For experienced air fryer chefs it might be straightforward how to preheat air fryers, but if you are a beginner it can be a bit confusing. Especially if the user manual doesn’t say anything about how to preheat that specific air fryer. And many of us know that can happen.

　　Although most of the times it is easy to preheat an air fryer, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

　　Also there is the age old question when should you preheat air fryers at all. Or if it makes a huge difference if you preheat or don’t preheat.

　　We are going to answer all of these questions in this article.

　　You’ll also find instructions to different well known air fryers so you can see how varying it can be to preheat air fryers based on its brand.

　　The short answer: Set the timer and temperature and start your air fryer. For smaller models wait 3 minutes and for bigger ones wait 5 minutes. After that your air fryer is preheated and you can fill it with food.

　　Now let’s take a detailed look on how the preheating works for air fryers.

　　Depending on your air fryer there are 3 possibilities how you can preheat your air fryer. It can have a preheat setting, automatic or manual preheat.

　　If your air fryer has a preheat preset on your air fryer you usually select the preset and let the air fryer do its thing while leaving it empty.

　　If you don’t have one no worries. It doesn’t really do anything just sets your air fryer to a high temperature for 3 minutes, then it turns of (or at least mine does that). So if you don’t have such a preset you just need to set you do it manually, like how I describe below.

　　If it is automatic you just set the timer and temperature and your air fryer will automatically preheat. After it is preheated it will blink or give some sounds so you’ll know it is preheated

　　If it doesn’t have any preheat function you just set the temperature and timer and add 3-5 minutes to the total cooking time. You start your cooking sequence and after the 3-5 minutes have passed your air fryer is preheated and you can add you foods to it.

　　Well usually it saves us time and a few headaches if we go through the manual in the beginning. Since you made the choice to invest in an air fryer then it is best to be sure not to let that money go to waste. If you haven’t made the decision yet check out our article on why air fryers even worth the money.

　　Air fryers come from different brands. And different sorts of air fryer of different brands will have different methods of preheating and running the air fryer. To bring out the best from your air fryer it is better that you preheat your air fryer according to the instructions listed in the manual. It saves you from voiding the warranty by damaging your air fryer.

　　Why is this important? You can never know what chemicals or glues or any other materials have been used or how the seller have stored your air fryer. Also after several use it is crucial to preheat a clean air fryer since food particles from a previous cooking can stick to the air fryer and these will get burned much easier, thus ruining your whole food.

　　Make sure that you check all the nooks and crannies of the cooking basket so that there is nothing stuck there that can ruin the taste and hygiene of the food that will be cooked inside it.

　　Also, be careful about the voltage supply of your house. It is a common knowledge that an air fryer that runs at 120V units will get destroyed if it is plugged in the socket that has a supply of 220V. This is very important since it can burn down your air fryer that could potentially harm your entire kitchen.

　　According to the manuals its rather easy to preheat an ultrean air fryer.

　　Here are the steps:

　　Place the appliance on a stable, horizontal and even surfaceDo not place the appliance on non heat resistant surfacePut the basket in the panDo not fill the pan with oil or any other liquidPress the power on/off icon first, and adjust the time to 3 minutes and set the temperature to 400 degreesPress the power on/off icon again to start to warm it up.It takes 3 minutes to preheat all the Ultrean air fryers according to their manualsOnce the air fryer finished preheating it will give a beeping sound.

　　In the table below we gathered all the user manuals and will point you to where you can find info on how to preheat Ultrean air fryers. Unfortunately not all of the user manuals describe the exact process of pre heating but most ultrean air fryers are similar to each others so if you don’t find the exact information on how to preheat ultrean air fryers be sure to check the other user manuals as well.

　　Related: How To Use Ultrean Air Fryer

　　Unfortunately Crux doesn’t mention a lot about preheating their air fryers. So I made quite a big research to find out how to preheat crux air fryers.

　　The Crux Airpro Air Fryer Grill Combo doesn’t say how much time it needs to be preheated but reading the reviews and looking at its food timer chart it should be between 3-5 minutes.To preheat the Crux Airpro XL turn the power On/Off button and set the temperature.Wait 3-5 minutes and a light will turn on that says “Add food”. When this light shows up the Crux AirPro Air fryer is preheated.

　　Press the START/STOP buttonSelect the timer for 3:00 and the temperature for 400 degreesPress the START/STOP button again to start preheatingAfter 3 minutes the machine should give 5 beeps to indicate that the air fryer is preheated

　　Press Start/Stop to select Standby mode.Press “Air Fry” to directly select air frying mode. Use the selector dial to choose between 14 air frying presets or select “Air Fry” to choose the time and temperature of your choice.Press Start/Stop to begin the cooking process.The selected program will blink to indicate the unit is preheating under the chosen programming. The preset light will blink until the chosen temperature has been reached, and then remain steady to indicate the unit is ready.The fan icon will turn on as well if the program you have selected uses a fan for its cooking process.

　　Press Start/Stop to begin the cooking process.The selected program will blink to indicate the unit is preheating under the chosen programming. The preset light will blink until the chosen temperature has been reached, and then remain steady to indicate the unit is ready.The fan icon will turn on as well if the program you have selected uses a fan for its cooking process.As you can see its pretty similar to the Kalorik MAXX. All Kalorik models have the same logic for preheating: Their selected preset will blink after the chosen temperature has been reached.

　　Tap the power icon to turn the appliance onTo select a preset tap the “M” button until the desired food icon appearsThe temperature and timer should appear on the screenFor preheating add 3 minutes to the total time requiredSelect the required temperature and time by pressing the 2 arrow icons on the 2 sides of the air fryerPress the power on icon again and a blue fan icon will appear that indicates that the air frying process has begun

　　Turn the temperature control to desired temperature to start air frying.To turn on the appliance, turn the timer control clockwise. Green and red lights will appear.Add 3 minutes to the preparation time to preheat the air fryerWhen the desired temperature is met, the red light will go off.Once the timer has elapsed the appliance will turn off.

　　Philips has a rather strange user instructions on how to preheat air fryers to say the least. First of all they don’t use any text in their user manual just pictures that is a bit hard to grasp. But we gathered information from various sources and most Philips have the same mechanism on how to preheat their air fryers. So usually these are the steps:

　　To sum up on how to preheat air fryers you should always follow these simple steps. First, you should always start by reading the manual. Second, be sure to check the voltage of the machine and also clean the inside before using it. These are the most important steps. Moreover depending on what you cook it is not straightforward whether to preheat it or not. For some dishes its better and for some its not. Usually the ones that needs to be crispier is better to preheat. For foods that needs an even distribution of temperature it is better to not.

　　Before you buy check out some of our complete brand reviews:

　　Instant Vortex ReviewKalorik ReviewCrux ReviewBella ReviewTristar PowerXL Review

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