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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!
What Makes This Recipe So Good
- We love the simplicity and ease of cooking frozen french fries in an air fryer! Plus, there’s no messy oil to deal with – SO much nicer and easier than deep frying! The fries also come out perfectly crispy, which is not always the case if you’re baking them in the oven.
- You can season your fries with different seasonings for a more gourmet snack. Try garlic or onion powder, seasoned salt (mmm, Milo’s salt), or chipotle powder for fries with a kick.
Key Ingredients
Frozen French Fries – 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. You’ll just need to adjust a little as far as cook time and number of batches depending on the size, thickness, and number of fries you’re making.
Chef’s Tips
- You can adjust the cooking time depending on how crispy you like your fries or how thick they are. For softer or thinner fries, decrease time. For crispier or thicker fries, increase it.
- If you’re using an air fryer that doesn’t rotate, toss your fries very, very well midway through. Make sure the fries that are sitting on the bottom of the bowl are scooped up to the top. If your air fryer rotates, be sure to check on the fries halfway to judge how thoroughly cooked they are.
- Do not spray too much oil, or your fries will get mushy!
- Depending on the type of fries you’re cooking and your specific air fryer, the cook time will need to be adjusted. See the notes on the recipe card below for more specific details!
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Perfectly Crispy Air Fryer Frozen French Fries
Ingredients
- 1 bag frozen french fries see Notes
- air-fryer-safe spray oil neutral oil, like avocado or olive
- salt optional
Equipment
- Air fryer
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 400º Fahrenheit. Lightly spray basket with oil and add frozen french fries. Spray fries with oil and sprinkle salt onto fries, if desired.
- Cook fries for 5 minutes, then remove basket and toss/shake well. Check doneness and return to air fryer for another 5 minutes. Repeat, adding 5 minutes as needed until desired doneness is reached, up to 25 minutes total. Be sure to shake basket every 5 minutes and check doneness to avoid overcooking. For softer fries, you'll want to keep the overall cook time low.
- Remove fries from air fryer and repeat with remaining batches if needed. Serve fries hot with desired condiments.
Notes
- Important: You MUST shake the basket every 5 minutes! Shaking it helps the fries cook evenly, which will also reduce the chance of them overcooking. That’s also a great opportunity for you to check the doneness of the fries to make sure they’re not getting crispier than you like!
- Time & Temperature: 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.
- Types of Fries: Different types of fries will also cook differently. 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 cooking multiple batches, the earlier batches will need more time than the later 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
Video
Nutrition Information
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.
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!
Followed the recipe and my fries were burnt. There’s no way this was tested. I have the same air fryer she uses.
I’m so sorry you had this experience, Ashley! We’ve tested this method several times with different brands of air fryers. We actually just retested it last month, and it worked well for us. I’d love to help you troubleshoot this.
Did you check the doneness of the fries and shake the basket every 5 minutes? Or did you cook in one 20-minute chunk? It’s possible your fries and air fryer only needed, say, 10 minutes total to cook the fries to your preference, which is why we recommend checking on them every 5 minutes. Shaking the basket also helps the fries cook evenly.
Were there too many fries in the basket? What type of fries were you using? Different types need different cook times, as mentioned in the Notes section above.
You mentioned you have the same air fryer – is your air fryer new or is it older? New air fryers usually burn hotter and cook faster. We used both a Cosori and a Chefman to test this most recently, but every air fryer differs – even two Cosoris sitting side-by-side can cook differently!
I hope you’ll give this method another try!
Preheated to 400
Cooked for 20 mins
They were 50% black
This cooking time is NOT accurate
Oh, no! I’m so sorry you had that experience, Lila. 20 minutes at 400°F worked well for us in two different air fryers. It sounds like they cooked unevenly – did you make sure to shake the basket every so often? That’s a really important step! Regardless, I’m so sorry that was your experience, and I thank you for the honest feedback!
My air fryer has a flat basket. Do u still recommend spraying the basket with oil.
Yes, definitely!
Mine were starting to burn at 8 minutes. I did preheat my air fryer. Will reduce temperature in the future.
Sorry that happened! Every air fryer is different. Good call to reduce the temp and watch closely in the future. Hope it turns out better!
Ive cooked frozen french fries using my air fryer for the first time pre heated my air fryer put a 2 serving in the basket and cooked on 195 for 25 mins n shook half way through and to say the least they wr overcooked,not sure wt i did wrong.any suggestions to help please.
We cooked them at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. But maybe try cooking them for less time moving forward? You could start at 15 minutes and monitor them closely after that. Hope this helps!