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Bye bye, fast food! You won’t need the drive-thru anymore if you have a bag of frozen french fries and an Air Fryer! The Air Fryer crisps up ready-made french fries better than anything, and they truly taste deep-fried. If you’re looking for homemade air fryer french fries, you’ll love our crispy fast-food style recipe!
Before You Get Started
- You most likely will NOT need to cook your fries a full 25 minutes! That’s why we have you check on the fries every 5 minutes. We also included a list of estimated cook times for a variety of different types and styles of frozen french fries. Most types of fries will be ready after 10-12 minutes in the air fryer.
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
Prep.
Preheat your air fryer to 400° Fahrenheit, then spray the basket with a neutral-flavored oil that’s safe for air fryers. From there, load up your frozen fries and start cooking!
Shake & bake… & shake.
The most important part of this whole process is that you pause the air fryer, take out the basket, and shake or toss the fries every 3-5 minutes. It’s non-negotiable! If you don’t, you will definitely, absolutely burn your fries.
Cheryl’s Tips: Adjust the cook time depending on how crispy you like your fries or how thick they are. For softer or thinner fries, decrease the time. For crispier or thicker fries, increase it.
I cooked my fries (crinkle cut) at the specified temp, gave them a shake twice and stopped the cooking 4 min. earlier. They came out crispy and perfect.
What I Love About This Recipe
- Air frying french fries is perfect because there’s no messy oil to deal with like when you deep fry them. They’re also amazingly crispy, which is not always the case if you bake fries in the oven. Light and simple, with really incredible results. What could be better?
- Not only is this method unbelievably easy, and the results are unbelievably perfect, but it’s also a super fast way to get a batch of your dream french fries. You don’t even need to defrost the fries first – just take them right out of the freezer and plop them right into the air fryer basket.
- Don’t be afraid to get a little creative! Frozen french fries make a great base for a variety of things. If you want to enjoy the fries on their own, you can still dress them up with any of your favorite seasonings. Try garlic or onion powder, seasoned salt, or even chipotle powder for fries with a kick. If you want to take them to the next level, though, then load the cooked fries up with your favorite condiments and toppings. Like nachos, but with fries! We did a fun twist on that with our Baked Brie and Steak Cheese Fries and oh, man, are they good.
Regarding Cook Times & Temperatures
This method was tested and perfected using both a Chefman basket-style air fryer and a Cosori basket-style air fryer. In both, we cooked our fries at 400°F for 20 minutes total.
Every air fryer behaves differently, though – even two of the exact same model.
Be sure to keep an eye on the fries the first time or two you cook them this way, and make any adjustments to the cook time or the temperature that you need to make based on your specific air fryer.
Toaster-oven-style air fryers tend to take a little longer than basket-style. The age of your air fryer can affect the results, too. Newer air fryers can cook hotter and faster than older ones.
Recipe Variations
- Find Your Style: You can cook any type, any flavor, any cut, and any number of frozen french fries in the air fryer. Seasoned fries? Check. Curly fries? YES, PLEASE. Steak fries? You bet! Shoestring fries? As long as they’re not so small they fall through the basket.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Air Fryer Frozen French Fries
Equipment
- air fryer basket-style or oven-style
- neutral spray oil must be safe for air fryers
Ingredients
- 1 bag frozen french fries
- salt or other seasonings, optional
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 400° Fahrenheit. Once air fryer is preheated, lightly spray basket with neutral oil, covering bottom and sides of basket completely.
- Add 1 bag frozen french fries to basket. Lightly spray tops of fries with additional oil.
- Sprinkle salt or other seasoning over fries if desired, then place basket in air fryer. Air fry french fries 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, remove basket from air fryer. Shake basket well to toss fries. If fries are not yet cooked to desired doneness, return basket to air fryer. Cook fries 2 to 5 minutes more.
- After 2 to 5 minutes, remove basket from air fryer. Shake basket well to toss fries. If fries are not yet cooked to desired doneness, return basket to air fryer.
- Repeat process as needed until fries are cooked as desired. Important: Pause cooking to shake basket and check fries every 3 to 5 minutes or fries will overcook.
- When fries are as cooked as desired, remove basket from air fryer.
- Transfer prepared french fries to plate or bowl. Repeat entire process with any remaining fries until desired number of fries has been cooked.
- Serve fries hot with desired condiments and/or toppings.
- ❗️Important: You MUST shake the basket every 5 minutes! This helps the fries cook evenly, which will also reduce the chances of them overcooking. Taking the basket out of the air fryer also gives you a great opportunity to check the doneness of the fries, so you can be sure they’re not getting crispier than you like.
Suggested Cook Times
Different types of fries will cook differently. For example, shoestring fries would not need the same cook time as steak fries since they’re much smaller and thinner. In general, start with the cook times below and adjust as needed. If you’re cooking multiple batches of fries, keep in mind that the later batches will need less time to cook than the earlier batches.- Shoestring Fries: 6-10 minutes
- Waffle Fries (a.k.a. Lattice Fries): 10-12 minutes
- Crinkle-cut Fries: 10-12 minutes
- Curly Fries: 10-12 minutes
- Steak Fries: 12-15 minutes
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
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My frozen crinkle cut French fries came out perfect! Thanks so much for the instructions.
So glad to hear! Thanks for sharing, Helen. 🙂
Great results!
One of our favorites! Thanks so much for your feedback, Beatrice!
Super yummy my 1st time using my new air fryer thanks so very much!
Thank you, Lorrieanne! You’ll be hooked on that air fryer before you know it!
Too many ads. And – what’s “neutral” cooking spray?
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“Neutral” spray oil just means any spray oil that has a neutral flavor. That way the flavor of the oil doesn’t overpower the flavor of the food. ☺️
I cooked my fries (crinkle cut) at the specified temp, gave them a shake twice and stopped the cooking 4 min. earlier. They came out crispy and perfect. Thank you.
So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the feedback!
My air fryer has a flat basket. Do u still recommend spraying the basket with oil.
Yes, definitely!