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AirfryerHQ

Vegetables

Courgette

So watery that the only question is whether it browns before it goes to mush.

What it does in fast-moving hot air

Courgette is over ninety per cent water in a soft, thin-walled structure with no starch and almost no sugar. There is nothing to crisp and very little to brown, and as soon as the cell walls fail the whole piece releases its water. Cutting thicker helps more than cooking hotter: a thick baton can lose its surface water and brown slightly before the centre collapses, where a thin slice cannot. It is also the food most improved by not crowding the basket, because the released steam has to go somewhere.

Why the cut matters

Courgette is the hardest common vegetable to air-fry well, and the published time of around twelve minutes at 200°C for half-inch sticks is doing a lot of work with a narrow margin.

Cooking pages

  • Courgette sticks — Half-inch sticks, twelve minutes at 200°C, and cut thickness decides everything.
  • Courgette quarters — Ten to twelve minutes quartered lengthwise, which is thicker than a stick and better for it.

There is deliberately no cooking time on this page. A food does not have one — a cut, at a thickness, in a state, at a loading, in a particular appliance does. That is what the pages above are for.