How to make the best air fryer french fries
Air fryer french fries
Looking for the perfect french fries out of your air fryer? This recipe makes for the fluffiest interior and crispiest exterior.
Ingredients
- 2 medium russet /Idaho potatoes
- Vegetable oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Peel and rinse potatoes, then thinly slice into French fries
- Submerge sliced fries in cold water for 30-60 minutes
- Drain fries, pat dry with paper towels
- Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, ensure fries are evenly coated
- Season fries with salt
- Preheat air fryer to 350F
- Cook fries at 350F for ten minutes
- Toss fries half way through cooking
- Remove from fryer, place on paper towles and allow to cool for thirty minutes or until they reach room temperature
- Preheat air fryer to 400F
- Cook fries at 400F for twelve minutes
- Toss fries half way through cooking
- Season to taste and serve immediately
Notes
There are a few extra steps with this recipe but it's worth it in my opinion, to ensure the perfect french fries from the air fryer.
Choosing a potato for French fries
First start with a drier potato like a Russet/Idaho spud; a Yukon gold woudl work well too. These potatoes have less moisture, which is the enemy when air frying. As the water heats it turns to steam which hurts the fryuing process. No one wants a steamed French fry!
Prepping potatoes for French fries
A consistent and thin cut is needed to make excellent french fries. This is easy to do by hand as long as you take your time. Easier still is using a mandolin to cut the fries precisely. In the recipe above I've peeled the potatoes, but some prefer skin on. Whatever you choose the cooking time is unaffected.
Soaking fries in water before cooking
The next step is to rinse and soak the fries to remove excess surface starch. When you first add the fries to water you'll see how the water is cloudy. After you've soaked and rinsed them, it should run clear. Make sure to pat them dry. Again, moisture is the devil. A dry fry is a crisp fry! Some people soak their fries for several hours for the very best results. Just be sure to soak the chopped fries, not the whole potato, as this allows for maximum surface area to be soaked.
Why bother with this step? Surface starch on potatoes can act as a barrier to escaping moisture. Again this can lead to suboptimal frying results and also disoloration.
Why cook french fries twice?
There's plenty of cold hard science behidn this one. This is a popular technique used in frying a variety of foods - and again it's all about managing the moisture problem. By cooking the fries at a lower temp, we let more of the moisture escape before the serious business begins. A drier potato means a crispier potato when we get to air frying at 400F in the second step.
Cooking french fries in the air fryer
Evenly coating the fries in oil and not over crowding the fryer basket is important too. If you load up your fryer basket to the brim they just aren't going to cook as good. To get a good coating of oil I like to add them to a plastic container, pour over the oil and salt then put the lid on securely, I can then (carefuly) rattle the container vigorously for 20 seconds, et voila, perfectly even coated spuds!
This recipe is based of using the COSORI Air Fryer (5.8QT model, affiliate link).
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.
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