Here’s how to make a perfect grilled cheese in an air fryer

It may be called a “grilled” cheese, but the next time you are craving this comfort food staple, you might just want to break out your air fryer.

Cooking a grilled cheese in an air fryer not only toasts the bread and melts the cheese perfectly, but it also gives you the ideal balance of crispy-on-the-outside and gooey-on-the-inside texture. Basically, it’s the total opposite of microwaving a grilled cheese, which results in the saddest, limpest sandwich you’ll ever see.

Blogger Cindy Gordon at Vegetarian Mamma has come up with a simple recipe to make the best grilled cheese sandwich in an air fryer. You can use any type of bread and cheese that you’d like for the air fryer grilled cheese. You could even mix several types of cheeses, like cheddar and goat cheese, if you’re looking for an extra creamy taste, or mozzarella and pepper jack if you’d like a bit of heat.

Whatever ingredients you choose, the keys to making a great grilled cheese in an air fryer are to butter the outside and to make sure the cheese is tucked away inside the sandwich. If any is sticking out, it may end up burned.

Gordon also points out that the air can potentially cause the bread to fly around in the air fryer. If you find that’s the case with your air fryer, you can put a metal rack (or the trivet that came with your air fryer) on top of the sandwich to hold it in place. Check the Vegetarian Mamma blog for the full technique and all her tips!

The best part of making a grilled cheese in the air fryer is that it takes a mere eight minutes to cook! An air fryer does take about three minutes to heat up, though, so take that into account. With a quick prep time, you could be eating your sandwich in a little over 10 minutes. If you or your kids want a perfect sandwich ASAP, this might be the ticket!

For another grilled cheese hack, check out this story about why you might want to spread mayonnaise on the bread instead of butter.

And enjoy your delicious air-fried grilled cheese sandwich!