The Case For Cooking Mac And Cheese In The Air Fryer

The critics who say air fryers are overrated have never made mac and cheese in the appliance, and it shows. Comfort food is always worth being done well, but we often crave it when we're stressed or running short on time, without much energy to cook something from scratch. With an air fryer, the ultimate comfort food of mac and cheese can be made faster than in an oven, without sacrificing flavor or texture.

We spoke to Coco Morante, recipe developer and author of "The Instant Kitchen Meal Prep Cookbook," to get her perspective on this unexpected food that we'd put into an air fryer every single time. "The air fryer is a great option for mac and cheese," she told us, praising the texture of the end result. "You can get a crispy, golden crust on top while the mac underneath stays creamy."

The air fryer can crisp up the dish at the very end or cook it entirely from scratch. "If you're using a recipe that starts with uncooked noodles, you'll want to cover the dish tightly with foil for most of the cooking time," Morante advised, instructing that the foil should be tucked "all the way underneath the dish so that it doesn't come loose during cooking." Don't worry, you won't be compromising the texture. As Morante points out, "When the noodles are cooked through, you can uncover the dish and crank the heat for a few minutes to get that crispy top."

By utilizing the air fryer to make your cheesy macaroni, "you get a really nice caramelized, crispy top with those browned cheese bits that everyone fights over," Morante highlighted, likening the process to "cooking in a turbo charged convection oven." She continued, "Whether you start on the stovetop or do it start to finish in the air fryer, that evenly and quickly crisped texture is a great feature of air frying." But despite this winning texture, the air fryer does have some limitations — mainly the space, as it's much smaller than an oven.

"If you've got a small basket air fryer, you can only fit a small baking dish inside of it," Morante pointed out. She does note that some people have attempted to "remove the cooking rack and pour everything directly into the air fryer basket itself" to gain more cooking capacity, but this method is too hands-on, requiring constant monitoring and stirring. Even with the standard air frying, though, Morante warns the mac and cheese has a greater chance of overcooking "since the heat is so direct and intense." To prevent that, you'll need to slightly modify any oven recipe. "A good rule of thumb is to lower the cooking temperature by 25 degrees Fahrenheit and decrease the cooking time by 25%, as a starting point," she advised. Try it out with our simple mac and cheese (with crunchy topping) recipe.