With Christmas fast approaching, it’s time to start preparations for Christmas dinner, because let’s face it: it’s a rather stressful and strenuous task. Last year was my first time cooking Christmas dinner for six people, and while I have two ovens in my kitchen, I was still stressed about timings, space and keeping everything warm.
If, like me, you’re cooking Christmas dinner again and are worrying about the logistics, it’s a good idea to also use your air fryer for additional cooking space and power. The best air fryers are essentially a miniature version of the traditional oven, and considering that most of the models on the market today can fit an entire chicken, it seems that they’re up for the job of tackling Christmas dinner.
To find out more, I spoke to the air fryer experts at Tefal who have come up with the ultimate guide to cooking your Christmas dinner with an air fryer, including turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing and more.
Tefal’s cooking instructions are specifically for its Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer & Grill, so you might need to tweak your air fryer slightly if this isn’t the model you have. But, these timings and temperatures can be transferred to other air fryer brands, like Ninja and Tower.
How to cook a turkey crown in an air fryer
As the turkey is the centrepiece of your Christmas dinner, it’s important that you get it right, and you can make a surprisingly tasty turkey crown using an air fryer. For a 2.4kg turkey crown that feeds up to eight people, Tefal recommends setting your air fryer to 180-degrees and placing it in the large drawer before cooking it without tin foil for the first 35 minutes to brown the skin.
For the remaining 75 minutes, cover the turkey with tin foil so it doesn’t burn, and make sure to baste it with stock every 30 minutes. In total, it should take around an hour and 50 minutes to cook your turkey crown in an air fryer. For more recipe suggestions, see these 3 ways to cook a Christmas turkey in an air fryer.
How to cook roast potatoes in an air fryer
Roast potatoes – and any type of potato, really – are one of the best things to make in an air fryer. While Tefal suggests putting the roast potatoes in the air fryer alongside other vegetables for 30 minutes at 200-degrees, they don’t specify whether you need to parboil them or not beforehand.
To save you the risk of a soggy potato, I suggest first peeling, chopping and parboiling your potatoes for up to 10 minutes before you put them in the air fryer. Once they’re parboiled and drained, spray your air fryer basket with oil before adding your potatoes, sprinkling them with flour and shaking the basket to ensure the potatoes are fluffy and evenly coated. Next, cook your potato for 20 minutes at 180-degrees and make sure to shake the basket again halfway through cooking to ensure they’re evenly cooked and crispy.
How to cook Christmas sides in an air fryer
Next, there’s the sides which in Tefal’s air fryer Christmas dinner cooking guide can all be cooked together to save space and time. The sides in question are parsnips, Brussels sprouts, pigs in blankets and stuffing.
At 180-degrees and in the smaller drawer of your air fryer, Tefal suggests cooking the parsnips, Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets and stuffing balls one after another and in that order. For parsnips, it should take 22 minutes if they’re fresh, and 35 minutes if they’re frozen. The Brussels sprouts should take 15 minutes while pigs in blankets and stuffing will take 10 minutes. See how to cook roast potatoes, Brussel sprouts and more in an air fryer for more Christmas cooking advice.
