Can you put silicone liners and moulds in an air fryer?

Only if all of these are true

• Must be rated for the purpose. Use food-grade silicone with a stated temperature rating. Unrated novelty silicone is a different product and the rating is the point.
• Must fit with space around it. The liner must sit inside the basket with space around it, not wedged against the walls where it blocks the air path.
• Must not block the airflow. A solid-bottomed liner stops air reaching the underside of the food. Expect softer results underneath and accept that as the trade, or use a perforated one.
• A temperature limit applies. Check the rating against your appliance's top setting, particularly if it has a fixed high-temperature crisping mode.

What the manufacturers actually say

The manufacturers do not always agree, and silence is not permission. Each row below is what one company’s own manual says — or, where it says nothing, the fact that it says nothing.

• Tefal: Permits it

  The manual directs the cook to "Place an oven dish in the appliance's bowl if you want to bake a cake or quiche or if you want to fry fragile ingredients or filled ingredients", and states: "You can use an oven dish in silicon, stainless steel, aluminium, terracotta."

  Tefal Easy Fry Oven & Grill FW5018 — instruction manual (manufacturer copy) — read for a countertop oven with air fry

• Ninja: Says nothing about it

  No mention of silicone liners. The manual does say that accessories not recommended or sold by the manufacturer may cause fire, electric shock or injuries, which is a general restriction rather than a silicone-specific one.

  Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK — Instructions

• Instant: Says nothing about it

  The manual restricts accessories to those authorised by the manufacturer, and does not mention silicone specifically.

  Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer — User Manual

What can go wrong

Food-grade silicone liners solve the problem that makes foil and parchment awkward: they have enough mass that the fan cannot move them, and their temperature rating is comfortably above the range the appliances in this catalogue reach. What they do not solve is airflow — a solid silicone pot is a solid-bottomed container, and food in it steams underneath rather than crisping.

• Can block airflow

  Choose a perforated liner over a solid one where crisping matters, and never use a liner larger than the basket floor.

• Can exceed its temperature limit

  Match the printed rating to your appliance's maximum. One model in this catalogue runs a fixed 240°C mode that exceeds some silicone ratings.

Temperature limit

Around 230°C.

A commonly printed rating for food-grade silicone bakeware. It is a product specification rather than a property of silicone, and it sits BELOW the 240°C fixed mode on at least one appliance in this catalogue — which is the specific case worth checking.

It depends on your appliance

The answer is not the same in every machine. Where the element sits relative to the food, and how hard the fan blows, change what this material does.

• Basket air fryer — Safe only in specific conditions

  A liner in a drawer machine takes away the single biggest advantage of the architecture, which is air reaching the underside through the perforated base. Useful for wet or messy food, counterproductive for anything meant to be crisp.

• Oven-style air fryer — Safe only in specific conditions

  Food on a shelf already gets less airflow underneath than food in a basket, so a liner costs less here in relative terms.

Your manual governs

Food contact

Food-grade silicone is widely used for bakeware and is stable across this temperature range. Products without a food-grade designation are not the same material in any useful sense.

Evidence and confidence

Things made of this, and whether they are worth owning

• Silicone basket insert — Works, but costs you results — The most-sold air fryer accessory and the commonest way to make an air fryer cook worse. It works; it costs you the thing you bought the machine for.
• Silicone-tipped tongs — Genuinely useful — The accessory that protects the most expensive part of the appliance, and manufacturers are unusually united about it.

Use this instead

• Baking parchment — Two manufacturers now prohibit it outright and one gives the mechanism. Sprint 2 recorded every manufacturer as silent; that is no longer true, and the verdict has hardened.
• Metal tins, trays and cookware — Explicitly permitted by one manufacturer for baking, and recommended by three others whenever a batter is involved.
• Ramekins and small oven dishes — Small enough to leave airflow around them, which is what makes them the most practical cookware for a drawer machine.