Can you cook a full English breakfast in an air fryer? I put it to the test

While most people know air fryers are a dab hand at simple things like chips and chicken goujons, you may not be aware that the best air fryers can handle much more than that. They’re even capable of cooking full meals. One such meal, and one of the most frequently sought after air fryer recipes, is a full English breakfast, with many people wondering if an air fryer can tackle items like eggs, beans and bacon. As an air fryer tester and reviewer who likes to try new things, I was excited to take on this challenge and to devise a recipe for a quick, tasty and relatively healthy full air fryer breakfast.

To learn a little bit more about how air fryers work and what advantages they offer for cooking breakfast, check out our short explainer below. If you’re already up to speed and want to get straight to cooking, you can jump to the recipe further down the page.

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What is an air fryer and how does it work?

Air fryers operate similarly to a convection oven, using a heating element and powerful fans to rapidly circulate hot air, ensuring the maximum amount of food surface area comes into contact with heat. The majority of air fryers are basket-style models, which have single cooking drawers that pull out from the front of the appliance. Other common setups include dual drawer air fryers, tabletop oven-style models that open via a hinged door and multi cookers with air frying capabilities. Cheaper air fryers have limited functionality, but mid-range and more expensive models can add extra cooking settings as well as accessories that make them more versatile.

While they may work similarly to an oven, air fryers have a number of advantages that make them attractive options for cooking breakfast:

• Speed: Powerful coils and fans working in conjunction with their more compact cooking areas mean that air fryers are generally speedier operators.

• Healthier cooking: Due to their quick, concentrated cooking abilities, air fryers are able to achieve well-cooked crispy results with much less cooking oils than frying and traditional oven cooking, making for healthier meals overall.

• Lower energy use: Once again, the air fryer’s speed and efficiency proves advantageous, as it means it ultimately uses less energy than traditional oven cooking.

• Sync functionality: Many dual-basket air fryers have a sync setting, which, when activated, makes it so that both compartments finish cooking at the same time – regardless of cook time and temperature. This changes cooking a full English from a bit of a plate spinning routine into an easy set-and-forget task.

How to cook a full breakfast in an air fryer

For a quick visual guide, check out our handy video recipe. We’ve also included an ingredients list and written instructions below the video.

What you’ll need

• An air fryer, ideally a dual-basket model
• Two air fryer-safe ramekins
• Spray cooking oil
• Bacon
• Hash browns
• Tin of beans
• Chipolatas or sausages

Instructions

1. Remove both drawers from your air fryer and get your ingredients ready. If you’re following along using a single-drawer air fryer, you may need to use less of each item to ensure you have enough room for everything – you’ll also want to add the egg and beans a little later into the cook time to compensate for the differences in temperature.

2. Spray your first basket with some cooking oil, then add your hash browns and chipolatas. I like to use chipolatas because they’re thinner and tend to cook at the same rate as the other items we’re using. Once they’re in your basket, set your air fryer to 180° for 15 minutes.

3. When there are 10 minutes left on your first basket, add some slices of bacon.

4. For your second basket, use your spray oil to prepare two air fryer-safe ramekins. Add a small tin of beans to one ramekin and crack a single egg into the other. Add your second basket and set it to cook at 150° for seven minutes. Note: If you have an air fryer with a basket-syncing function, you can use this at the start of cooking to ensure everything finishes at the same.

5. Voila! All that’s left to do is to pop open your drawers and plate up. I tested the above ingredients because they’re my favourite breakfast foods, but you can experiment with your own ideal items. When cooking things like tomatoes and mushrooms, for example, I would recommend covering them in foil and popping them in alongside everything else. Enjoy!