No Time To Preheat The Oven? Quickly Air Fry Frozen Rolls Instead

Life's hectic pace can lead people to make poor food choices. This isn't just true for healthy eating — it can keep people from making the meals they genuinely enjoy. That's because preparing and cooking food takes time, as does cleaning up afterward.

However, it's possible to make food without excessive preparation, cooking time, or cleanup. For instance, instead of preheating your oven to 350 degrees and baking frozen dinner rolls for 20-plus minutes to make them a tantalizing golden brown, you can heat them in about five minutes without compromising on taste, texture, or quality.

While there are some common mistakes you can make when cooking frozen food in an air fryer, this method is pretty foolproof. Just grab a few rolls straight out of the freezer, arrange them in your air fryer's basket so they're not touching, and brush a little melted butter on top. Set the temperature to 350 degrees and cook for five minutes. Since every air fryer is different, make sure to monitor the rolls the first time around so they don't burn.

Here's what you need to know about air fryers: A fan inside distributes hot air evenly across your food's surface, which is why a basket is so important for the tool's design. If the heated air can't fully circulate around the food, it won't cook evenly. Therefore, it's essential that larger foods, such as dinner rolls, aren't touching anything when placed inside an air fryer — neither the walls of the basket nor other rolls. Any area that's blocked from the air flow won't cook as desired.

Even though one of an air fryer's primary benefits is its healthier cooking style, that doesn't mean you can completely forego cooking necessities like oil or butter — especially when making something delicate, like rolls. Just a thin coating of butter will help seal in the rolls' moisture so they don't dry out when exposed to the rush of hot air. Additionally, butter (or any fat with a high smoke point) will facilitate that oh-so-desirable Maillard reaction that makes your rolls so irresistible.