Food safety expert shares common air fryer mistake that can lead to food poisoning

Ah, the trusty air fryer. The saviour of our kitchens.

If you’ve not got one by now you probably at least have a mate – or co-worker – who bangs on about what they made for tea last night in the air fryer. And to be fair, they are handy appliances.

You can pretty much cook anything in there and they’re often a healthier alternative too.

Instead of messing about with frying pans or waiting for the oven to heat up, you can just whack your dinner in and quickly tip it out a short while later.

Plus, they’re often a cheaper way to cook. So basically, they’re pretty great all round.

But enough of the hype before I start sounding like that person.

As great as air fryers are, one simple mistake a lot of us make could have disastrous consequences for our health.

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Now, the last thing you probably want to think about when thinking about an easy tea is the cleaning up part.

I mean ideally, you don’t want to have to do any cleaning at all. But you really shouldn’t be skipping it with your air fryer.

Turns out a lot of people aren’t really cleaning their device in between uses, which can actually be very dangerous.

Say you’ve not quite cooked a piece of chicken properly and thrown it out. And then thrown something else into the air fryer.

The salmonella from that meat could stay on the surface for up to 32 hours, according to USDA.

Janilyn Hutchings, a certified professional in food safety from StateFoodSafety, told The Mirror that if you aren’t regularly cleaning your air fryer then ‘old food particles and germs will build up in the basket and contaminate the food you put in it’.

Plus, the crumbs that get left behind can start to burn when you next use it – and no one wants the kitchen stinking of that.

Adisak Mitrprayoon/Getty Images

Hutchings added: “Aim to clean your air fryer after every meal that's cooked in it. It might seem like a big mess, but it's quite easy.”

And it’s really not that hard to clean, you can manage it.

First of all, just have a quick check of the cleaning instructions that came with your air fryer – if you’ve still got them.

Let it cool down and then use washing up liquid and warm water to give it a good clean.

And if you fancy going for a ‘deep clean’ (best every few uses, according to BBC Good Food), then detach all the components and start of by cleaning regularly.

BBC Good Food recommend making a paste of baking soda and water and putting it on the more stubborn parts for 20 minutes.

Or, if you don’t want to wait, buff it off with an old toothbrush (not just your housemate’s).

Keeping your air fryer clean will help you avoid any nastiness carrying over into your next meal.

Topics: Food And Drink, Health

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_