Air Fryer Za'atar Sweet Potato Wedges

Za'atar is two things at once — a wild herb that grows across the hills of the Levant, and the green-and-rust spice blend named for it: dried thyme and oregano, tart purple sumac, and toasted sesame seeds, ground together in proportions every family argues over. It's not a special-occasion seasoning. It's breakfast, smeared with olive oil onto warm flatbread from Palestine to Lebanon to Jordan, and it goes onto eggs, labneh, roasted vegetables, and anything else that will hold still. Tasting good za'atar is one of the fastest ways to understand how central tartness and toasted seed are to Levantine cooking.

On sweet potato wedges, za'atar does something quietly brilliant: the sumac's sourness cuts the potato's sugar, and the toasted sesame plays against the caramelized edges. The honest tradeoff with the air fryer is the usual one — an oven full of oil or a deep fry gives a more uniform crackle, and a bare-bones air fry can leave the very center a touch softer than a chip-shop wedge. A teaspoon of cornstarch closes most of that gap. What you keep is the good part: one whole vegetable, a spoon of real oil, a spice blend you can pronounce. Add the za'atar after cooking, not before — high heat scorches the sesame and turns the herbs bitter.

Give the wedges room in a single layer; piled-up wedges steam and never crisp.