I have been making succulent hen and tender salmon in my air fryer for years now, however solely not too long ago 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 may make a superbly 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 came upon the simple means which you can make an incredible burger (plus, toast a bun and cook 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 it’s good to know to get optimum outcomes when cooking a burger within the air fryer.
The right way to make the proper air fryer burger
I consulted a wide range 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 via for even outcomes, with totally different timings relying on the dimensions of your required doneness.
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The air fryer works by circulating scorching air in its contained chamber, in order a matter of curiosity, your air fryer burger will cook dinner reverse to what you’d see on a sauté pan, with the uncovered facet of the burger cooking extra rapidly and changing 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.)
Air fryers require little or no cleanup
Nicely, that was straightforward. In each circumstances the patties cooked evenly, with an final result that was medium in doneness. (You’ll be able to simply experiment together with your mannequin and very best burger patty dimension to seek out the exact timings in your most popular diploma of doneness.) The recent air circulation even managed to provide a little bit of caramelized crust on one facet. As a result of I may, even with a small, single-household air fryer, I put in a few strips of bacon with the only burger patty, since crispy, spatter-free bacon is one other wonderful use for an air fryer — to not point out an distinctive burger topping.
Talking of spatter-free, that is the only most compelling motive 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 throughout 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 Greatest (and Cleanest) Method to Prepare dinner it
Stil, there are some drawbacks to air fryer burgers
The air fryer is not excellent in the case of burgers, and the drawbacks as I skilled are twofold. First, since you may’t actually entry the patty whereas it cooks, you are unable to smash it down in such a means that it does not shrink up considerably whereas cooking. Since an English muffin is the perfect burger containment methodology — I can’t be contemplating opposing viewpoints presently — this did not hassle me a lot, for the reason that ensuing patty suits the supposed vessel completely. Anticipate shrinkage when contemplating the dimensions of your patty earlier than cooking.
Second, if you happen to’re like me and imagine {that a} burger with out cheese is not value consuming, issues get a bit of extra sophisticated. Due to the air circulation motion of the air fryer, it is laborious to anchor cheese on prime for a fast soften on the finish of the method. My first try with a sliced single, a great 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.
My second try the place a slice was halved and layered for further 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 may occasionally simply be a quirk of my mannequin, however I might be ready to experiment. I would not even take into account shredded cheese on prime of a patty, however I completely would take into account a cheese-stuffed burger, which ought to work properly.