Can you cook Ready Meals in air fryer
If the ready meal can fit, then it can be cooked in an air fryer with the benefit of faster cooking time and less fuss when it comes to preparation.
You know what if its safe to cook in an oven then a ready meal is safe to be heated in an air fryer. Follow the oven-cooking instructions only with an option to cook the food a 5 mins. off the recommended oven time. Handle with care with an option to substitute the film lid with tin foil to wrap around the tray.
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What people often overlook with use of an air fryer, is its ability to cook all kinds of ready meal food options, as instructed to in a conventional oven.
With no difference when it comes to heating up a chilled or frozen ready meal in an air fryer, you can cook any Indian, Italian, British or American cuisine like your always have in the oven - perhaps with a little less fuss, and a little faster in an air fryer.
Nothing to it really, position your ready meal container inside the basket, then proceed to air fry by carefully following the oven instructions.
If the cooking instructions tell you to microwave-heat only, then this particular ready meal won't be safe to be put in an oven, let alone an air fryer.
Don't rush ahead and begin air frying your ready meal, because like most oven and microwave meals, there is always a little preparation to be done.
Pierce the film lid several times as expected, but I wouldn't recommend you fully remove the film lid, even if the instructions tell you to.
Heat coming off the heating element on the air fryer can quickly brown the food in the tray, and therefore the film lid can delay browning - and also delay over-cooking - the ready meal food, so keep the film lid firmly in place.
As cooking in an air fryer progresses, naturally the plastic film lid will want to come off, thus exposing the food under the lid. In which case you'd want to rip the film lid off, and re-cover it again, but this time in firmly wrapped around foil.
With cooking instructions telling us to pierce the film lid, it would therefore be a good idea to pierce the foil several time to allow steam to escape.
Make the most of your air fryer by cooking just about anything imaginable in it, starting with what should be quick and easy ready meals... and it doesn't get quicker and easier than air fried ready meals.
Safe for oven, safe for air fryer
As a rule of thumb when it comes to cooking any food in an air fryer, is if it can be cooked in a conventional oven, then it can absolutely be air fried.
If its safe for an oven, then you can cook just about anything in an air fryer providing the ready meal plastic containers can safely sit flat in the basket.
Never force a ready meal tray in an air fryer that's too small, because food will spill gradually as its thaws - if air fried from frozen - and will spill instantly when sliding in the tray at an angle - if indeed its a chilled ready meal that features a wet sauce.
Ready meal trays can be exposed to extreme heat within an oven and thus there's no difference between an air fryer and oven.
With ready meal trays mostly made in a soft plastic, additional trays can be made in oven-proof but environmentally-friendly cardboard which can go in an air fryer; and now can the made in wood, lined with paper trays to safely heated up within an air fryer.
NOTE: Check ready meal is piping hot before serving, by poking a fork in the centre whilst feeling the steel with your tongue or finger to be sure its hot enough.
How to air fry a typical Ready Meal
Allow me to take you through oven-cooking instructions of my recent Indian ready meal, a Chicken Korma and rice. Oven cook at 200°C/400°F for 30 minutes; carefully pull back film lid, add 2 tablespoons of water on rice; stir and recover - heat for a further 15 minutes - for a total of 45 minutes of cooking time in the oven.
What that that translates to when cooking in an air fryer is essentially 10 minutes or so less cooking time, with the rest of the above oven-cooking instructions followed precisely.
How to cook most ready meals - which could feature a rice - will expect you to air fry as following, with changes made according to your ready meal:
Prepare
- STEP 1: Remove Cardboard Sleeve - Obviously the sleeve must be removed but put it to the side to retain the cooking instructions
- STEP 2: Pierce film lid several times - Pop a few holes in the film lid with a fork if using the film lid; although I recommend you replace the film lid with a makeshift foil lid
- STEP 3: Centre in air fryer basket - Place the ready meal plastic container in the air fryer basket where it fits
- STEP 4: Close basket to begin - You must close the air fryer basket so you can set the temperature and time
NOTE: It would be vital you peel off the film lid and replace it with a custom foil lid while poking holes in that instead, as the plastic film lid won't last the full cooking time.
