How To Clean An Air Fryer

So, you bought an air fryer to make mealtimes easier, then realised you need to learn how to clean an air fryer.

Well, that is when us Milner’s come in to help you. We have been air frying since 2012, which adds up over a decade of cleaning our air fryers. We will show you our technique for an air fryer clean as well as accessory tricks we have to stop your air fryer from getting dirty in the first place.

Air Fryer Cleaning

I get it. You bought an air fryer because everyone is telling you that cooking using an air fryer, is a lot easier compared to turning the oven on or warming up a pan on the hob/stovetop. (which it is by the way!)

Then you look at your air fryer, you have only used it once and realise you have now got a really big cleaning job to deal with and that you are going to have to clean your air fryer regularly.

Buying that air fryer doesn’t seem quite as good now…..

But I am here to help.

Or I should say, I am here to help with my team of air fryer cleaners that have been cleaning air fryers for years and do it without even thinking about it now.

So, sit down get comfy, forget scrubbing the air fryer everyday and let me talk you through air fryer cleaning 101.

Air Fryer Accessories To Prevent Cleaning

This should always be your starting point when it comes to keeping your air fryer clean. What if you used air fryer accessories that kept your air fryer clean 50% of the time. That means that only 50% of the time you would need to clean the air fryer.

But note I said 50% of the time, not all the time.

That is because some foods, when you use accessories don’t taste as good.

But what could you avoid so that you are cleaning your air fryer less.

Pats Pans – These are genius, and the idea came from one of our readers, called you guessed it PAT. She has the power air fryer oven (this one) and uses 7 by 7 inch foil containers. As she lives in the USA she refers to them as pans and I soon renamed them as Pats Pans.

Even though she has a 7 by 7 inch square foil tray I have found I can fit 2 of them side by side in my Ninja Flex Drawer (this type of air fryer), or a single one in either one of my main air fryer baskets.

Now wait for the best bit in your “I don’t want to clean the air fryer journey”. She preps in the pans, cooks in the pans and serves food from the pans. You have just prevented yourself from doing washing up and cleaning the air fryer.

This is a prime example of it with our air fryer mac and cheese. Its prepped, cooked and served all in the same foil tray.

Now just think about those trays and of course if they don’t fit your air fryer size, get a different size to fit.

Pat does this with chicken wings, but just think of all the things you can do it with. Such as marinated salmon, or a fish dinner for one.

A favourite from our new cookbook Air Fryer Easy Everyday (get it here) is our haddock, potato and veggie dinner for one. We prepared this in the foil tray and again no washing up.

Just imagine how you can adapt Pats Pans into your everyday air fryer cooking, cook dinner and then still have a clean air fryer.

Plus, when you use foil trays in the air fryer, they don’t increase the cooking time.

There are also many recipes that you can do using the foil to save on your clean up. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Air fryer corn on the cob – The frozen corn cooks directly in the air fryer basket, but foil is added for the melted butter to avoid a clean.
• Air fryer meatloaf – The meatloaf is wrapped in foil and then air fried. This also stops you needing to clean the air fryer.
• Air fryer frozen chicken breast – This is probably the best example of the pats pans method. We prep the chicken in the marinade in the foil container, freeze it, then at a later date, we cook from frozen in the air fryer. Even the making of the marinade can happen in the foil tray.

Paper liners are cheaper and work in a similar way – You can also (like you do with Pats Pans) use them to store the food on, to avoid an air fryer clean up. Like with Pats Pans they are keeping the air fryer clean for you. But as they can’t store very much liquid they are not ideal for foods with a lot of sauce.

My most used for paper liner food is to use them for air fryer fried eggs, but a breakfast omelette is also a good one.

But I find you have to accept that some food if you do it on a paper liner wont be as good as directly in the basket.

The only drawback to the paper liners is they move about a bit, so make sure you have heavy food holding them down.

Foil trays/pans and paper liners are the best use of one use air fryer accessories where no washing up is needed.

The next option is the silicone. You need to clean the silicone as its not one use, but it wipes clean so you don’t have to soak it like you would with a pan. But a lot of silicone now for sale is low quality so you need to pick and choose.

My favourite silicone for keeping the air fryer clean is my red silicone pans:

I picked these up from Amazon as a set of four so you get different sizes. The biggest one, whilst not really the size of my air fryer, stretches and totally lines the air fryer basket. Then the other at 7.5 inches is the perfect fit. Along with a couple of smaller ones.

• You can check out the price and read reviews of them here
• Or see them in action in our air fryer chocolate cake recipe

Those are my 3 types of air fryer accessories that are my go-to when preventing a dirty air fryer, bit there are some air fryer accessories that will need a clean, so you might want to avoid them. Such as ramekins or casserole dishes along with glass. Like if you used them in the oven you need to soak them, so if less cleaning is your thing stick to the 3 above!

Clean Air Fryer Prevents Scrubbing Air Fryer

I borrowed someone else’s air fryer (yes, I know I have loads of my own). I wanted one with a specific style to check a recipe. It was filthy and scrubbed to death at the bottom and full of grease.

I didn’t even realise it was possible to get the air fryer this bad and it needed some serious deep cleaning.

But you need to focus on not getting your air fryer to this level of mess. Maintaining it so that its easy to clean and it doesn’t feel like an effort. Think of it like your oven for a second. You wouldn’t leave an oven dish for a month. Keep using it and using it, without cleaning it in between, well the same applies to the air fryer.

So let me talk you through daily air fryer cleaning….

Best Way To Clean Air Fryer?

Here are the key steps to the best way to clean your air fryer, and you can rename it easy clean air fryer!

Just crumbs – If you cooked some breaded chicken in the air fryer, or some frozen such as our air fryer chicken kiev, then it will leave just a handful of crumbs in your air fryer. You can tip these into the air fryer and give it a quick wipe down with a damp cloth and you are done!

