Make Your Pillsbury Biscuits In The Air Fryer And Thank Us Later

Unless you've been totally out of the loop for the last five years, chances are there's an air fryer taking up some real estate on your kitchen counter. The trendy gadgets have revolutionized how we heat and reheat foods that would normally be fried, like french fries and crispy crab rangoons. But what you might not know is how well air fryers can tackle small baking jobs, like a tube of Pillsbury biscuits. In fact, if you try making your biscuits in an air fryer, you'll thank us later. An air fryer can make perfectly puffy, golden brown biscuits in less than 15 minutes, and you won't have to heat up your kitchen with the regular oven.

If you're worried that your biscuits will come out like fried dough or hush puppies from a regular fryer, don't be. Air fryers are not technically fryers at all; they're actually more like tiny convection ovens. With a couple of tweaks to the time and temperature in the instructions, an air fryer is the ideal tool for whipping up a quick batch of biscuits anytime. 

Baking a few canned Pillsbury biscuits in the air fryer could not be easier. If you feel confident making a basket of french fries in your fryer, you have all the skills you need to pull off biscuits. All you have to do is place the biscuits in the air fryer basket either on a piece of parchment paper cut to fit in the drawer or in a silicone basket liner. If you're using an oven-style air fryer (which is different from a basket-style air fryer), just cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the baking tray. You might only be able to fit three or four biscuits in your air fryer at one time, depending on the make and model, so if you have some leftover biscuits, store them in the fridge for round two.

Once you have the biscuits arranged for baking, pop the basket or baking tray into the fryer and bake at 320 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 minutes (per Pillsbury). After 6 minutes, turn them over and bake at the same temperature until they're golden brown, or about 5-7 more minutes. Serve them right away or cover them up in a basket wrapped with a clean towel to keep them warm while you bake the second round.

Despite their name, air fryers don't actually fry food at all; they bake it with forced hot air that's circulated on all sides with a high-powered fan. Regular ovens, of course, cook food by surrounding it with hot air, but they can't get the same crispy results as a fryer because still air doesn't conduct heat as well as hot oil. If the hot air blows around, however, more heat can reach the surface of the food, so it cooks more like a fryer.

Keep these differences in mind if you want to use your air fryer to bake foods like Pillsbury biscuits. If the product isn't developed specifically for an air fryer (which is happening more and more as air fryers continue to be trendy) or there aren't any explicit instructions for baking in an air fryer on the package, just turn the temperature down and set the timer for a few minutes less than the instructions. Air fryers cook faster and hotter than conventional ovens, so an easy air fryer skillet cookie, for example, bakes at just 300 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 15 minutes, which is lower than a standard chocolate chip cookie baking temperature of 350 to 375 degrees. This will keep the outside of your biscuits and cookies from burning before the insides have a chance to cook, and you'll always have a warm batch of biscuits ready to go in just a few minutes.