The secret part of your Air Fryer you’re forgetting to clean – and it could be stopping your food from getting crispy

AIR fryers have become the ‘must-have’ kitchen gadget allowing foodies to cook up a storm in mere minutes and endless recipes to choose from.

Like most things in your kitchen though, cleaning them can be a hassle – especially if you are forgetting to wipe over this important part.

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In fact, people have been struggling to get their air fryers squeaky clean and many have even turned to the internet for help.

Even on Reddit, it seems home chefs are desperate to get the cooking equipment clean –  with entire threads dedicated to the topics (yes, you read that right).

One user, who was fed up of their grimy air fryer, asked: "Hi I was wondering if anybody knows any cleaning hacks, because I have been told that cleaning air fryers can be notoriously difficult."

Whilst you can blame them for asking for help, it seems that how you approach cleaning your air fryer can often depend on the type you own.

This was reflected in the forum with users coming up with a huge range of cleaning tips and tricks they’d discover after using their air fryer.

“I have the bucket style. After I cook while it is warm, put warm water and soap in the bucket,” revealed one home chef, adding: “By the time you finish eating, [you can just] use a sponge to clean. Problem solved."

Another suggested removing each section to get the best clean and wrote: “Take the little rack part out of the basket. Put it in soapy sink water. Rub washcloth over it for about 5 seconds.”

Continuing, they said: “Rinse off and put it in the dish drainer thingy. Dip the end of the basket into the sink water and wash the basket part for about 5 seconds.”

Whilst suggestions like rinsing out the dish drainer and unplugging the machine, there was one piece of advice that stood out amongst the rest.

According to a third cleaning whizz, there is one part of the kitchen gadget that most people will also forget to clean which allows oil and food debris.

Even worse, this could be impacting how well your food fries – especially if you haven’t cleaned in a while.  

Though they cleaned the tray and insert with warm soapy after every use, the savvy Reddit user revealed that they would deep clean their air fryer on a semi-regular basis.

“…Every couple of months (depending on use) let it cool down 100%, unplug, flip the unit over and wipe the heating element and what you can get to with a sponge,” they explained.

Having cleaned the often-forgotten part, the cleaning whizz would then use a steamer to clean any remaining elements they couldn’t reach.

Impressively, their deep clean didn’t end here either with them also using a household essential to help keep the kitchen gadget clean.

They added: "I fill the tray with about an 2-3 inches of water, add liquid soap, and a lemon. Run for 10-15 mins checking in and do this process 3 or 4 times. If water is brown when you check in, replace with clean, more soap and keep going.”

Seems like we’ve got no excuse for a lacklustre air fryer after learning this fool-proof method.

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