Read This Before Putting Cheese In An Air Fryer

Air fryers are a godsend, right? They're great when you want to prepare a quick, delicious meal, or even when you want to reheat leftovers and make them nice and crispy. According to Food Network, air fryers are not only convenient, but ingenious. They perform their duties by circulating hot air quickly, letting you choose the temperature with which you'd like to cook. This gives you crispy and almost irresistible results, without adding unnecessary (and unwanted) fat to your meal.

Despite their remarkable simplicity of design and use, there are still a few tips to keep in mind as you create your culinary masterpiece via air fryer. Be sure to include space in the air fryer basket to let the heat circulate and do its job, and use a tiny amount of oil before tossing your food in, rather than avoiding the use of oil entirely. This helps you achieve the best results and is great for avoiding a sticky mess.

Besides using the appliance correctly, keep in mind that some food items are a better air fryer match than others, and some should be avoided entirely. Unfortunately, cheese is on that list. 

Why can't you put cheese (especially copious amounts of cheese) into an air fryer? As explained by Food Network, the issue is that the cheese can ooze out before your dish has had a chance to turn crispy — an air fryer specialty. This is bound to create a hot mess in your air fryer basket, and disappoint you big-time. (And let's not forget cleaning up congealed cheese afterward.)

Yankel Polak, head chef at ButcherBox, reinforces this rule, telling Insider that using too much cheese is just not sustainable in an air fryer."An air fryer is not actually a fryer, so there isn't the instant outer crust you would get from actually deep-frying cheese for say something like a mozzarella stick," Polak explained. "Instead you'll get a cheesy mess in your fryer."

You know what to do. Stick to traditional methods while cooking cheese to avoid a massive letdown and an unnecessary mess.