I absolutely love baked potatoes. What I don’t love is that baked potatoes take an hour to cook in the oven. I don’t have that kind of patience. So when I realized you can make Air Fryer Baked Potatoes, I was so excited.

Baked Potatoes in the air fryer are so easy. And they’re really hands off too. But the best part is they’re made in the air fryer. That means, you don’t have to turn the oven on for an hour, heating up your entire home. Using the oven for long periods at a time is fine in the winter. Actually, it’s even one of our tips to save on your winter heating bills. But keeping the oven on for a while isn’t something you really want to do in the summer.

So in the summer, I really like to use the slow cooker or the air fryer whenever I can.

Air Fryer Baked Potatoes

Air Fryer Baked Potatoes Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Olive oil
• Salt

How To Make Air Fryer Baked Potatoes:

Pre-heat the air fryer to 400.

I always set the air fryer and let it run for 7 to 10 minutes before putting food inside. You don’t have to do this, but I feel like I get a more accurate cooking time when I do.

Rinse off your potatoes.

Pat your potatoes dry.

Use a fork to puncture the potatoes. I usually make a full line of about seven punctures before turning the potato and making seven punctures, continuing on around the potato. Of course, you can do this a little more haphazardly.

Drizzle about a quarter teaspoon of olive oil on top of each potato. Rub the olive oil into the skin of the potato.

Sprinkle the potato with salt. Rub the salt into the skin of the potato as well.

Bake the potatoes in the air fryer for 30 minutes, shaking the basket at the halfway point.

Serve warm.

We served these with mini meatloaf smothered in bacon jam for this photo, in case you’re wondering what that deliciousness on the left side of the photo is.

FAQ’s Air Fryer Baked Potatoes

To make your life a little bit easier, I put together a list of a few of the frequently asked questions about these air fryer baked potatoes. If you have any questions, read through these quickly. Hopefully you’ll get an answer. If not, be sure to leave us a comment and we’ll answer you there, then add your question to this list to help other people.

What type of potato bakes best in the air fryer?

You can use any type of potato for this Air Fryer Baked Potatoes recipe. Russet and Idaho are probably your best bet.

You could do red potatoes if you really wanted, but those are small, so they’re generally not the potato of choice when you’re making baked potatoes.

The same goes with fingerling. Fingerling potatoes are tasty, but they’re too small to be your potato choice for a baked potato. You’d need to make a few per person instead of just one Russet potato per person.

Why do you puncture the potatoes?

When you’re baking the potato, it gets really hot inside the potato. You’re basically steaming the potato in its skin.

Steam will form and needs somewhere to go. If you have puncture holes all over the potato, the steam can easily escape. That’s why I puncture it so much. I want the steam to have lots of options.

If you don’t give the steam anywhere to go, it will build up … and may (potentially) cause the potato to explode. And you’ll end up with a big mess and no baked potato for dinner.

Even if you’re not cooking the baked potato in the air fryer, and you’re making baked potatoes in the oven or microwave instead, you definitely want to puncture the potatoes. You don’t want to risk an explosion.

Do you need to use oil?

When you’re cooking fresh food in the air fryer, you always need to use a little bit of oil. You don’t nearly use as much oil in the air fryer as when you’re deep frying, which is why some people prefer the air fryer.

Also me. I’m some people.

If you add seasoning to something without oil, then place it in the air fryer, the air inside the air fryer will blow the seasoning all over the place. The seasoning won’t stay stuck to your food.

When you’re food is done cooking, it will be a little bland. When you remove the air fryer basket to clean it, you’ll see that all the seasoning ends up in the bottom of the air fryer.

When you use a little bit of oil in an air fryer recipe, the oil acts as a glue to hold the seasoning in place.

For this recipe, I said use a quarter teaspoon of oil per potato, but honestly, that’s a generous amount. You could probably get away with using half of that. Plus, since you’re rubbing it in with your hands, you’re probably removing half of it that way anyway.

When you’re cleaning your air fryer after you’ve made these Air Fryer Baked Potatoes, you may notice that some of the oil pools at the bottom of the basket. So in reality, the amount of oil you’re eating per baked potato is really minimal.

How many Air Fryer Baked Potatoes can you make at one time?

The amount of Air Fryer Baked Potatoes you can make at once really depends on the size of your potatoes and the size of your air fryer. We can fit four to five Russet potatoes comfortably in our 5 quart air fryer.

With four to five potatoes, they each have room around them in the air fryer basket and aren’t crowded. Any more than that would really crowd the basket and I’m not sure that they would cook evenly or in 30 minutes.

If you need to make more than five baked potatoes at once, you’ll probably want to make them in the oven.

Can you wrap these in foil before putting them in the air fryer?

Aluminum foil is safe to use in the air fryer. So if you wanted to, you could wrap the potatoes in aluminum foil and then cook them in the air fryer that way. Sometimes I’ll do that in the oven and then put the potatoes directly on the rack in the oven rather than on a cookie sheet. And if I’m grilling potatoes, I always wrap the potatoes in foil before putting them on the grill.

But personally, I’ve never put foil in our air fryer. So I’ve never made Air Fryer Baked Potatoes by wrapping them in foil. I’m sure it’s fine, from a cooking standpoint, but it’s just not something I tried before. If you have, be sure to let us know in the comments.