I have been making succulent rooster and tender salmon in my air fryer for years now, however solely lately did I uncover that the mighty air fryer could make mouthwatering burgers on par with any grill. As a metropolis dweller, grills are considerably impractical to personal and function, so making a bacon cheeseburger in an apartment-friendly air fryer was a very enticing proposition.
You can also make a wonderfully good cheeseburger on the stovetop utilizing a cast-iron skillet however, very like bacon, a fatty piece of beef will trigger main grease splatter, some severely meaty smells and depart you with a gnarly pan to scrub. I discovered the straightforward means which you can make a terrific burger (plus, toast a bun and prepare dinner bacon) all in an air fryer all with out setting off the smoke alarm or turning the stovetop right into a grease pit.
Here is all you want to know to get optimum outcomes when cooking a burger within the air fryer.
The right way to make the proper air fryer burger
Even a small air fryer can deal with a full-sized burger patty and some slices of bacon without delay.
I consulted quite a lot of totally different sources for timings and temperatures, however the course of is about what you’d count on and just like that which you’d expertise cooking a burger in any method: flipping the patty about midway by way of for even outcomes, with totally different timings relying on the dimensions of your required doneness.
Learn extra: Air Fryers Give Off Much less Warmth and Use Much less Vitality Than an Oven. Here is How A lot
The air fryer works by circulating sizzling air in its contained chamber, in order a matter of curiosity, your air fryer burger will prepare dinner reverse to what you’d see on a sauté pan, with the uncovered aspect of the burger cooking extra rapidly and turning into browner than the underside of the patty.
I attempted two totally different approaches, each with 1 / 4 pound of lean floor beef, seasoned merely with salt and pepper. First, I formed a single patty about three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and cooked it at 370 levels F for 10 minutes, flipping on the midway mark. Then I attempted the identical quantity of meat formed into two, skinny, smash-style patties for a complete cooking time of about six minutes. (Double your cheeseburger, double your enjoyable.)
Making a terrific burger in an air fryer takes virtually no talent and requires little or no cleanup afterward.
Air fryers require little or no cleanup
Properly, that was simple. In each instances the patties cooked evenly, with an final result that was medium in doneness. (You may simply experiment together with your mannequin and ideally suited burger patty measurement to search out the exact timings in your most well-liked diploma of doneness.) The recent air circulation even managed to supply a little bit of caramelized crust on one aspect. As a result of I might, even with a small, single-household air fryer, I put in a few strips of bacon with the one burger patty, since crispy, spatter-free bacon is one other glorious use for an air fryer — to not point out an distinctive burger topping.
You may prepare dinner a burger to that good medium or medium uncommon with an air fryer.
Talking of spatter-free, that is the one most compelling cause to make use of the air fryer for burger prep. Your clothes, pores and skin and stovetop all keep away from the scorching oil droplets that — safely contained inside the air fryer drawer — like to flee the pan throughout common skillet cooking. The smoky, greasy, meaty aroma, which is in any other case interesting at a burger dive, however not a lot in a studio house, can also be minimized. Cleanup was restricted solely to the nonstick, air fryer drawer.
Learn extra: I’ve Been Making Bacon Fallacious. Here is the Finest (and Cleanest) Approach to Prepare dinner it
Stil, there are some drawbacks to air fryer burgers
With an air fryer, you possibly can’t smash the patties down as simply as you possibly can on a grill or griddle.
The air fryer is not good in relation to burgers, and the drawbacks as I skilled are twofold. First, since you possibly can’t actually entry the patty whereas it cooks, you are unable to smash it down in such a means that it would not shrink up considerably whereas cooking. Since an English muffin is the perfect burger containment methodology — I cannot be contemplating opposing viewpoints right now — this did not hassle me a lot, because the ensuing patty matches the supposed vessel completely. Count on shrinkage when contemplating the dimensions of your patty earlier than cooking.
Second, should you’re like me and consider {that a} burger with out cheese is not value consuming, issues get somewhat extra sophisticated. Due to the air circulation motion of the air fryer, it is arduous to anchor cheese on high for a fast soften on the finish of the method. My first try with a sliced single, a really perfect burger cheese — and I’m a cheese professional, so do not come at me — flew off and unhelpfully adhered to the floor of the air fryer drawer.
Am I seeing double?
My second try the place a slice was halved and layered for additional heft was extra profitable, much more so after I moved the patties to the again fringe of the fryer basket which will get much less aggressive air circulation. This will simply be a quirk of my mannequin, however I would be ready to experiment. I would not even contemplate shredded cheese on high of a patty, however I completely would contemplate a cheese-stuffed burger, which ought to work properly.
