Kelly Daniels
12 October 2022
With the chilly weather on its way, there’s nothing better than comfort food. And what’s more comforting than a big plate of chips? We asked an expert how to cook frozen chips in an air fryer, so you can enjoy them any time of year.
Frozen chips are one of the easiest things to make in your air fryer, and they’re probably the first most people stop at when they think of air fryers; so we asked an expert to help us out (and also some of our regular readers) with a simple guide to cooking frozen chips in an air fryer.
What You Need:
• An air fryer.
• A frozen potato chip or similar product that isn’t already partially cooked.
• Salt. Salt is not necessary, but we found that adding it improves the texture and crispiness of frozen chips. We use kosher salt rather than sea salt because kosher salt has a finer particle size and is more likely to disperse evenly as everything fries together; it’s also just plain better than sea salt! Use only kosher salt — all other salts will taste salty even if they aren’t!
Air fryers
The first thing you’ll need is a good cooktop. If you’re looking for the best Air Fryer, then there are plenty of reputable brands to choose from. But if you want a top-of-the-line item that’s easy to use and will give you great results, then a quality immersion circulator is your best bet.
A good air fryer comes with a recipe book and instructions, but it doesn’t matter if your recipes are awful or too complicated for your oven. It takes about 30 minutes for an Air Fryer to heat up and the temperature doesn’t fluctuate much throughout the cooking process – so it should get the job done just fine without any problems.
All you need to make perfect air fryer chips is a bag of frozen chips and your air fryer.
I think the most important thing we need to do is get to the point where we can tell you how long it will take to cook your frozen chips in an air fryer. The capabilities of our air fryer have improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years, but I’m still mystified by how long it takes.
We can only assume this is due to the more powerful motor, more accurate temperature control, and different methods of cooking, so I’ve created this guide so that you can learn about the different ways to cook your frozen chips.
So here’s what you need for a chip:
How long does it take to cook frozen chips in an air fryer?
A lot of people have heard of the air fryer, but don’t know exactly what it is and how to use it. In this video, we cover all the basics and show you how to make amazing crispy chicken nuggets in your air fryer.
The air fryer is a great tool for home cooks with a tight schedule who don’t have time to cook. With just a few minutes of prep time you can be enjoying delicious homemade fried chicken nuggets in no time!
The actual cooking time will depend on the size and thickness of your chips, but generally speaking, they will be ready in 13-20 minutes.
In this post, we share expert advice on how to cook frozen chips in an air fryer.
The most important thing to remember when cooking frozen fries is that they should not be fried again; otherwise they will develop freezer burn (which will lose its crunchiness and become soggy). To avoid this, we recommend that you let the fries freeze for 2 hours before frying them.
If you want to quickly cook them without freezing them, simply double dip them in boiling water for a couple of minutes before frying. Note that this is extremely unhealthy!
What is an air fryer?
An air fryer is a small, portable appliance that can be used to cook frozen chips using convection cooking and infrared heat. Convection cooking uses the same kind of high-temperature heating found in ovens and broilers, while infrared heat is more like the way microwave ovens work: it’s much more precise than convection cooking and doesn’t need fans or other complicated machinery to work.
Convection doesn’t work well with frozen foods, though — you can expect to get only 20-25% of the food‘s original volume or power into the food since most of it will go into the air rather than being cooked by the food itself.
I know many people who use convection (and some people who use microwave ovens) as their main method of cooking all their food, but we would love to hear from you if this isn’t really what you do!
There’s no need to add any oil or fat to your chips when cooking them in the air fryer. However, if you want to give them a little extra flavor, you can sprinkle on some seasoning before cooking.
If you want to give your frozen chips a little extra flavour and you don’t want to go overboard on seasoning, try adding some salt and pepper. Make sure to follow the recipe and not go overboard with salt or pepper.
The above is just one example of how much you can add to that “salt and pepper” ratio of seasoning when you fry frozen food in an air fryer. This is what is known as a balance of salt and pepper, which you can manage in order to get the desired flavour without overpowering it. But if you add too much, it can be overpowering.
How to know when they’re done
With so many variables for the amount of time it takes to cook frozen chips in an air fryer, it can be a bit tricky at first to figure out if they’re done. The following is a short guide on how to tell when your frozen chips are ready:
If your chips are still not cooked after 15 minutes, remove them from the air fryer and let them cool down in the air-tight container. They should be fully cooked and soft by then.
The best way to tell if your chips are cooked through is to insert a skewer or toothpick into the centre of one. If it comes out easily, they’re ready to eat!
Conclusion
Flipping the chips in the air fryer is an easy way to cook chip-style products. Once you’ve learned how, you can experiment and see what works best for you.
There’s plenty of time to cook up a batch of frozen chips in an air fryer. They go very well with burgers or sandwiches, and are perfect for cooking on their own – enjoy them with sauce or chilli sauce for an extra kick.
