Reheating
This is what an air fryer is unambiguously best at. A microwave cannot re-crisp a pizza base and an oven takes fifteen minutes to warm up to do it.
Reheating is not cooking
The food has already met a cooking standard once. What matters now is whether it has spent time in the range where bacteria multiply, and whether reheating takes it back out of that range completely. An air fryer is excellent at this for anything that should be crisp and poor at it for anything dense, because the surface reaches temperature long before the middle does — which is exactly the failure mode that makes reheating riskier than it looks.
The reheating safety rule, including what to do about rice.
People reheat these, and we have no figure for them
No manufacturer publishes a reheating time for a named food — not one of the 30manuals read for this catalogue does. Where AirfryerHQ publishes a reheat figure at all it is labelled preliminary and built from the manufacturers’ own general reheat positions, and these 18 are the ones where even that was not defensible. Most are high-water vegetables, which behave differently enough that treating them like a pizza slice would be a guess.
Chicken
Chicken breast
Lean, tapering and unforgiving: the cut with the narrowest window between cooked and dry.
Chicken
Chicken thigh
Fattier and far more forgiving than breast, and it wants to be cooked past its safety target rather than to it.
Chicken
Chicken wings
The cut air fryers do genuinely better than an oven, provided the skin gets long enough to render.
Pork
Sausages
Skins that brown early and centres that finish late — the classic false-done food.
Pork
Bacon
Fast, easy and the commonest cause of a smoking air fryer — rendered fat on a hot surface.
Salmon
Salmon fillet
One of the foods an air fryer does better than the alternatives, and quickly.
Potato
Frozen chips
The single most cooked food in this appliance class, and the one crowding ruins.
Potato
Roast potatoes
Parboiling is not optional, and it is what the air fryer cannot do for you.
Potato
Potato wedges
Thicker than chips, so the inside has to cook while the outside is already crisping.
Potato
Jacket potato
The longest cook in this catalogue, and the one where an air fryer beats an oven on time and energy.
Breaded poultry products
Frozen chicken nuggets
Follow the packet — and know why the packet is right about this one.
Pizza
Pizza (reheating)
The clearest case where an air fryer beats every other tool in the kitchen.
Chicken
Chicken drumsticks
Bone-in, skin-on and slow: the cut where every published time is longer than people expect.
Chicken
Whole chicken
The showpiece cook, and the one where a single thermometer reading is not enough to call it safe.
Chicken
Chicken tenders
Thin strips that cook in a third of the time of a breast and dry out in half of it.
Breaded poultry products
Breaded chicken breast
A coating that wants high heat over meat that does not, cooked from frozen in most kitchens.
Pork
Pork chop
Ten to fourteen minutes at 180°C, and bone-in versus boneless is a real difference in every chart that separates them.
Pork
Pork loin joint
A 1.25kg joint at 180°C for around fifty-five minutes — a genuine roast in a drawer.
Beef
Beef burger
Minced, so it must be cooked through — and the published times range from seven to eighteen minutes across five manufacturers.
Beef
Meatballs
Seven minutes at 190°C for inch balls — fast, and minced, so cooked through.
Beef
Roast beef joint
A 1.8kg joint at 190°C for forty-five to fifty-five minutes, in a 9-litre machine.
Lamb
Lamb chops
Eight to twelve minutes at 200°C for inch-thick chops, and pink is fine.
Lamb
Rack of lamb
A 650–900g rack at 190°C for around twenty-two minutes.
White fish
White fish fillet
Eight to twelve minutes at 180°C, or ten at 200°C for a thick loin. No margin either way.
Breaded fish products
Fish fingers
Six to ten minutes from frozen at 180–200°C, and better than the oven method on the box.
Breaded fish products
Breaded scampi
Nine to fifteen minutes from frozen, and the two published figures disagree by a lot.
Potato
Homemade chips
Twenty-five to forty minutes depending on who you ask, and the widest published disagreement in the catalogue.
