The Best Type Of Thermometer To Use With An Air Fryer

Air fryers are amazing tools for cooking, giving you a completely hands-free experience while also freeing up space in the oven or on the stove. And, to top it all off, they're great for getting a crisp finish without using a bucket of oil.

As long as you follow a few basic rules, your air fryer can make delicious crispy fries and roasted vegetables — and it's really great for meat, too. The only problem is that all the intuition for cooking times you've built up over the years goes straight out of the window. Cooking meat in an air fryer is much faster than using an oven and often even quicker than a hot pan, and it can take a while to get used to these new timings.

Luckily, there are tools to help. While the average cooking thermometer is likely to be too slow and bulky to work well with an air fryer, there are some high-tech models perfectly suited for this job. The first type is an instant read thermometer, which can get you a temperature after just one or two seconds. The second type is a wireless leave-in thermometer that allows you to track the temperature from an app on your phone.

Saving time with an instant-read thermometer

When you use them the right way, thermometers can help you cook food safely and accurately, and in the perfect situation, you want to be able to get a temperature reading without disturbing the cooking process. For air fryers, this means opening the drawer as infrequently and for as little as possible, because the temperature drops quickly while it's open.

This is why a normal thermometer isn't ideal — it can sometimes take multiple minutes to get a reading. However, with an instant-read thermometer like the Thermapen ONE, you can get a temperature in literally one second. This allows you to open the draw, stick the thermometer in a few different places, get your readings, and shut the door, all within 20 or 30 seconds.

This will help you follow air fryer recipes with more peace of mind, since you can simply check the doneness rather than cooking for longer just to be safe.

Going pro with a smart meat thermometer

If you're a bit of a perfectionist, you might find yourself wishing you didn't have to open the door at all. For anyone willing to splash a bit of cash, this is also possible. While there are some thermometer probes you can buy with wires that can technically sneak through the doors of some air fryer models, it's far more convenient to just have no wires at all. MEATER thermometers, for example, are completely wireless probes that connect to an app on your phone.

All you do is stick the metal probe into the raw meat, place the meat in the air fryer, and monitor the whole process on your phone. You can choose to get notifications a few minutes before the food is done, and you never have to disturb the cooking process. A lot of the expense here comes from the fact that you need to have a probe in every piece of meat, so families will need quite a few. The XL model with four probes, for example, costs over $300.

If you're looking for a more budget-friendly option than both of these, there are also cheaper instant-read thermometer models on Amazon. It all comes down to how pro you want to go, and how much meat you eat!

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