Air fryer for beginners: 10 essential tips for your first 30 days

First things first: congratulations on your air fryer

In Germany, sales exploded between 2024 and 2026 — almost one in two households now owns one (YouGov 2026: 47%). But: many air fryers end up in the cupboard after 2 weeks because their owners only ever make “chips and chicken nuggets” in them. A shame.

An air fryer can do many things faster and crispier than the oven — and is more energy-efficient (around 0.7 kWh instead of 2–2.5 kWh per dish) and faster (preheating only 2–3 min) while it's at it. Here are the 10 tips that will get you the most out of your first 30 days.

The 10 beginner tips

1. Preheating — a short burst is enough: 2–3 min

In an oven, the warm-up phase takes 10–15 min. In an air fryer, 2–3 min at the target temperature is enough to distribute the heat evenly. Always worth it with fresh ingredients; with frozen food you can skip it.

2. Respect the basket size — never overfill

The most common beginner mistake. Hot air needs to circulate. If you fill the basket so full that it looks like a bowl of salad, everything at the bottom goes soft and everything on top dries out. Better two batches of 12 min than one of 25 min.

3. Turn / shake halfway through

With chips, diced chicken and chunks of vegetables: after 50% of the cooking time, give the basket one good shake. That distributes the heat, makes every side crispy and prevents “stuck-together patches”.

4. Oil: 1 tablespoon is enough for a basketful

Air fryer marketing says “no oil”. True in theory — but the result is dry. 1–2 tsp of oil (olive, rapeseed, peanut), at most 1 tbsp per 500 g of ingredients, is perfectly sufficient and makes the difference between “papery frozen chips” and “restaurant quality”.

5. Marinate before cooking — at least 15 min

Plain chicken breast straight into the air fryer = dry. 15 min in a yoghurt-curry marinade = juicy. Marinades with acid (yoghurt, lemon, vinegar) get to work faster than oil-based marinades.

6. Perforated baking paper — the lifesaver

Put perforated air fryer baking paper (available as round pre-cut liners in air fryer sizes) only under the food — never line the whole basket and never use it while preheating, otherwise it blocks the airflow or flies up into the heating element. In return: almost zero cleaning afterwards, especially with cheese dishes or marinades with honey (otherwise it's stuck on for hours).

7. Not every oven recipe works

As a general rule: temperature 20 °C lower, time around 25% shorter. But: large cakes, soufflés and very wet batters are tricky in an air fryer — muffins and brownies in moulds work well, though. Pizza yes, soufflé no.

8. Let it rest for 30–60 sec after cooking

Just like with a steak, only shorter. Straight out of the air fryer, the inside is often not quite done yet. Let it rest for 30–60 sec — the residual heat does the rest.

9. Clean straight away, not “tomorrow morning”

Rinse it out with warm water straight after the meal. After 2 days, burnt-on cheese or marinade is a nightmare. According to the manufacturers, the basket is often dishwasher-safe — but the coating lasts longer if you wash it by hand. The heating element never goes in water — so don't put the whole appliance under the tap.

10. Get recipes that are optimised for the air fryer

90% of generic internet recipes are oven instructions with a note saying “also works in the air fryer” — and that's rarely exactly true. Look specifically for air-fryer-specific recipes with suitable temperatures and cooking times (more on that in the last section).

The first 5 recipes you should try

Day	Dish	Time / temperature
1	Crispy sweet potato wedges	18 min at 200 °C
2	Chicken thighs with honey-mustard marinade	25 min at 200 °C (core temperature 75 °C)
3	Roasted vegetable mix (peppers, courgette, button mushrooms)	12 min at 200 °C
4	Salmon fillet with a lemon crust	8 min at 180 °C
5	Baked Camembert with honey	8 min at 170 °C

If you want more than YouTube tutorials

Generic air fryer recipes from the internet are usually converted oven recipes. With KI-Kochhilfe and AirFryer mode switched on, you get recipes that are optimised directly for air fryers: air fryer temperature, cooking time and turning steps midway through cooking — right there in the recipe.

Works from the Standard plan (€7.99/month) — and already in the free trial. On the Premium plan you can even generate a whole air fryer week — 7 days entirely in AirFryer mode.

Try 2 recipes for free — no account, no credit card.