Air Fryer Ribeye Creates A Ton Of Smoke Unless You Add One Tablespoon Of This

"Air fryer steak" is a phrase that can make a lot of people really uncomfortable. You're probably imagining a gray and rubbery hunk of meat. Worse yet, some people have even reported their air fryer starting to smoke when they tried preparing the steak. Well, we feel like we have to defend air fryer ribeye's honor — it can turn out surprisingly good with the embarrassingly simple fix of adding a tablespoon of water into the basket.

Ribeye is a heavily marbled cut. It's what makes it so good in the first place, but all that fat has to go somewhere when the heat hits. In a standard air fryer basket, rendered fat drips straight to the bottom (which is already very hot) and scorches on contact. That's your burning smell, and if it gets bad enough, you'll see smoke rolling out of the machine. All that smoke's going to rob the steak of all its flavor before it even finishes cooking. That's where water earns its keep. 

Water cools the falling fat as it hits the hot surface and keeps fat from burning. Without any scorched fat, there would be no smoke, either. You also get the benefit of a gentle steam that keeps the steak succulent during cooking, too. The result is a ribeye that's more tender and far juicier than anything you'd expect from an air fryer steak.

Once you've gotten the technique down, a few easy upgrades can turn a great air fryer ribeye into an excellent one. Before the steak even hits the appliance, give it a slow dry brine. Simply salt the steak and leave it uncovered in the fridge for an hour or two, if you're in a hurry — for best results, let it do its thing overnight. The salt pulls surface moisture out, then reabsorbs it deeper into the meat, seasoning it from the inside out. It'll also relax the muscle tissues and give you a far more tender bite.

While the steak brines, make a compound butter. Combine softened unsalted butter, chopped rosemary, minced garlic, and a pinch of salt, before rolling into a log and refrigerating until firm. A coin of this on top of a freshly prepared air fryer steak, and the butter will turn up the flavor far better than the classic sprinkle of finishing salt and pepper on top.

Now, when the air fryer pings, your impulse will be to cut right in — don't. Give it five to ten minutes under a foil tent to let the juices redistribute so they end up in the steak and not all over your plate. This technique, paired with adding water to the fryer basket, dry brining, and finishing with compound butter, stacks up into a steak that can hold up even better than anything you'd get from a traditional grill or stovetop.