My buddy the line cook told me to stop preheating my air fryer and now I never do it

I was complaining to my friend Marco who works at a busy restaurant in Portland about how my chicken wings always come out dry. He laughed and said the whole preheating thing is a myth for home air fryers unless you're baking something delicate. He told me the rapid air circulation means the basket heats up in under a minute anyway. I tried skipping the preheat on 3 batches of wings and they turned out way juicier with better crunch. Has anyone else tested this side by side? I'm curious if my results were just a fluke.

2 comments

2 Comments

joel_patel1mo ago

Wait, "he told me the whole preheating is a myth for home air fryers" - that's wild to read because I've been religiously preheating mine for two years. I honestly never even questioned it since every recipe says to do it. But now that you mention it, I tried skipping preheat on some frozen french fries last night and they came out way less dry on the outside but still cooked through. The texture was actually better, not as hard and crunchy but more like real potato. I think the constant airflow really does heat the basket fast enough that preheating just dries out the exterior before the inside gets going. Your wing test convinced me, I'm done with preheating for good now.

perry.lee1mo ago

joel_patel, I gotta respectfully disagree here. I tried no preheat last week with some chicken wings and they came out greasy and floppy, not crispy at all. Put em in for the same time after preheating the next batch and got that nice char on the skin. Maybe it's an air fryer model thing, but mine definitely needs that warm up time to get the oil on the outside sizzling right away. Frozen fries prob work because they're already par cooked and have less moisture to deal with, but fresh stuff like wings or breaded chicken needs that initial blast of heat. Just my two cents from messing around with different foods over the years.

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