Is It Necessary to Use a Liner in Your Air Fryer?

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Air fryers have become a permanent appliance for many, and not something you need to purge from your kitchen due to disuse. The hot air that circulates throughout the chamber is perfect for everything from cooking chicken breasts to baking individual portions of cookies. But when you’re done using it, cleanup can be a pain. Many people have turned to air fryer liners to help reduce mess and limit how often they have to deep clean the appliance (thus saving time), but is it the right choice for you, too?

If you struggle to keep up with cleaning your air fryer often enough — especially right when it needs it — liners can be a great way to upgrade your experience with the appliance. They sit at the bottom of the basket and provide a barrier between it and your greasy, splattering, cheesy, or otherwise dripping food (plus any cooking spray you might use).

While some liners are perforated so juices from meat, for example, can drip into the basket pan, they still help prevent food from getting burned on. This, in turn, keeps the air fryer in better condition. Plus, they come in different sizes and shapes, so you’re sure to find one that fits your basket, and you don’t have to eyeball-measure sheets of parchment paper or aluminum foil (which are not interchangeable) each time you use the air fryer.

If you’re officially on the pro-liner side, your next decision will be whether to use the parchment paper or silicone variety (or you could try both and see which one you like better). Each has its merits. For example, parchment paper liners are an easy reach — you don’t have to worry about keeping them clean, since they’re single-use. They’re quite thin, so you don’t have to add much additional cooking time, as you might with silicone liners, and they’re relatively inexpensive. You can buy a lot for a low price, like these ones from OISDJL, which come in a pack of 150 for less than $10.

Silicone liners, on the other hand, are better for the environment, and many — like this three-pack from Buauty — are dishwasher safe, to say nothing of being nonstick, which makes cleaning them super easy even outside the dishwasher. To help air circulate around the food, some have ridged bottoms, which can make a real difference in the crispness you can achieve. Plus, if you get a silicone liner with handles, you no longer have to rely on using tongs at a weird angle to remove delicate food from the basket.

As their name suggests, single-use air fryer liners are only good for one go-around, so they can be incredibly wasteful. You’ll also have to continue buying them for as long as you use your air fryer, and if you run out before you repurchase, you’re stuck with no liner. As mentioned, paper liners are light and thin, but because of this, if what you’re air frying isn’t heavy enough to weigh them down, they can fly up into the heating element and catch on fire.

Silicone liners have few drawbacks, but there is one major negative — and this is important if you like your food browned to the max: They can somewhat inhibit the Maillard reaction, the process by which proteins and sugars roast so thoroughly they develop new and better flavors. Silicone liners, unfortunately, don’t always allow for the same interaction between food and heat, so sugars might not caramelize as they normally would, and some of your food might not get as crispy as you’d like.