How to make Thanksgiving stuffing in an air fryer

Welcome to AirFryDay, where — you guessed it —every Friday Mashable covers the latest trends, dispenses advice, and reviews recipes for your air fryer.

Here’s a little secret about air fryers — you can cook anything in them. I’m not saying you can cook any food well in an air fryer, but the machine is effectively a convection oven…and you can cook just about anything in an oven.

I mean, hell, I just made a Thanksgiving turkey in the air fryer. So…what about stuffing? The answer is easy. Yes, of course you can make a Thanksgiving stuffing in an air fryer. And it can actually turn out to be pretty tasty.

But why would you make stuffing in the air fryer? Well maybe it’s the only cooking method you have, or your oven’s full, or — I don’t know — you just want to. Whatever the case, we’ve created a recipe of sorts that uses an air fryer, and only an air fryer, to make stuffing. No pans, no stovetop, no baking dish. Before we get into the details, let’s go over the ingredients and basic directions.

Ingredients

• White bread – Five slices, cubed. This creates about three to four servings. I made a small batch, about three servings, because I had only a small air fryer on hand. Just multiply the ingredients top make a bigger batch.

• Egg – one egg, beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper

• Half of a small onion – diced

• One garlic clove – finely minced

• Celery – two ribs, chopped

• Sage – a heaping handful, finely chopped

• Thyme – as much as your heart desires

• Chicken broth – roughly one cup. Or veggie broth.

• Italian sausage – about one to two links (optional)

• Butter – one and a half tablespoons, melted

Directions

1. Do all your chopping, dicing, and prepping, setting the ingredients aside.

2. Preheat your air fryer to 340 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Toss your cubed bread into the air fryer. It doesn’t even have to be preheated fully. Cook the bread for just a few minutes, tossing the contents of the basket frequently. You’re looking for a light toast on the bread so it holds up to the moisture of the chicken broth later. My bread was ready in about three minutes. Remove it when finished and place in a large mixing bowl.

4. Slice your sausage links open, then using your fingers, break off nickel-sized lumps of sausage.

5. When the air fryer is preheated, drop your sausage lumps into the air fryer. And let them cook for at least five minutes. Basically keep an eye on it, but you want the sausage pretty much cooked through and just beginning to crisp.

6. While the sausage is cooking, place the rest of your ingredients — egg, onion, garlic, celery, sage, thyme, and broth — in the bowl holding the bread. Season with salt and pepper.

7. When you feel the sausage is done, remove it from the air fryer. Dump the sausage in the bowl and mix well, until all the ingredients are evenly incorporated.

8. Pack the stuffing into the air fryer basket, patting and shaping it with your hands. Air fry at 340 degrees for at least six minutes.

9. After six minutes, check on your stuffing. If the top looks very crisp, reduce the heat to about 280 degrees and cook for at least ten more minutes. If it does not look super crisp, cook for another few minutes until the top looks very crispy.

10. Keep cooking the stuffing at 280 degrees until you can dip the backside of a fork, or a toothpick, into the center of the stuffing and it is no longer mushy. Spoon it out and enjoy.

The details

Here’s the thing you need to know about this stuffing recipe: You would get better results doing a more labor-intensive, traditional way of cooking. But this air fryer recipe is for simplicity and ease. That’s why I insisted on two things: 1. All the cooking had to be done in the air fryer. And 2. I wouldn’t just stuff a baking dish into an air fryer.

Lots of air fryer stuffing recipes you’ll find online suggested one or the other and, to me, that’s cheating. You gotta do the whole thing in the air fryer, like any other air fryer dish.

So, first things first, I think it’s really important to get everything chopped, cut, prepped, melted, etc. This recipe is so simple if you’re fully ready to go. Here’s everything prepped and in dishes.

Raw egg! Broth. Bread and butter.
Credit: Mashable

A quick note: You’re to want to mince the garlic and herbs as finely as possible — you want it to spread evenly throughout the dish. Also, the dice on the onion and celery should be pretty small as well. Since we’re not cooking the veggies in a pan before putting it into the stuffing, you run the risk of raw vegetables if they’re cut into big chunks.

Once that’s all prepped you’re going to toast the bread. You should already have the air fryer preheated to 340. Once you dump in the bread, shake it every 30 seconds or so. Pull it out and dump it into a large bowl when the cubes start to get a light brown toast to them. The should look something like this.

The lightest of light toasts on this bread.
Credit: Mashable

Next it’s time to pre-cook the sausage. Those small lumps of sausage should cook in no time at all. Drop them in the basket and let them air fry, undisturbed for at least three to four minutes at 340 degrees. While the sausage is cooking dump the rest of the ingredients into the big bowl with the toasted bread. Give it a nice mix. You want to see herbs spread throughout the entire mixture. The egg, broth, and butter should moisten the mixture throughout as well. When the 3-4 minutes are up, you should be able to shake the basket and the sausage will release from the cooking surface. It’ll start to look something like this.

Not ready yet, but pretty close.
Credit: Mashable

Cook the sausage until done or at least 145 degrees internal temperature. It only took me a few minutes more. You want to see the sausage begin to really brown. And you can’t really overcook the sausage, it’s just going into a stuffing so don’t stress.

Dump the cooked sausage in the same bowl as the rest of the stuff, mix it around very well, and throw it in the air fryer basket. I was working with a tiny air fryer this week, so I had no space to leave gaps for airflow, but, if you’re able, leave some space on the surface of your basket for air to circulate. This’ll help ensure crispy stuffing all around. Here’s how my uncooked stuffing looked.

Ready to air fry.
Credit: Mashable

Air fry at 340 degrees for at least six minutes. If the top is starting to look very crispy, turn the temperature down to about 280 degrees. If it still needs some crisping, let the high heat go for longer. When you feel like things look sufficiently crispy, reduce the heat to 280 degrees and cook the stuffing for probably at least 10 more minutes. You want to be able to put the back of a fork into it and no longer feel a ton of mush. In fact, if I were to redo the air fryer stuffing I probably would have cooked mine even a bit longer. It looked something like this.

Crispy on the edges! Not bad.
Credit: Mashable

And here it is, scooped on a plate.

Is it gorgeous plating? Absolutely not. But it was tasty.
Credit: Mashable

The verdict? A wholehearted pretty good. Stuffing is my absolute favorite part of Thanksgiving. For me, it’s the main attraction. So I would probably take the time to cook the veggies and slow bake the stuffing if left to my own devices. I just think you get a better, more cohesive dish. But, if you’re in a pinch, or cooking in a college dorm or something, this isn’t bad at all. The interior of my stuffing probably needed a few more minutes of cook time, but otherwise, it was savory, delicious stuffing. The crispy edges were fantastic, the veggies added a small crunch. It was 100 percent pretty good stuffing. I’ll take that.

So there you have it, decent stuffing done entirely in the air fryer. If you find yourself in a pinch on Thanksgiving, you could certainly do worse.