Everyone wants to cook everything in the air fryer these days, and it's hard to blame them. It's a handy tool to cook crispy food in a hurry. In case you're unfamiliar with this appliance, an air fryer is a small convection oven that fits on your countertop. Different from the conventional oven, which has heating elements on the top and bottom, a convection oven also uses a fan to circulate hot air while the food cooks. From french fries to fried chicken, an air fryer can cook a multitude of foods and get them perfectly and has become a kitchen staple over the past decade. What happens when you try to cook a convenience food classic like frozen pizza in an air fryer? I had to find out if it beats cooking a frozen pizza in a conventional oven.
Frozen Pizza in Air Fryer
First, I needed a frozen pizza that would fit in my air fryer, so I had to be realistic here. While there is an air fryer that can fit an entire chicken, I can't think of any air fryers wide enough to fit a full Digiorno pizza. I had to make sure not to cover all of the holes so that air would circulate, and the fryer could do its job. I chose Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Supreme Pizza. It's a single serving pizza about 4'' wide, and it fits perfectly in the middle of my 3.7qt air fryer. I fell in love with these particular pizzas after eating one at a roller rink concession stand. They have no business being this good, especially when you just want some calories to fuel you throughout the day. I've cooked them in the oven and the microwave. Oven cooking is too much of an investment for a mini personal pizza. The microwave cooks them much faster, but if you wait until it cools down below the temperature of flaming hot lava, the bread firms up and gets really tough. Hopefully air frying would solve both of these flaws.
My air fryer basket isn't huge, but it's just enough for 1 or 2 person cooking. According to the box that I might have pulled out of the trash after I absentmindedly tossed it, this pizza takes 23-25 minutes to cook in a conventional oven at 375°F. Cooked in the microwave, it takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 3 minutes and 30 seconds. I preheated the air fryer to 400°F because that's the temperature at which I cook nearly everything in my air fryer.
I also sprayed the basket with oil before cooking the frozen pizza. I'm not sure if this step was absolutely necessary, but I like to spray just to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. Then I placed the pizza in the fryer and set the timer for 7 minutes. I intended on using this number as a point to check the pizza to see if it was done. At the end of the 7 minutes, the cheese was overly browned on top of the pizza, but the sides were perfectly crisp. I sliced the pizza in the middle expecting a raw pizza, but no, it was cooked all the way through. Even though the inside was a tad doughy, it was cooked just enough and maybe could have continued in the fryer for a minute longer. Overall, using the air fryer I manage to shave 16 minutes off the conventional oven method, lowering the cooking time from 23 to 7 minutes.
The excessive browning on the top bothered me, so I tried my experiment again with a second pizza. This time I tented the top with aluminum foil at 5 minutes and then cooked for an additional 3 minutes to cut back on the doughiness of the 7 minute cook time. I was surprised, again, that my plan worked. The cheese still browned a bit at 5 minutes, but it was much less with the foil than without.
By far my favorite frozen pizza cooking method is the air fryer because the crust crisps up very well, and it also cooks very quickly. I will definitely cook these pizzas in the air fryer from now on.
