Last reviewed on 28 April 2026.
Air fryers are good at a lot of things, but they're not universal cookers. A handful of foods reliably go wrong in them — for reasons rooted in how the appliance works, not in technique. This guide is the list, and the underlying reasoning so you can apply it to anything that isn't on it.
The principle: hot air is the problem and the solution
An air fryer cooks by moving heated air across food at speed. That's why it crisps and browns so well — and it's also why certain foods fail. When the airflow is the cooking medium, anything that gets blown around, anything that needs to sit in a pool of liquid, and anything too dense for the air to penetrate before the surface burns is going to misbehave.
Run a candidate food through three questions: Will it stay put? Does it need to cook in or alongside liquid? Is the inside-to-outside ratio reasonable for fast surface heat? If the answer to any of those is "no", the air fryer is probably the wrong tool.
Wet batters
The deep-fryer staple — fish in beer batter, tempura, fritters dipped from a bowl — does not transfer to the air fryer.
Hot oil cooks the batter from all sides at once and sets it before it can drip; hot air cooks too slowly to set a wet coating, so the batter slumps off the food and pools through the basket holes. What's left on the food is patchy and rubbery; what dripped through bakes onto the heating element.
What to do instead. Use dry coatings — flour, breadcrumbs, panko, crushed cereal — or pre-fried frozen battered foods (which are sealed before they reach you). For homemade fish in batter, use a pan or a deep fryer.
Leafy greens (raw)
Spinach, kale, lettuce, basil — anything light and leafy will fly. The fan is strong enough to lift loose leaves into the heating element, where they char or smoke immediately.
What to do instead. If you want air-fried kale chips, weight them down with the air-fryer rack or skewer them onto a heavier base. Drier, sturdier vegetables like the ones in our vegetables guide are a better fit if you want crisp.
Cheese on its own
A slice of cheese laid in the basket will melt straight through the holes and onto the drip pan, where it burns. Even on parchment, melted cheese spreads and sticks.
What to do instead. Cheese works fine when it's part of a contained dish — a stuffed pepper, a casserole in a small oven-safe dish, melted on top of something else for the last minute or two. Leave plain blocks of cheese out of the basket.
Rice, pasta, and other grains (raw)
These all need to absorb water during cooking. The air fryer dries food out; it cannot simulate boiling. Adding water to the basket either evaporates instantly or leaks through to the heating element.
What to do instead. Cook grains on the stove or in a rice cooker, then if you want texture, finish them in the air fryer (cold leftover rice crisped at high heat is genuinely good).
Saucy and soupy dishes
Anything with more than a thin coating of liquid — stews, curries, ramen, brothy braises — has the same problem as raw grains: there's no way to keep liquid on the food. It either pours through the basket or pools and burns onto the bottom.
What to do instead. Reduce sauces separately, then glaze finished food in the basket for the last minute. Reheat saucy leftovers in a small oven-safe dish placed inside the air fryer if the dish fits, but cover it with foil so the surface doesn't dry out.
Whole large roasts
A 4-lb pork shoulder or a whole turkey breast that's larger than the basket will burn on the outside before the inside reaches a safe internal temperature. Even when the food fits, the air fryer cooks the surface so aggressively that there isn't enough time for heat to travel to the centre.
What to do instead. For anything thicker than about 4 cm (1.5 in) at the centre, reduce the temperature substantially (to 140–160 °C / 285–325 °F) and extend the time, or finish in the oven. Always verify with a probe thermometer.
Most baked goods (without a tin)
A wet batter for cake or muffins poured directly into the basket behaves like the wet-batter problem above. Doughs that need to rise and set need a structure to hold them.
What to do instead. Use a cake tin, ramekins, or silicone moulds that fit inside the basket. Our baking guide covers this in detail.
Items that hide moisture (whole eggs in shell)
Whole eggs in their shell can be cooked in an air fryer, but they're a frequent source of small explosions, especially when the shell has a tiny crack. Hard-boiling on the stove is faster, more controllable, and lower risk.
What to do instead. If you want air-fried eggs, crack them into a ramekin or small dish.
Toxic or pressure-sensitive items
Two genuine safety items rather than texture issues:
- Anything that came in a sealed pouch. Whole sealed packets — boil-in-bag rice, vacuum-packed sausages still in their plastic — can rupture or leach plastic compounds when heated dry. Open the pouch first.
- Items meant for pressure cooking. Some prepared meals are designed to cook under pressure; without it they may not reach a safe internal temperature even when they look done. Read the packaging instructions before improvising.
The shortlist
- Wet batter applied directly to food
- Loose leafy greens
- Bare cheese in the basket
- Raw grains and pasta
- Soupy or saucy dishes without a contained dish
- Roasts thicker than ~4 cm at the centre, run on default settings
- Cake or muffin batter without a tin
- Whole eggs in shell, when speed and control matter
- Sealed pouches and pressure-required meals
What this list isn't saying
"Don't cook in an air fryer" is not the same as "won't cook at all". Several entries above can be made to work with a workaround — a tin, a rack, a lower temperature, a different prep. The guidance is to know when you're working against the appliance instead of with it.
For technique-level mistakes (overcrowding, skipping a shake, forgetting to preheat), see 10 air fryer mistakes to avoid. For the foods that genuinely work well — including from frozen — the cooking frozen foods and vegetables guides are the better starting points.