Cook chicken, fries, veg and more simultaneously. Get a staggered start-time schedule so everything finishes perfectly at the same moment.
Cooking multiple foods in an air fryer is one of the trickiest challenges home cooks face. Different foods need different temperatures and times — chicken takes 20 minutes while prawns only need 8. Put them in together and you'll end up with perfectly cooked prawns and raw chicken, or properly done chicken and rubbery, overcooked prawns.
Our Air Fryer Cooking Planner solves this by calculating a staggered start-time schedule. You start cooking the longest-cooking food first, then the planner tells you exactly when to add each subsequent food so that everything finishes at the same time.
Cook multiple foods together with synced timings
Select 2 or more foods to get a staggered start-time schedule so everything finishes together.
| Food | Temp | Cook Time | Start At |
|---|
The planner uses a simple but effective principle: all foods should finish cooking at the same time. To achieve this, you start with the food that takes the longest to cook, then add each subsequent food at the right moment so they all finish together.
For example, if you are cooking chicken (20 minutes) and fries (15 minutes) together, you would start the chicken first. After 5 minutes, you add the fries. Both finish at the 20-minute mark — at exactly the same time.
The planner shows you each food's ideal temperature. If two foods have very different temperatures (more than 20–25°C apart), it may be better to cook them sequentially rather than simultaneously. Foods with similar temperature requirements can usually share the basket successfully.
When cooking multiple foods, the temptation to stack them is strong — resist it. Stacking traps steam between layers and prevents the air from circulating. Crispy results require a single layer, even if it means doing multiple batches.
Many air fryer accessory kits include dividers or skewer racks that allow you to separate different foods in the basket. These are particularly useful when cooking two proteins or when you want to keep flavours from mixing.
Even with a perfectly calculated staggered schedule, always check each food individually for doneness before serving. Your specific air fryer model, the exact weight of each food, and how full the basket is can all affect actual cooking times.