Cooked rice and pasta left at room temperature can develop Bacillus cereus toxins that reheating does not destroy. If cooked rice has been out of the fridge for more than an hour, discard it rather than reheating it.
| Temperature | Held for | Measured at |
|---|---|---|
| 70°C | 2 min | the centre of the food |
| 75°C | 30 sec | the centre of the food |
The quick answer
160°C (320°F) for 6–10 min
Depth of the filling. The pastry is ready long before the custard behind it is warm.
- Assuming
- 300g in total, From the fridge
- In
- Basket air fryer
- Whose figure
- AirfryerHQ's own, not one manufacturer's chart
- Loaded
- Single layer, pieces not touching
- Preheat
- Not needed
- Result
- Heated through
Preparation
In one layer or in a dish that fits with clearance. Nothing added.
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 pastry base is crisp again rather than soggy
- Steaming hot right through the middle, not just at the edges
Change the result
Each of these moves the outcome in a known direction, and most cost you something. The trade is stated so you can decide whether you want it.
- To be sure it is safe rather than just warm
- Go by the food and not the clock. It has to be steaming hot the whole way through, and the middle of a dense portion lags a long way behind its surface in an air fryer.
Where these figures came from — leftover (reheating)
- Applies to
- Specific to this type of appliance
- Why this rating
- Low in the published band, because an egg custard splits if it is taken too hot. The time is AirfryerHQ's estimate.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-13
What this does not cover
- THE TIME GIVEN HERE IS NOT SOURCED. Five manufacturers publish a reheating temperature and not one names a food, a quantity or a time for a named dish. The temperature sits inside their band; the time is AirfryerHQ's estimate and has not been measured.
- Reheating is governed by the food-safety rule above rather than by this figure. Steaming hot throughout is the requirement; the time is a guide to getting there.
Sources (4)
Tefal Easy Fry Max EY245B40 5L Air Fryer — Instruction Manual (PDF)
Groupe SEB (Tefal) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That this manufacturer's published reheating instruction is 160°C for up to ten minutes, with no food named.
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.
Tower T17023 2.2 Litre Air Fryer — Safety and Instruction Manual (PDF)
RKW Ltd (Tower Housewares) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That this manufacturer publishes 150°C for up to ten minutes for reheating.
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 745/2194.
Cookworks 5L Digital Air Fryer KDF-596D — Care & Instruction Manual (PDF)
Argos Limited (Cookworks) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That this manufacturer publishes 180°C for up to ten minutes for reheating.
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 148/6623.
AirfryerHQ analysis of published manufacturer cooking and reheating guidance
AirfryerHQ — Calculated or inferred by AirfryerHQ (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: The reading that six published reheating positions across five manufacturers span 150-180°C, that three cap the time at ten minutes, and that none names a food — so the time given here is AirfryerHQ's estimate.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Citation checked — the document exists and is described correctly
Chilled
No time or temperature for this, and not by accident
Chilled is a real question for quiche. 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 leftover (reheating) 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 quiche: leftover (reheating). That is a different question, not a starting point for this one.
What usually goes wrong
A soggy pastry base under a set top. Nothing heats the underside of a quiche in a dish, so the base stays pale and damp while the custard sets and the surface colours. Blind-baking the case first is the only real fix and it is a separate operation.
Running the appliance safely
The rules for the machine are the same whatever is in it: plug it straight into a wall socket, leave clear space round it, do not overfill it, do not leave it running unattended, and unplug it at black smoke or an electrical smell. They are set out once, each with its source and what to do if it has already happened, and not repeated on every food. Every rule for running an air fryer safely.
Cakes and bakes in fast-moving hot air
A cake batter is a liquid that has to set into a foam, and moving air is hostile to that in two ways: it dries and sets the top surface before the middle has risen, and it can physically disturb a wet batter. Both are why the published temperature is thirty to forty degrees below what the same appliance uses for chips, and why the manuals insist on a tin — the tin shields the batter from direct airflow and turns the appliance into a small convection oven. A cake baked directly in a drawer is not a cake baked slightly worse; it is a different and much less successful thing.
Where to go from here
The pages that answer the questions this one tends to raise.
- Using a thermometer, and where to put itThe times above are for a piece that is not the one you are holding. A probe measures yours, which is what the safety rule on this page asks for.
- 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.
- Reheating leftoversA different question governed by a different rule — steaming hot throughout, and only once.
- Why published timings differIf another chart says something else, this is usually why — and which one to believe.
Easily confused with
- Cake in a tin — A different cooking problem with a different answer.