A good grilled cheese comes down to two things: evenly melted cheese and both sides of the bread at the same shade of golden. The skillet gets you there eventually, with enough attention. But an air fryer gets you there automatically, with almost none.

The circulating heat inside the basket handles both sides of the sandwich at once, which means no monitoring the bottom and guessing when to flip, and no discovering one side went too far while you were watching the other. That means you can barely pay attention and come away with an absolutely delicious meal.

Seriously, your air fryer can give you an excellent grilled cheese almost every time, without the hovering. Even heat circulation browns both sides of the sandwich simultaneously, eliminating the hot spot problem that causes uneven coloring on a skillet and requires no flipping, no pressing and no timing anxiety. Once you’ve made grilled cheese this way, going back to the stovetop stops making sense.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. The air fryer is the perfect place to whip up the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had. Because the countertop appliance relies on intense, 360-degree air circulation, it hammers the bread with heat from every angle at once, creating a uniform, crisp exterior and a gooey inside that a pan can’t match. 

The best part isn’t even the texture — it’s the lack of cleanup. You’re trading a greasy, heavy skillet for a basket that you can practically wipe clean with a paper towel. Whether you’re making a basic midnight snack or a gourmet sourdough melt, the air fryer delivers a level of consistency that makes the stovetop feel like a relic. 

Here’s everything to know about testing the theory for yourself.

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Why an air fryer grilled cheese works so well

An air fryer is basically a small convection oven with nonstick surfaces that circulates hot air around whatever you put in its basket. Unlike your saute pan or skillet, it cooks from all directions at once and typically in less time. Unlike your oven, it is compact and efficient, heats up quickly and may not even require preheating. 

Your toaster oven could never do this. While toasted cheese is a possibility (and reheated toaster oven pizza is a revelation), grilled cheese is not. Your toaster oven isn’t designed to handle fat on the underside of whatever you’re cooking, and you’ll end up with a mess that’s too complicated to clean.

In the air fryer, the bread and cheese cook simultaneously, resulting in a quicker melt that holds the cheese to the bread, making for a much easier flip. (Flipping is still recommended but with far less drama.)

The air circulation provides deep crunchiness, not only to the surfaces that received the butter or mayo treatment but to the entire crust. Any inclusions beyond cheese in the sandwich’s interior are also transforming due to the ambient heat. Simply placing a lid on your sauté pan or skillet won’t achieve the same results, as the contents will steam and potentially become soggy.

How I make a grilled cheese in the air fryer

• Assemble a grilled cheese as you would otherwise
• Sliced bread
• Sliced or shredded cheese (I like American cheese for a basic grilled cheese and a combo of gruyere and cheddar for an upgrade.)
• Butter or mayonnaise for the outside of the bread slices (dealer’s choice)

For a basic grilled cheese, you can assemble the sandwich in the basket of your air fryer: bread with buttered side down, followed by sliced or shredded cheese, then topped with the final slice with buttered side up.

Set the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 3 to 6 minutes per side, flipping halfway through. The already melted cheese will keep your sandwich nicely together during the flip. You can get a lightly golden grilled cheese in less time, but I recommend hanging on for 5 to 6 minutes for a deeply crunchy sandwich. 

Another perk of the air fryer is that you can more easily peek to see where you are without adversely affecting the outcome.

The air fryer is even better for a stacked grilled cheese 

This is where the air fryer really shines in the grilled cheese realm. Every element of an upgraded grilled cheese adds a degree of difficulty when trying to cook in a skillet, much of which is mitigated in the safe confines of an air fryer. Thicker bread. Thicker cheese, like hunks of camembert or brie. 

And think of all the great grilled cheese ingredients that can be slippery: apple slices, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, pickles, etc. Any grilled cheese with more than two components can be challenging to flip gracefully in a skillet, even for trained cooks.

To prove a point, I assembled a fancy grilled cheese with Camembert, prosciutto and apple slices. (Plus mayonnaise on the exterior, because I was being fancy, and mayo gives your sandwich a little extra tang.) Because of its height, I assembled it fully outside of the air fryer and then carefully placed it in the drawer.

After 6 minutes of air fryer cooking, the flip was seamless, and the sophisticated outcome belies the fact that you spent all of a minute assembling the masterpiece. The exterior of the ham even got a little bonus crisping. So the air fryer invites you to go to town with whatever you can dream up for your grilled cheese: cured or cooked ground meats, grilled veggies, various sauces and relishes — you name it. An epic grilled cheese variation is limited only by the confines of your imagination.

Do I need to preheat an air fryer for grilled cheese?

A grilled cheese is a quick-cooking sandwich, no matter how you do it, so you don’t want to add on minutes of additional time for something that only takes minutes to accomplish. That said, while preheating your air fryer may be a waste of time for certain preparations, I think putting it on for just a minute to heat up the nonstick surface that the sandwich sits on is worthwhile to get that golden crust working right away.

Are there drawbacks to making air fryer grilled cheese?

Depending on your model and size of air fryer, and the shape of bread you choose, it can be tricky to make more than two sandwiches at once, so it might not be the most family-friendly method for making grilled cheese. But for a solo meal or date night, your air fryer is the grilled cheese hack you didn’t know you needed. 

Pamela Vachon

Contributor

Pamela is a freelance food and travel writer based in Astoria, Queens. While she writes about most things edible and potable (and accessories dedicated to those topics,) her real areas of expertise are cheese, chocolate, cooking and wine. She’s a culinary school grad, certified sommelier, former bartender and fine dining captain with 10 years in the industry. When not sitting at the keys, she leads in-home cheese classes, wine tastings and cocktail demonstrations.

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