Converting oven recipes to the air fryer: a practical method

Last reviewed on 28 April 2026.

Most oven recipes can be cooked in an air fryer with two simple adjustments: drop the temperature, shorten the time. The interesting part is everything else — what to expect, where the rule of thumb breaks, and how to land on the right number for your specific dish.

The starting rule

The standard conversion most home cooks use as a first guess:

• Drop the temperature by about 25 °F (15 °C).
• Reduce the time by about 20%.

So a recipe written for "200 °C / 400 °F for 25 minutes" becomes a starting point of "185 °C / 375 °F for 20 minutes" in an air fryer. Set a timer for the new time, but check earlier — air fryers vary, and the cost of pulling food a minute too early is much smaller than the cost of pulling it a minute too late.

Why the rule works

An air fryer's chamber is much smaller than an oven's, and its fan moves heat across food surfaces faster. The same set temperature has a different effect: faster surface heating leads to faster browning, drier surfaces, and more aggressive crusting.

That's good for most savoury dishes — they're often what we want from the oven anyway, just more so. But it means that running an oven recipe at its original temperature in an air fryer tends to produce food that's overcooked on the outside before the inside has finished. Dropping the temperature flattens the surface-to-centre gradient; reducing the time accounts for the air fryer's faster overall heat transfer.

The four-step method

1. Read the recipe with one question in mind. Is the surface or the centre the limiting factor? A roast chicken thigh wants a brown skin and a 75 °C / 165 °F interior; the surface usually finishes first. A casserole wants a hot, set centre and barely needs surface change. Different dishes want different conversion behaviour.
2. Apply the standard adjustment. –25 °F, –20% time, as above.
3. Check earlier than the new time. Pull the basket at 70% of the new time and inspect. For most foods you can keep going easily; you can't undo overcooking.
4. Use a probe thermometer for proteins. Internal temperature is the only reliable judge for chicken, pork, fish, and eggs. Visual cues lie.

Adjustments by food category

Roasted vegetables

The standard rule works well. If the recipe was written for a fan-forced oven (already a convection setup), drop only 10 °C / 15 °F and 10% on the time — the air fryer is doing the same thing as a fan oven, just smaller. See the vegetables guide for cuts and timings.

Whole proteins (chicken thighs, fish fillets, pork chops)

Standard rule, but always check the centre with a probe. Air-fryer surfaces brown faster, which can fool you into thinking the protein is done before it actually is. Pull at internal-temp targets, not at colour.

Larger roasts (more than 4 cm / 1.5 in thick at the centre)

Drop the temperature more aggressively — 30–40 °C / 50–75 °F lower than the recipe — and add time. The air fryer's surface heat is too aggressive for slow-roast geometry. For anything over a kilogram, an oven is usually still the right tool. (See foods to avoid.)

Baked goods with leavening (cakes, muffins, quick breads)

These are the trickiest conversions. Use the standard rule but expect to adjust several times before settling on a final number. Tin shape matters — air fryer baskets are smaller, so divide the recipe into smaller tins to keep ratio of surface to volume reasonable. The baking guide covers tin choice and cake-specific timing.

Breaded and battered items

Conversions work but the texture differs from oven results — usually crisper, sometimes drier. A light spray of oil on the breading before cooking helps. Wet batters don't transfer at all (see foods to avoid).

Casseroles and bakes (lasagna, gratin, baked pasta)

Use the standard rule and a heatproof dish that fits inside the basket. Cover with foil for the first half of the cook to prevent the top from setting before the centre warms; remove the foil for the last 5 minutes to brown.

Cookies and biscuits

Drop the temperature more — 30 °C / 50 °F lower than the recipe — because the small chamber concentrates heat and these are thin, fast-cooking items. Cook in single layers, leave space between, and check at 60% of the original time.

Pizza

Almost always works, but the rule shifts. Pizza wants very high heat (250 °C / 475 °F oven temperatures) and short cook times. In an air fryer, run as hot as the unit allows and start checking at 6–7 minutes. Frozen pizza adapted from oven instructions usually finishes in roughly two-thirds the time.

A worked example

Take a typical oven recipe: bone-in chicken thighs, 220 °C / 425 °F for 35 minutes.

