Air Fryer Accessories That Earn Their Space (and What to Skip)

Walk the accessory aisle — or worse, search "air fryer accessories" — and you'll find 12-piece kits promising to transform your machine: cake barrels, skewer racks, silicone muffin cups in colors not found in nature. Most of it will live in a drawer until you move. An air fryer is a simple machine, and the accessories that matter are the ones that solve a problem you actually have, week after week.

We cook in these things daily. Three accessories earn their counter space. The rest is optional at best.

The honest tradeoff

Every accessory you put in the basket costs you some airflow — and airflow is the whole point of the machine. A liner blocks a little heat from below. A rack crowds the basket. That's why our bar is high: an accessory has to pay back more in convenience, safety, or cleanup than it costs in crispness. These three clear the bar.

Our picks

1. An instant-read thermometer — the one non-negotiable. Air fryers run hotter and faster than ovens, and every basket has hot spots. The difference between "probably done" and done is a two-second probe read, and for chicken cooked around kids or guests, guessing isn't a system. The instant-read thermometer we use costs about as much as one takeout dinner and removes doubt from every meat recipe on this site. If you buy one thing, buy this.

2. Perforated parchment liners — for the food that welds itself to the basket. Marinated wings, glazed salmon, anything with sugar in the sauce: that's liner territory. The key word is perforated — solid parchment blocks the airflow that makes the machine work, and a loose sheet with nothing on it can fly into the heating element. Weigh it down with food, always. We use these 8.5-inch perforated liners on maybe a third of our recipes: the sticky ones, and any time we're cooking allergen-free and want a clean barrier between batches without a full wash.

3. Silicone-tipped tongs — because metal ruins baskets. The non-stick coating on your basket is the first thing to die on any air fryer, and metal utensils are usually the murder weapon. A decent pair of silicone-tipped tongs flips wings and pulls skewers without scratching, and unlike a fork, doesn't tear the crust you spent twenty minutes building.

The material rule: wood, bamboo, silicone — never metal

Here's the thing nobody selling you a shiny stainless "air fryer accessory kit" wants to say out loud: the non-stick coating on your basket is the first thing to die, and metal is what kills it. And a scratched non-stick coating isn't just ugly — it's how the coating chemistry ends up flaking into your dinner. Protect the coating and you protect what you're eating. Same move.

So we have one rule for anything that goes in the basket: natural and non-scratch first. Wood, bamboo, and food-grade silicone. Metal only when nothing else does the job — and in an air fryer, something else always does.

Bamboo tongs and a bamboo utensil set instead of steel. A pair of bamboo tongs turns wings and pulls skewers without ever touching the coating, and there's nothing in a piece of bamboo to shed into your food. Add a bamboo spatula and spoon for lifting and scraping and you've replaced every metal tool that would otherwise be gouging the basket. They're cheap, they stay cool in the hand, and they last for years.

A reusable silicone liner instead of throwaway paper — or unbleached paper when you do reach for it. A food-grade silicone liner gives you non-stick without the coating chemistry, washes in the dishwasher, and never welds a glazed wing to the basket. Buy a perforated one so it doesn't choke the airflow. When you do want disposable — for the truly sticky stuff — skip the bright-white bleached parchment and use unbleached, chlorine-free liners instead. Same job, none of the bleaching. Weigh any loose liner down with food so it can't lift into the heating element.

What to skip

The 12-piece kit. You're paying for the two pieces you'd use anyway, plus ten you won't. Buy the specific tool for the specific problem.

Cake barrels and egg-bite molds. They work — but if you bake often enough to want them, your oven does it better, in sizes people actually eat.

Racks and skewer towers. They promise double capacity and deliver food that steams on the bottom layer while the top burns. Cook in two batches; the second batch takes eight minutes.

"Air fryer" branded oil sprayers. A regular pump sprayer from any kitchen aisle is the same thing. If it says "air fryer" on the label, you're paying for the label.

A routine that works

Thermometer within reach, liners in the drawer for sticky sauces, tongs hanging by the machine. That's the whole setup. Spend the money you saved on better chicken.