How to air fry
- STEP 1: Set temp to [Your Oven Instructions]; Reduced time by 10 Mins. - Dial in the recommended temperature as featured on your ready meal packaging - reducing the oven-time by 5-10 minutes
- STEP 2: Halfway peel film lid back; add 2 tablespoons of water to rice - If your ready meal features rice, you may be required to peel back film lid - or a foil lid if you replaced the film - to add water to the rice compartment
- STEP 3: Air fry for remaining time - Slide the air fryer basket back in and cook the ready meal for the final minutes
- STEP 4: Pull out of basket; stir and serve - Decanter ready meal plastic container by tipping basket to the side, stir the meal and serve
NOTE: Additional items of food can be added to the air fryer along with your ready meal if there's room, thus you can cook two things at once in an air fryer like I did by adding onion bhajis along with a little naan bread.
Chilled vs. frozen difference
With the chance to air fry just about any microwave and oven-made ready meal, and that is only if it fits, we shouldn't forget the difference between chilled and frozen ready meals.
Where you'll be instructed to cook your frozen or chilled ready meal with the oven instructions, follow them exactly in the air fryer. Its easy to forget there's a difference between the two, thus its important cook via the chilled or frozen instructions.
If the cooking instructions indicate 'cook from chilled only,' this means ready meal must be thawed out - before it can be heated up in an air fryer - and that applies to ready meals that must be 'air fried from frozen only.'
Chilled or frozen ready meal plastic trays in particular are expected to deform as they cook, with the trays becoming solid again when they are out of the oven or microwave - and sat on the worktop for 1-2 minutes.
What NOT to do
Its all well and good placing the ready meal in the air fryer than forgetting all about until the times up, but its vitally important to keep an eye on proceedings the whole time.
With that I've listed what is expected to go wrong when air frying a chilled or frozen meal sat inside a shallow plastic tray, so you can hopefully prevent it happening to you.
Never peel film lid to far back
Remember its possible the film lid you are sometimes required to peel back on certain dishes featuring rice for example, will become hazardous as its now possible it will touch the air fryer heating element.
To avoid this kind of mishap ever happening, peel back the film lid in the corner about as much as needed to add water, then the film lid won't be pulled back enough to touch the heating element - and if it does it will absolutely burn.
Why not completely remove the flimsy plastic film lid and replace it with a sturdy foil lid, of which you must form around the top of your ready meal container to keep in place.
Avoid exposed loose food pieces
Cook ready meals in an air fryer where all food compartments - or just the one big compartment - is secured under the original film lid or replacement foil.
Air fryers circulate a powerful air flow within the air fryer itself, thus any loose food pieces, such as rice, will possibly blow inside the ready meal tray while being thrown all around the air fryer interior - which will result in food hitting the heating element.
Safer option will include replacing all plastic foil lids with a foil which must be secured itself, like folding the foil under the ready meal tray lip.
Handle HOT ready meal tray with bare hands
One major issue you will experience while air frying practically any kind of oven-safe ready meal in an air fryer, is its hard to handle the ready meal tray, than it is to slide on and off a baking tray if cooked in the oven.
Be it a made in plastic or foil oven-proof tray/dish, this container is going to be hot to handle, and thus very difficult to handle when sat in an air fryer. Have a double-folded tea towel on hand to grab the tray when you need to pull it in and out of the basket.
Forget to sit ready meal on foil or parchment paper
Not at all important from a safety standpoint but its worth remembering, ready meals can spill or boil over the tray in an air fryer, just as they do in the oven.
Its worth sitting the ready meal tray on a sheet of parchment paper or foil to catch any spillages, then you can save yourself 5 or so minutes cleaning up the basket or air fryer interior, when you are done eating your ready meal.
Summarise
With any ready meal safe to go in an oven, it will of course be safe to be cooked in an air fryer if it can be firmly sat on the base of the basket or bottom of the basket.
What can withstand the heat of the oven - with the ready meal trays included - can be cooked as long as it takes to cook in the air fryer.
Most of you will only think to add loose food like chips or even nuggets to an air fryer, when in fact air fryers can be operated closely to a conventional oven.
Which means if the ready meal tray fits in the basket of your air fryer, then you can cook the ready meal in the air fryer.
To be on the safe side, you will want to cook the ready meal, be it frozen or chilled, as instructed to with the oven instructions featured on the cardboard of the ready meal. If the cooking instructions indicate microwave only, then you cannot air fry at this time.
Make like easy be grabbing what will be a super hot ready meal plastic container by handling it with a tea towel, with the option to slide the ready meal tray out of the basket by tipping it slowly over to one side.
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