If you have recently bought an air fryer, particularly a dual basket model, you will have discovered an important part of air frying equipment, the crisper tray.
The crisper tray is a trivet-like metal plate that sits in the bottom of an air fryer drawer and allows air to circulate around the food which is cooking whilst also allowing fat or excess juices to drip away into the space beneath. Although it is an important part of equipment for achieving crunchy and crisp food it can also be removed and this often causes confusion.
When should you remove the crisper tray from your air fryer?
For most things you cook in the air fryer you will want to leave the crisper tray in the drawer, however as the scope of air fryer cooking widens there are increasing numbers of dishes for which it should be removed
As a general rule take the crisper tray out if you want to place food directly in the drawer and cook it in its own juices, this includes anything wet like lasagne, cottage pie or fajitas, however if you are cooking these in a separate dish you place in the drawer leave the crisper tray in to help air circulate around the dish
You’ll also find there are occasions when you need to remove the crisper tray to give you more height in the drawer, the most common example of this is when you are cooking a whole chicken
And finally you’ll want to take the crisper tray out after every use of the air fryer so that you can fully clean the drawer and access the space beneath it to eliminate fat and juices.
