Crispy Air Fryer Baked Potatoes

The air fryer has an uncanny ability to transform humble vegetables into crisp, crave-worthy dinner sides. We’ve had success with air fryer sweet potato wedges, potato chips, and frozen French fries, so it should come as absolutely no surprise that air frying a whole russet potatoes transforms it into one of the best baked potatoes you’ll ever have in your life.

The air fryer is basically a countertop convection oven, meaning the high fan speed and concentrated heat makes baked potatoes that are fluffy and tender on the inside and shatteringly crisp on the outside. If you’re the type to eat all the fluffy filling of a baked potato and leave the skins for the compost pile, air fried baked potatoes will change that forever. Here’s how to make the very best baked potatoes in the air fryer.

A few months ago, we took on the challenge of testing all the ways to make a baked potato in search of a clear winner. We tried the microwave, the grill, and even the slow cooker, but ultimately settled on the oven as our favorite. Many readers, however, pointed out that we hadn’t tried the air fryer — and if we had, we may have landed on a different winner. So we gave it a go.

After air frying my first batch, I wholeheartedly agree — if it’s crispy skins your after, the air fryer method is far-and-away the winner. It’s not any faster than baking a potato in the oven, but it’s foolproof — you get tender, fluffy insides and crisp skins every time. If you own an air fryer, I highly recommend giving it a go, too.

Prepare the potatoes the same way you would for baking: rinse, scrub, and dry them, prick them all over with a fork, drizzle with oil, and season with salt. The recipe below is written for a standard air fryer — those in the 3-quart capacity range — so it only calls for two potatoes. If you’ve got a larger capacity air fryer, feel free to double or triple the recipe — just make sure that the potatoes have at least an inch between them to guarantee those crispy skins.