It stuck – I have lost count of the amount of times that the food stuck to the air fryer basket. Maybe you did some air fryer food that had a filling and some of it came out? Then this will be similar to when the racks of the oven need a quick clean. If this happens treat your basket like an oven rack and a quick clean in soapy water and a damp cloth.

But beyond a little bit of stuck on food and some crumbs, what about after your typical air fryer meal?

In a nutshell, the easiest way to clean the air fryer is as follows:

Pretend it’s a pan or an oven tray – depending on what you have cooked imagine that it is either your pan (when your air fryer basket needs a clean) or an oven tray (when you have cooked chicken).

First thing is first – If it was a normal cooking item such as a pan, you would fill it with warm soapy water and leave it to soak. Or if it’s not ground on, you would move it to the sink and wash it straight away with warm soapy water. The same applies when you are cleaning the air fryer. If I am cleaning it from a portion of air fryer chips for example, soapy water and a quick clean and its done. But if I am cleaning after an air fryer whole chicken I would opt for a soak on the side whilst I eat dinner because there is more fat.

Warm soapy water fixes almost everything – Just like that roasting tin you own for the oven, warm (or hot) soapy water is brilliant and will really help clean up the air fryer. Plus, if you are cleaning the air fryer regularly there should be no issues.

Dishwashers are good too in moderation – If you are finding it difficult to clean, you can always use the dishwasher and it will bring it to sparkling again. But people in Facebook Groups for the air fryer, have complained that if they use the dishwasher frequently it can take off the air fryer coating and look like a pan from the 1950s.

Remember its electrical – So never put the electrical part in the sink. Remove the air fryer basket from its unit and if you have a grill tray that comes out, remove this as well for a clean.

Ice lolly brush – This is a great clean air fryer hack as they say! If you have hard to reach areas, especially grease in a far corner or in the heating element, those packs of ice lolly moulds you buy from Amazon are perfect. Because (like this one here) they come with a little brush that gets in the deep corners of the ice lolly mould. Those brushes can have soapy water added and then you can brush the annoying area that you are struggling to get to.

And that is the basics of how to clean a air fryer. This is of course, based upon cleaning it after your meals and keeping up with the cleaning. If you are using the foil trays, then you are going to be able to skip a few meals of cleaning.

I have also included some more easy to clean air fryer tips and tricks below and answered a lot of your questions.

How To Clean Air Fryer Basket?

To clean an air fryer basket, remove the basket from its bottom unit. Then clean the basket separately with some warm soapy water. Place it on the draining board whilst you tackle the main air fryer unit.

Use warm soapy water and a cloth that doesn’t remove the coating from the air fryer and give it a good scrub around for any built-up bits of grease.

Then you can also clean the heating element but make sure the air fryer is not plugged in and is not currently warm.

Next, dry the air fryer thoroughly including the basket, add the basket back to the air fryer unit.

Then for built up grease around the sides of the air fryer, you can use cleaning spray and a damp cloth. It only takes a few minutes to do this and then you have a lovely clean air fryer basket.

How To Degrease Air Fryer?

If you are wondering how to clean grease from air fryer, it’s just as easy and usually I just do a couple of extra rounds of soapy water soaking.

Grease is a build up of fat in the air fryer. Therefore, hot water with soap, give it a good soak for an hour, then rinse it out and any fat dispose it properly and not down the sink as you don’t want to damage your drains.

Then rinse and repeat and do this 2-3 times until you have no grease and give it a good scrub in between each go. If you have a lot of fat build up in the bottom of the air fryer, its so much easier to do when it has soapy water in, rather than dry.

I also recommend for cleaning an air fryer if it has lots of fat and rubbish in the bottom, that you use your hands or a silicone spoon to remove first and put into your recycling container, or a Ziploc so that you are not re-washing this or it ends up down your plughole.

Can You Put Water In Air Fryer To Clean?

Yes, you can put water in the air fryer to clean it. I do this when I am soaking the air fryer.

BUT I don’t recommend filling the air fryer with water and then air frying to help deal with the build up of grease and dirt.

This is because air fryers have vent that will move the water around and it has a high risk of touching the electric and causing serious harm.

Plus, there are some air fryers that have more holes than others that can make this problem worse. But soaking the air fryer with some warm water away from electrics is no problem.

How Often To Clean Air Fryer?

When it comes to cleaning an air fryer we all have a different opinion about how often it should be. Some will tell you that they deep clean just after some air fryer frozen onion rings, whilst others admit to letting it get so bad that it needed a deep clean.

My opinion and one that I recommend you adopt is to clean the air fryer whenever it needs it. So, if you just cooked in an accessory, it won’t need it, but if you cooked some air fryer frozen chicken wings, it will need a quick clean and just treat it like its part of your washing up.

How To Clean Cosori Air Fryer?

The Cosori air fryer (we have this red one) is a type of air fryer basket. Therefore, follow our air fryer basket cleaning method above.

Easiest To Clean Air Fryer?

Now that is a question, after all there are so many air fryers out there, its hard to say what the easiest to clean air fryer is.

From personal experience I would say out of the air fryers I own, I find the ninja flex drawer and the cosori air fryer the easiest to clean.

The flex drawer – because you have the crisp plates that come out so you can clean under them. Plus, its easier to get in all the corners, when you are removing all the grease in any areas that it has stuck on.

The Cosori – because it has a really good air fryer drawer, so the food doesn’t go everywhere, and this results in less cleaning to do.

That is a wrap and that is how to clean your air fryer, with a lot of questions and ideas included. Now you know that air fryers are easier to clean than you thought and that air fryers are easier than traditional cooking.

Can’t make it now? Then save it for later!