Potato
Baby potatoes
680g whole at 200°C for fifteen minutes — the quickest whole-potato option.
Sweet potato
Sweet potato wedges
Fifteen to twenty minutes at 200°C, and they will not crisp like a potato chip.
Sweet potato
Whole sweet potato
Thirty-five minutes at 190°C — cooler than a jacket potato, and for a reason.
Pastry products
Sausage roll
Thirteen to fifteen minutes at 200°C, agreed by three separate manufacturers.
Pastry products
Spring roll
Eight to ten minutes at 200°C, agreed by three manufacturers, and oven-ready ones only.
Frozen snack products
Frozen hash browns
600g in eighteen to twenty minutes at 200°C, on a rack rather than in a basket.
Frozen snack products
Frozen onion rings
Eight to fifteen minutes, at 180°C or 200°C — three charts, three answers.
Frozen snack products
Frozen potato waffles
280g in eight minutes at 200°C.
Cakes and bakes
Muffins
Fifteen to eighteen minutes, at 180°C or 200°C depending on the manufacturer.
Cakes and bakes
Quiche
Twenty to twenty-two minutes at 180°C, in a tin or oven dish.
Chicken
Bone-in chicken thighs
The same muscle as a boneless thigh and a genuinely different cook — four minutes longer and ten degrees cooler.
Chicken
Chicken leg quarters
Thigh and drumstick in one piece, which makes it the largest bone-in cut most people cook.
Chicken
Chicken sausages
Leaner than a pork sausage, and charted at a lower temperature for exactly that reason.
Turkey
Turkey burgers
Ten to thirteen minutes, and the published instruction is not to flip them.
Duck
Duck breast
Thirteen to fourteen minutes, and every minute of it is about the fat under the skin.
Pork
Boneless pork chops
Fourteen to seventeen minutes, against a flat fourteen for the bone-in version.
Pork
Pork loin steaks
Four to five minutes on direct heat — the shortest pork cook in the catalogue.
Pork
Pork tenderloin
Eighteen to twenty-two minutes whole, and the taper is the whole difficulty.
Pork
Pork loin ribs
Eleven minutes on direct heat, which is a browning time rather than a cooking one.
Hot dogs
Hot dogs
Three to five minutes, and the failure is splitting rather than undercooking.
Sea bass
Sea bass fillet
Six to eight minutes for thin skin-on fillets, and the skin is the reason to bother.
Fish cakes
Fish cakes
Ten to twelve minutes for four, and the middle is the part that lags.
Breaded poultry products
Chicken goujons
Eight to ten minutes from frozen — the quickest breaded poultry there is.
Breaded poultry products
Frozen chicken burgers
Fourteen to fifteen minutes at 200°C from frozen for six.
Breaded poultry products
Frozen chicken steaks
Fourteen to fifteen minutes at 200°C, the same as a chicken burger and a different shape.
Potato
Potato gratin
Fifteen to eighteen minutes at 200°C for a 400g portion — and it must be in a dish, not loose.
Peppers
Stuffed vegetables
Ten minutes at 160°C — the lowest air-fry temperature for anything savoury in the catalogue.
Halloumi
Halloumi slices
Two to four minutes for 3cm slices brushed with oil.
Bread
Grilled bread
Two to three minutes for thick slices brushed with oil, and three is already too long.
Vegan meat alternatives
Vegan burgers
Seven to nine minutes fresh — the same as a beef burger, and for different reasons.
Vegan meat alternatives
Frozen veggie burgers
Twelve minutes at 200°C from frozen.
Pizza
Whole frozen pizza
A fit problem before it is a cooking problem, and the answer depends on your appliance.
Mixed vegetables
Mixed vegetables
Several vegetables in one basket, charted by four manufacturers with a wide band and an instruction to use your own judgement.
Beef
Meat loaf
Fifty minutes at 150°C — the lowest, longest published figure in the catalogue, and it needs a tin.