1. Apply the rule: 220 °C – 15 °C ≈ 200 °C, 35 min × 0.8 = 28 min.
2. The limiting factor is internal temperature, not surface — chicken needs 75 °C / 165 °F at the bone.
3. Set the air fryer for 200 °C / 400 °F, 28 minutes. Flip halfway. Probe at 22 minutes. If reading 65–70 °C, give it the remaining 6 minutes; if already at 75 °C, pull immediately.
4. Note what you ended up with — say "200 °C, 26 min, no flip needed" — for next time. Conversion gets a lot faster on the second attempt.

When the rule doesn't apply

A few cases to be aware of:

• Recipes that already use a fan-forced or convection setting. The 25 °F drop double-counts; only drop 10 °F.
• Recipes that depend on dry oven air to set a crust. Bread loaves, pavlovas, meringues — the air fryer's fan disturbs delicate surfaces. Most of these are better in the oven.
• Recipes designed around steam. Anything that benefits from a covered-then-uncovered approach in the oven needs to be adapted for the air fryer (cover with foil first, remove later) rather than converted directly.
• Very dense slow-cooks. Two-hour braises, dehydrating overnight — the air fryer's small chamber and stronger fan aren't designed for these durations.

A practical decision checklist

Before converting, ask:

• Is the dish small enough to fit in a single layer?
• Is the limiting factor surface (browning) or centre (internal temp)?
• Does the recipe rely on enclosed steam, dry oven air, or contained liquid?
• Will the conversion save meaningful time — or is the oven already a better fit?

If the answers are "yes / clear / no / yes", apply the standard rule and start cooking. If any of them are messy, the conversion may not be worth it.

Closing thought

Conversion is part arithmetic, part judgment. The arithmetic — minus 25 °F, minus 20% time — gets you 80% of the way there for 80% of recipes. The judgment is reading the recipe well enough to know which 20% of cases need a different approach. The reference data in our cooking times chart is useful as a sanity check after conversion: if your converted number is far outside the range listed there for similar foods, it's worth a second look before committing.

Quick Conversion Chart

The table below applies the standard rules — roughly 20°C / 25°F lower and about 20% less time — to four common oven settings. Use these figures as a starting point, not a guarantee: every air fryer model runs slightly differently, and every dish has its own quirks.

Oven setting	Air fryer setting
200°C / 400°F — 25 min	180°C / 360°F — 18–20 min
180°C / 350°F — 30 min	160°C / 320°F — 22–24 min
220°C / 425°F — 20 min	200°C / 400°F — 15–16 min
160°C / 325°F — 60 min	150°C / 300°F — 45–48 min

If your recipe uses Celsius but your air fryer displays Fahrenheit — or the other way around — see our temperature conversion guide for a full reference chart.

Which Recipes Convert Easily — and Which Don't

Not every oven recipe is an equal candidate for air frying. The table below gives a quick overview, with brief reasons so you know what to expect before you start.

Converts easily	Needs care	Avoid
Roasted vegetables	Cakes and bakes	Wet batters (beer batter, tempura)
Chicken pieces	Thick roasting joints	Very saucy dishes (casseroles, braises)
Sausages and meatballs	Breaded-but-not-battered foods	Large recipes that need a single layer
Frozen foods
Tray bakes

Converts easily: These are the sweet spot for air frying. Small, relatively flat pieces of food with some surface exposed to circulating air crisp up beautifully. The standard 20°C / 25°F and 20% time reduction works reliably here.

Needs care: Cakes and bakes need a bigger temperature drop and close attention because the top browns before the centre is set — tent with foil if necessary and rely on a skewer rather than colour. Thick roasting joints benefit from a meat thermometer to check the core, since the outside can colour well before the inside is safe to eat. Breaded foods work well as long as the crumb is dry; a light spray of oil helps even browning.

Avoid: Wet batters drip through the basket, smoke, and never develop the crunchy shell they would in a deep fryer or oven. Very saucy or liquid-heavy dishes splash around and make a mess; use the hob or oven for those instead. And if a recipe fills a large tray in the oven, it will need cooking in batches in an air fryer — crowding the basket blocks airflow and results in uneven, steamed food rather than crisp, roasted food.

Worked Examples

Roasting a tray of vegetables

A standard oven recipe might call for 200°C / 400°F for 30 minutes, with a stir halfway through. In the air fryer, set it to 190°C / 375°F and cook for 18–22 minutes, shaking or tossing the basket every 8–10 minutes. Cut vegetables to a similar size so they cook at the same rate. Start checking at the 16-minute mark — smaller pieces of courgette or pepper will be done before larger chunks of sweet potato or carrot.

