If you are a new air fryer owner, this guide has been made especially for you. Here, we will run through the top 10 things all new air fryer owners need to know. By the end, you will save some time and money and hopefully feel a lot more confident about using your new appliance.
Table of Contents
First Things First
The very first tip is simple. Relax. Your new air fryer is just a small oven. If you have a little bit of common sense and a willingness to try things out and learn as you go, you will be absolutely fine. You do not need to abandon everything you have learned about cooking up until this point, and you do not need to do things in a radically different way.
Burn Off That New Appliance Smell
If you have not used your air fryer yet, it is a good idea to run it on a high temperature for about 15 minutes with the extractor fan on in the kitchen or with the window open. This helps burn off any new appliance smell. Most air fryers benefit from doing this, and it is a good idea to do it as soon as you get your air fryer so that you do not only remember to do it when you are about to put food in it.
Do Not Rush Out and Buy Accessories
The most popular question people ask when they have just got an air fryer is what accessories they should buy. One of the most important tips for air fryer owners is to not rush out and spend your money. There are only really three essential tools for an air fryer, and you may already have them at home or they may have come included with your air fryer.
Also Read: Best Air Fryer Accessories for 2026
Those three essentials are a meat thermometer, which is the best way to definitively check that your joint of meat is cooked through, a set of silicone tongs, which you use to lift food in and out without damaging the non-stick surface on your air fryer drawer, and an empty oil spray bottle, which you can fill with your own choice of cooking oil and use to add a little spritz of oil to the food occasionally.
These are used every week, but there are also cupboards full of things that never get used. Hold off on buying anything else until you have done a stock take of what you already own and worked out what you actually want to cook in your air fryer.
Choose Your Recipe Book With Care
The next most popular question is which recipe book you should buy. Pick your air fryer recipe book with care. There are a lot of very tempting looking books available on sites like Amazon which appear to be tailored for different types of air fryer models, but a large number of these are written by AI and not by real people. Despite the Union Jack appearing on the front of them, they are not actually tailored to British cooks and the recipes often have not even been tested.
Please only buy recipe books written by real authors who have worked very hard to make good books. These will have positive reviews going back more than just a few weeks. If you think you have ordered a book that may be one of those dodgy AI ones, return it to Amazon. The only way they will clamp down on these is if enough people complain. Amazon should also give you your money back and probably will not even require you to return the book.
Use the Great Free Resources Available Online
If you have ditched the idea of buying a cookbook, the good news is that there are loads of great resources online for well tested air fryer recipes. In particular, Good Food and Delicious Magazine are worth highlighting, as well as Facebook groups for your particular brand or model of air fryer. These communities are incredibly helpful for new owners looking to get the most out of their appliance.
Understand What the Crisper Plate Does
Most air fryers have something in the drawer that different manufacturers call different things, but most often they are known as crisper plates. The crisper plate’s job is to allow hot air to circulate underneath the food you are cooking and make it crispy. They also allow excess fat to drain off the food. You can remove them if you are sauteing something or if you need extra height in the drawer, such as when cooking a large chicken.
One extra tip here is that most crisper plates have little silicone bumpers on the corners. Make sure you leave these on. They are there to protect the inside of the drawer and are not part of the packaging. You can pop them out for washing as grease and dirt does build up around them over time.
Steam Is Normal, But Smoke Is Not
Something that can spook new air fryer owners is the sight of steam escaping from around the edges of their air fryer drawer. This is totally normal, particularly if you are cooking something with a high water content like vegetables. Smoke, however, is a different thing entirely.
If you see smoke in small quantities, the first thing to do is open the drawer and check that nothing is in contact with the heating element above the drawer. If you are concerned, turn your air fryer off and unplug it immediately.
Should You Preheat Your Air Fryer?
You might be wondering whether you need to preheat an air fryer, and this does prompt a lot of discussion. Air fryers are significantly smaller than ovens and come to temperature very quickly, usually in under five minutes. Because of this, manufacturer advice is generally that you do not need to preheat. There is also yet to be an air fryer that has anything on it to indicate when it reaches temperature.
However, there are a couple of reasons why you may want to preheat. If you are following a recipe, all air fryers take slightly different lengths of time to come to temperature, and the cooking time in a recipe will often assume that your air fryer is already preheated so that everyone is starting from the same place. Additionally, if you are cooking something like a steak where you want to place it on a hot surface, you will want to preheat first.
The Beeps Are Here to Stay
At some point, the beeps on your air fryer might start to drive you, your other half, or the dog slightly mad. Unfortunately, there is yet to be found a model where you can turn those beeps off. There are lots of posts on the internet which claim that pressing a certain combination of buttons on different air fryers will disable the beeps, but most of them simply do not work.
A few people have actually taken their air fryers apart and cut cables to stop the beeps, but that is not advisable because it will invalidate your warranty. For now, you will have to live with it.
Always Give Your Air Fryer Enough Clearance
The final tip is one of the most important things for air fryer owners to know. Make sure your air fryer has good clearance around it for air intake and to let the hot air out. The air intake on an air fryer is usually at the top and the hot air outlet is usually at the back. It is particularly important that the hot air vent is not too close to the wall or a power socket for obvious safety reasons.
Read More: Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer Review
