Air fryers are taking over in the kitchen, but are they capable of taking over from your frying pan as well? We tried cooking fried eggs in our air fryer, the Ninja Crispi, to see how well it would do.
Since we’d successfully managed to cook fried eggs in the microwave, we had high hopes for the air fryer. Let’s give it a go.
Fried eggs in the Ninja Crispi – Attempt one
Firstly, we removed the crisper plate from the small Ninja Crispi container then added a good glug of oil. We were concerned about the eggs sticking so we were quite liberal with the oil.
Once the oil was added, we put the Crispi lid on and heated it on Air Fry for one minute.
Next, we cracked in two eggs, pierced the yolk, topped with a pinch of salt, then replaced the Crispi lid. We set the timer to a cautious two minutes on Air Fry.
Amusingly, the high powered fan blew the eggs round in circles, like we were trying to cook the eggs in a whirlpool. We giggled watching them spin for the full two minutes.
After two minutes, the egg was still raw – not a touch of white in sight. Back on for another two minutes they went. The whites were beginning to cook, and as they did, only the raw layer continued to spin. At the end of the two minutes, only the very top layer was raw. While the whites weren’t done, the yolk had begun to turn a place orange, indicating that it was cooked through.
In an effort to cook the last of the whites, we put the air fryer on for another two minutes. And finally, the whites were cooked.
Attempt one verdict
Surprisingly, the fast spinning gave the fried eggs a great texture; the white were light, airy, and soft. Even more surprisingly, the whites on the bottom of the egg were runny. They weren’t snotty – they were definitely cooked – but they did leave a trail across our potato waffles.
While it sounds strange given how long the top of the whites took to cook, the Ninja Crispi has had similar problems before when cooking without the crisper plate. Our chicken pasta bake and a shepherd’s pie were both lukewarm at the bottom, despite having piping hot tops.
Using these common issues as a guide, attempt two will have the crisper plate in place. The eggs will be cracked into ramekins, like how we did when cooking them in the microwave, to prevent them dripping through the crisper plate. While funny, the ramekins should also stop the eggs from spinning.
At the end of attempt one, we wouldn’t choose to fry eggs in the air fryer over using a frying pan.
Frying the eggs in an air fryer – Attempt two
By placing our egg in a ramekin and cooking it on the crisper plate, hot air will be able to circulate underneath, hopefully solving the runny bottom issue.
And it did. The eggs didn’t whirlpool either. For attempt two, I heated the oil up for two minutes rather than one, and air fried the egg for three minutes.
Attempt two verdict
Despite the oil, the fried egg was hard to remove from the ramekin. A more suitable, air fryer container would be better, but we only had our little ramekin.
The whites were cooked, both top and bottom, and the yolk had a small, runny slither. Similar to the eggs in attempt one, the whites were aeriated and light, giving them a lovely texture.
I’d still choose to cook a fried egg in a frying pan, out of habit mainly, however for speed, frying an egg in the microwave is your best bet.