Chicken thighs

An oven recipe at 200°C / 400°F for 35–40 minutes converts to roughly 190°C / 375°F for 22–25 minutes in the air fryer. Place the thighs skin-side up in a single layer; there is no need to flip them for crispy skin. The most reliable way to know they are safe to eat is an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part away from bone — you are looking for 75°C / 165°F. The air fryer tends to produce crispier skin than the oven in less time, so start checking at 20 minutes.

A sponge cake

Baking is where air frying diverges most from conventional oven cooking. A sponge baked at 180°C / 350°F for 30 minutes in the oven should be converted to 160°C / 320°F for 25–35 minutes in the air fryer. The wider time window reflects how much variation there is between machines and tin sizes. Use a tin that fits inside the basket with a small gap around the edge for air circulation. Do not judge doneness by colour — the top browns quickly and can mislead. Insert a skewer into the centre; the cake is done when it comes out clean. For more on air fryer baking, see our air fryer cakes guide.

A frozen breaded product

Frozen breaded products — fish fillets, chicken goujons, mozzarella sticks — are arguably the easiest conversion of all. If the packaging includes an air fryer setting, use it exactly as written; manufacturers test these and the instructions are reliable. If there is no air fryer setting, 200°C / 400°F is a safe default: start checking 5 minutes before the oven time ends. The air fryer will give you a noticeably crunchier result than the oven in less time.

Converting Baking Recipes Specifically

Baking in an air fryer deserves its own section because it asks more of you than roasting does. The fierce, fast-moving heat that makes the air fryer so good at crisping chicken skin is exactly what can ruin a cake if you are not prepared for it.

Use a bigger temperature drop. For most bakes — cakes, muffins, quick breads — drop the temperature by at least 20°C / 35°F, and for delicate sponges you may need to go as low as 150°C / 300°F even when the oven recipe calls for 180°C / 350°F. A lower temperature gives the inside time to set before the outside burns.

Choose a tin that fits with airflow. Air must be able to circulate around the tin; if the tin fills the basket from edge to edge, the bottom and sides will not cook properly. Leave at least a centimetre of space all around. Silicone tins and small springform tins usually work well.

Tent with foil if the top colours too quickly. Check the top of your bake about halfway through. If it is darkening faster than you would like, loosely lay a piece of aluminium foil over the tin — do not seal it tightly, just let it sit on top. This deflects direct heat without trapping steam.

Always test with a skewer, not your eyes. Air fryer bakes can look done on the outside while the centre is still raw. Insert a thin skewer or cocktail stick into the middle; it should come out clean or with just a few moist crumbs. If it comes out with wet batter, give the bake another five minutes and test again.

Conversion FAQ

How much do I reduce the temperature?

As a starting point, reduce the oven temperature by approximately 20°C (about 25°F). So an oven recipe at 200°C / 400°F becomes roughly 180°C / 360°F in the air fryer. For baking, you will often need to drop by slightly more than this — see the baking section above. After cooking a recipe once, adjust up or down based on the result.

Do I cut the time too?

Yes — reduce the cooking time by around 20% as a starting estimate. But the most important rule is to start checking several minutes before even that reduced time is up. Air fryers vary considerably between brands and models, and food thickness, basket size, and whether you preheat all affect how quickly things cook. Use the time estimate to know roughly when to start checking, not as a hard finish point.

Do I need to convert air fryer recipes?

No. If a recipe was written specifically for an air fryer, use the temperatures and times as stated — the recipe developer has already done the work. The temperature and time reductions described on this page apply only when you are adapting an oven recipe for the air fryer. Following an oven-conversion formula on an already-converted recipe would make it undercooked.

Why did my converted recipe burn on top but stay raw inside?

This is the most common problem when converting baking recipes, and it almost always means the air fryer temperature was still too high. The outside and top surface are exposed to the full force of the circulating heat and colour fast, while the centre has not had enough time at a gentle enough temperature to cook through. The fix is to lower the temperature further and extend the time accordingly. Tenting the top with foil halfway through will also help. Checking doneness with a skewer rather than looking at the top is essential.

Does preheating change the conversion?

A short preheat of 2–3 minutes brings the air fryer up to temperature before the food goes in, which can improve browning and consistency — especially for thinner items like chicken pieces or roasted vegetables. For long bakes of 30 minutes or more, whether you preheat makes little practical difference to the outcome. If you do preheat, there is no need to adjust the temperature or time further; the conversion figures already assume a hot starting environment.