Author: Our Place | August 26, 2026 | Time to read: 8 min
An air fryer is good for much more than reheating leftovers. We have nothing against day-old pizza. But an air fryer can live up to the expectations you had when you first got one: delicious salmon in 10 minutes, a tray of crisp vegetables, or quick, healthy snacks without ever turning on your full-size oven.
The best recipes take advantage of what an air fryer does well: cook food quickly at high heat with less oil than deep frying. Chicken, fish, chickpeas, squash, sweet potatoes, and other firm vegetables are all good places to start.
Here are 14 healthy air fryer recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between, plus a few practical tips for getting the best results.
Table of contents
What makes an air fryer recipe healthy?
Air frying is a cooking method, not a health claim. What matters most is what you're cooking, how much oil you use, and what else goes on the plate.
Compared with deep frying, air frying can create a crisp exterior with much less oil. That makes it a useful way to cook vegetables, proteins, and other whole ingredients while still getting the texture you want.
For a balanced meal made in an air fryer, start with:
A vegetable, protein, legume, or other whole ingredient
A small amount of oil to help with browning
A grain, salad, sauce, or side that makes it a complete meal
You don't need to follow a strict formula. It's your cooking, follow your instincts and make what you want to eat. Salmon with roasted vegetables works. So do chickpea fritters with green salsa or chicken with charred cabbage. The point is, an air fryer is something you can rely on regularly for the foods you love the most.
💡A note on oil: You usually need less than you think. Toss ingredients with a light, even coating before cooking rather than pouring oil directly into the basket. Avocado oil and light or refined olive oil both work well at common air fryer temperatures.
14 healthy air fryer recipes to make this week
We grouped these recipes together based on nutritional needs. And most of these you can whip up in under 40 minutes!
High-protein air fryer recipes
Protein is the easiest place to start, because lean cuts and fish do particularly well in circulating hot air. These healthy air fryer chicken recipes and seafood dishes all come out with a crispy browned exterior and very little added fat.
Peruvian roasted chicken with aji verde. Cumin, paprika, and garlic on the chicken, with a bright herb and chili sauce alongside. The aji verde is extra flavorful, which means the chicken itself needs almost no oil. Make extra sauce and put it on everything for the rest of the week.
Whole roasted chicken. A classic Sunday meal prep recipe. One bird gives you dinner, then salads, then stock. Air circulation gets the skin crisp without basting.
Gochujang glazed salmon. Salmon is close to ideal for air frying because its own fat keeps it moist while the outside caramelizes. The gochujang glaze goes on near the end so the sugars brown rather than burn.
Herby olive salmon. A lighter, Mediterranean-leaning take from our Dinner at Our Place cookbook. Olives, herbs, citrus, and not much else.
Whole roasted fish with smoked cherry tomato salsa. Cooking a whole fish sounds harder than it is, and the payoff feels special. The roasted tomatoes collapse into a phenomenal sauce.
Gochujang-glazed chicken with charred cabbage. Cook your protein and vegetables in one pass. Cabbage is underrated here, going sweet and slightly crisp at the edges.
Veggie-forward air fryer recipes
Firm vegetables tend to cook best in an air fryer. Cut them into evenly sized pieces and leave a little room between them so the hot air can circulate.
Roasted kabocha squash salad. Kabocha holds its shape and turns nutty and sweet at the edges. Served over greens, it's substantial enough to be dinner.
Roasted summer squash with chimichurri. Summer squash needs high heat and space to avoid going soft, and this is the right method for it. The chimichurri goes on after cooking.
Roasted Japanese sweet potatoes. Japanese sweet potatoes are drier and starchier than orange ones, so they get genuinely fluffy inside while the skin crisps. Warm spices, minimal oil.
Chickpea fritters in green salsa. Plant protein and fiber in the same bite. Chickpeas crisp beautifully in circulating air, which is why air-fried chickpeas have become such a common snack.
Crunchy citrus and chicories with turmeric tahini dressing. Not an air fryer recipe, but the side you want next to one. Bitter greens and citrus cut through anything roasted.
Healthy air fryer snacks and breakfasts
Smaller recipes are one of the best reasons to keep an air fryer on the counter. You can make a batch of granola, bake a few muffins, or prepare a snack without heating a full-size oven.
Almond and fruit granola. Homemade granola lets you control the sugar, which is the main thing wrong with most boxed versions. Make a double batch, trust us.
Blueberry streusel protein muffins. A breakfast that holds you until lunch. Good for batch baking on a Sunday.
Smoked salmon jerky. You need a Dehydrate mode for this, available on our Wonder Oven® Pro air fryer, which dehydrates fruits, veggies, and meats. It takes patience rather than effort, and the result is a high-protein snack with a short ingredient list.
Pro Tip💡
Cook two of these on a Sunday and the weeknight versions come together in half the time. Roasted squash, a whole chicken, and a jar of granola will carry you through most of a week.
What your air fryer is made of matters, too
If you bought an air fryer to eat better and healthier (with these recipes!), the surfaces your food touches while it cooks deserve the same attention as the ingredients. This is the part almost every healthy air fryer roundup doesn't talk about.
Nonstick coatings vary widely, and many air fryer baskets and trays use coatings in the PFAS family. Those surfaces sit in direct contact with your food at 400°F, through hundreds of cycles of heat and scraping. If you're curious about the chemistry, our guide to PFAS in cookware covers what the research actually shows.
When you're evaluating an air fryer, the parts worth asking about are the ones that touch food:
The basket and tray. These are your actual cooking surfaces. Everything else is housing. Stainless steel or non-toxic nonstick is best.
The coating, specifically. Look for a manufacturer that will tell you plainly what the interior surfaces are made of. Ideally, steel or an explicitly called out non-toxic coating is preferable.
Our guide to how to avoid cookware with PFAS walks through this in more detail if you're shopping.
If you're weighing options, our 6-in-1 non-toxic air fryer toaster oven has nontoxic nonstick cooking surfaces, a stainless steel interior, and accessories made without PFAS.
Frequently asked questions
What is the healthiest thing to cook in an air fryer?
Lean proteins and firm vegetables, because both crisp well with very little added oil. Fish, chicken, chickpeas, and dense vegetables like squash, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts all brown properly in circulating hot air, which means you get texture without a pot of oil. Watery vegetables and anything in a wet batter tend to steam instead. If you want one thing to start with, a salmon fillet takes about 10 minutes and is difficult to get wrong.
