How to cook a Ribeye steak in an air fryer
Can you cook your steak in an air fryer? Sure. Should you? Well, that ones on you. The results are certainly decent, albeit different to more traditional methods. Here’s our recipe for a great ribeye cooked in the air fryer.
Air fried ribeye steak
The following is based of using a 10oz ribeye steak from Kroger as seen above.
Ingredients
- Ribeye steak approx 3/4 inch thick
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 400F
- While fryer preheats, remove steak from fridge
- Season liberally with salt
- Cook at 400F for five minutes, flip steak
- Cook for 10 minutes (medium rare)
- Cook for 12 minutes (medium-medium well)
- Allow meat to rest for five minutes
Notes
Don't expect the same results as using the direct heat of your outdoor grill, or pan frying finished by oven roasting. You probably won't be able to achieve the same maillard effect with the air fryer (when the meat caramlizes deliciously) but it's not bad by any means. I do like how the air fryer offers a very replicable method of cooking steak after steak, not least, its very quick, easy and mess free.
Next up - invest in a decent thermometer (see below). Based on your your air fryer and specific thickness of your ribeye, you may want to tweak your cooking time. I was surprised that my steak was as cooked as it was at 10 minutes. Those who like crazy rare steaks might prefer an even shorter cook time!
I don't bother bringing my steak to room temperature before cooking. Ambient air temp is so variable, so I essentially cook at fridge temp each time, that makes things easily replicable and repeatable.
I only season the steak with salt. You can go wild with seasonings and rubs if you like but I feel like it detracts from a good steak. I definitely don't add pepper before cooking, pepper burns under heat.
Likewise, I don't feel like there's any need to marinate a quality piece of marbled ribeye. For my money, if you're over seasoning or martinating a steak, you're masking something you want to hide. This of course might be preferable on differnet cuts, but not ribeye.
Always rest your steak for five minutes after cooking. This allows the jujices to settle and not spill out in a burst when you cut in. Also, expect your steak to continue cooking and gain another 5F of temp after coming out of the fryer.
Ribeye steak air fried before and after
So you can get a feel for this recipe, here's my 10oz steak, air fried for 12 minutes both before and after.
Steak temperature guide
When cooking steaks you can judge the doneness of the beef based on the temperature as follows:
- 125F – rare
- 135F – medium rare
- 145F – medium
- 150F – medium-well
- 160F – well
Note that the FDA recommends cooking steaks to at least 145F. Read their guidelines here.
This website and all recipes are presented as a reference only. Many variables may influence your own cooking times. Read this info on using our recipes.
Please scroll to the bottom of the page if you'd like to comment on this recipe, suggest an improvement or otherwise. You can also join our Facebook Air Frying group to talk to other like minded air frying enthusiasts!
Thanks for taking the time to do all of this for us. As a retired Truck driver, I spend a lot of time at home helping to raise our kids now and do a lot of the cooking. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Jac
Thanks Jac, glad to hear these recipes come in handy 🙂
Thanks, steak came out fine per your suggestion I only used salt.
If you use the Broil or Roast function it directs more heat on the top browning it better.