Yes, you can make good roast potatoes in the air-fryer. These air fryer potatoes are crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle, and they use a lot less fat than traditional roasties and cook in the air fryer. We guide you through making the air fryer roasties from start to finish.
Potatoes
It all starts with the potatoes. The ones used here are just Tesco’s brand, locally produced. Nothing special, just all-rounder potatoes. These particular ones are grown by Giles Edwards in Hereford. The variety is ‘Nectar’. But you can use whichever variety of potato you have to hand. They will all roast up nicely in the air-fryer.
Peel
Peel the potatoes. You don’t need to whittle down the potatoes to fries; remove most of the skin. A French peeler (Amazon) is easy to use, cheap to buy and dishwasher safe. It makes short work of peeling potatoes for roasting. At this point, you can also cut the potatoes. You want them all around the same size. No need to cut the smaller ones; the larger ones can be cut in half. Huge ones may need to be quartered.
Par Boil
To get the best roasties, you should parboil them. The parboiling will partially cook them to make the inside fluffy. You can also get a rough surface that better browns up in the air fryer. The parboil is not to thoroughly cook the potatoes, and you only want part cooking.
Place the peeled and cut potatoes into a pan of cold water. Place a lid on the pan and heat the water. Boil for 5 minutes and check with a sharp knife. Poke the potato and if it resists the knife, give it another 5 minutes and check again. When the potato gives less resistance to the knife, they are parboiled. Don’t overcook, as they will mush up later.
Drain and Shake
With the potato par boiled, drain off the water.
I like to keep the water for cooking other veg, reconstitute stuffing mix or making gravy from granules. As they roasties are often cooked as an accompaniment the water may be useful for some or all of the other cooking jobs.
One of my tips
Sprinkle salt on the drained potatoes and let some of the steam escape. Place the lid on the pan and shake the potatoes. This will rough up the outside of the parboiled potato to help with the browning. Start with a gentle shake and shake more if necessary. This will all depend on how much parboiling you did and the type of potato you used. This is why you check the part way of the boiling and the same for the shaking.
Remove the pan lid and allow more steam to escape.
Air Fry
It is now time to air fry the roast potatoes. Add plenty of fat to the air fryer, two or 3 tablespoons for 12 roast potatoes. Pre-heating the air fryer is unnecessary, but you may have just removed the chicken, and it will already be hot. These potatoes don’t mind if you don’t pre-heat the air fryer. Add the potatoes into the air fryer basket with the oil and close the drawer. Set the temperature to 190°C or 375°F and time to 25 minutes.
Don’t over crowd the air fryer basket with potatoes. The air needs to flow around and below them to pick up and atomise the oil. This will make them crispy. If potatoes are touching, move them so they are not to allow all of them to fully roast.
Another of my air fryer tips
After about 15 minutes, open the basket and turn each potato over. You should see a light and darker side to the now-developing roasties. After 10 minutes, they should be done. You can add more time if you think they need more but be aware of the other things you may be resting/cooking.
Program
If you have a ‘Roast’ button or roasting program feature, now is the time to use it. Don’t worry if you only have the air-fry option; this works perfectly for roasties.
Serve
When the 25 minutes is up, they can be ready to serve. Hot roast potatoes with a soft centre and crisp outside. All with less fat and less oven time. Cheaper to cook, and it doesn’t seem so bad to make roast potatoes midweek in the air-fryer.
Cooking Times
The roast potatoes can take around 25 minutes at 190°C / 375°F in the air fryer. Check on them to turn them over after about 15 minutes. You will then see how well they are browning up.
The parboiling takes about 10 minutes but check regularly with a knife to ensure you don’t thoroughly cook them. You want them to become less resistant to a knife.
Leaving the potatoes longer with the lid off to stop steaming can help make them more crispy in the air fryer.
Larger potatoes take more parboiling, and keeping them a similar size ensures they all cook at the same rate.
