Best Air Fryer Accessories
Search for air fryer accessories and you will find dozens of lists, all recommending roughly the same eight items in roughly the same order. America’s Test Kitchen puts the problem bluntly: There are thousands of products on the market, and a lot of them are useless gimmicks.
The harder question is not which accessories exist. It is which ones anybody has actually checked.
The admission buried in the most-cited list
Which? publishes one of the most widely quoted air fryer accessory round-ups in the UK. Read past the introduction and you find this sentence: Our lab hasn’t tested these add-ons, so we’ve analysed market trends and retailer data to bring you a list of the most popular extras for your air fryer.
That is an honest disclosure and Which? deserves credit for making it. But it changes what the list is. It is a record of what sells well, not a record of what works well. Those two things overlap, and they are not the same thing.
Almost every accessory list downstream of it repeats the recommendations without repeating the disclaimer.
How this list is ordered
We have ranked these accessories by how much evidence supports them, not by how popular they are. That produces a different order from every other list we found, and it puts one item at the top that appears on almost none of them.
| Accessory | Strength of evidence | What supports it |
|---|---|---|
| Instant-read thermometer | Food safety guidance | Published internal temperature requirements you cannot check any other way |
| Nonstick-safe tongs and spatula | Documented mechanism | Metal scratches the coating; the damage pathway is understood |
| Silicone basket liner | Independent hands-on trial | Compared against two rival liner types by a consumer group |
| Stackable rack | Popularity plus a verified second-order benefit | Untested as a product, but the batching problem it solves is measured |
| Cake pan or silicone mould | Recommended, not tested | Named by testers as useful, without a comparative trial |
| Glass dish, skewers, cookbook | Retailer data only | Popular. That is the whole of the evidence |
1. An instant-read thermometer
This is the accessory that belongs at the top of every one of these lists and sits on almost none of them. Neither the Which? round-up nor the America’s Test Kitchen tools article mentions one.
Every other item here is about convenience or cleaning. A thermometer is the only one that answers a question with a documented safe answer. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service publishes minimum internal temperatures: poultry to 165 °F, ground meat to 160 °F, whole cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal to 145 °F followed by a three-minute rest, and fish to 145 °F.
You cannot verify any of those numbers by looking at the food. Air fryers make this harder than ovens, not easier, because the same agency warns that Overcrowding the appliance can prevent enough air circulation to properly cook the food.
A crowded basket can brown the outside of a chicken thigh convincingly while the centre stays under temperature.
It is also the accessory most likely to still be useful in five years, because it is not tied to the dimensions of the appliance you own today. Everything else on this list becomes scrap the moment you switch to a different style of air fryer.
Check instant-read thermometers on Amazon
2. Nonstick-safe tongs and a spatula
This one has no comparative test behind it either, but it has something better than popularity: a mechanism that is understood and a consequence that matters.
Almost all drawer-style air fryers have nonstick interiors, and as America’s Test Kitchen notes, metal utensils can scratch nonstick material.
Silicone-tipped tongs and a nonstick-safe spatula avoid that.
Why this matters more than it sounds: intact nonstick coating is the condition under which regulators consider the material stable. Once the surface is scratched or flaking, you are outside the situation the safety assessments describe. We cover what those assessments actually say in our guide to air fryer non-stick coating safety, and scratching is also one of the signals that means it is time to replace the basket.
A pair of tongs is the cheapest thing on this list and it protects the most expensive part of the appliance.
See silicone-tipped tongs on Amazon
3. Liners: the only accessory anyone has actually trialled
Which? ran a hands-on comparison of three liner types by cooking batches of cheesy chips and judging build quality, cleanliness after cooking, and how much extra scrubbing was still needed. It is the only genuine head-to-head trial of an air fryer accessory we could find from an independent consumer organisation.
Their conclusion favoured silicone. What makes the trial worth reading is that it also documents what silicone gives up.
| Liner type | Strength | Documented weakness | Reusable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silicone basket liner | Catches grease well; cleans by hand or dishwasher; handles let you lift it out while hot | The bowl shape restricts airflow, so food needs more stirring | Yes |
| Paper liner | Cheapest; no cleaning at all, simply discarded | Grease seeps through; cannot handle food in sauce; single-use | No |
| Reusable sheet | Sturdy; some can be cut to fit unusual basket shapes | Messy food seeps through the perforations; no handles; still needs scrubbing | Yes |
Two findings deserve pulling out, because they contradict how liners are usually sold.
Paper liners fail at the job people buy them for. Which? found that Grease quickly seeps through, which means they’re not the most reliable option if your goal is zero-to-minimal mess in your air fryer basket.
Layering them up helps, but this still won’t be enough to keep the basket completely clean.
The holes are marketing. Perforated liners are sold on the promise of airflow. Which? reported that Manufacturers claim the perforations allow hot air to circulate evenly around the basket, but we didn’t notice a big difference in the quality of food we cooked
during the trial. Their advice was that not overfilling the basket matters more than whether the liner has holes.
Browse silicone basket liners on Amazon
The one rule every source agrees on
Independent testers and manufacturers rarely line up this cleanly, but on liners they do.
Which? warns that light liners must be weighed down: Homemade and store-bought paper liners are very light, so you’ll have to weigh them down with enough food to keep them from being blown around the basket – a potential safety hazard.
Their accessory round-up repeats it for plain baking paper: Just be sure to always weigh it down with food so it doesn’t blow upward into the heating element.
Philips states the consequence directly in its own support documentation: paper or foil placed in the appliance without food on top could be sucked into the heating element and start to burn.
Never preheat with an empty liner in the basket. This is also one of the more common causes of an air fryer suddenly producing smoke, which we work through in why is my air fryer smoking. The full picture on liner materials, including what testing has found inside silicone bakeware, is in our air fryer liner safety rules.
4. Stackable racks
No one has tested these. Which? lists them on retailer popularity alone, describing the benefit as Doubles the capacity of your air fryer
with the caveat Rotate the racks halfway through for even cooking.
We are placing racks above the merely popular items anyway, because the problem they address has been measured even though the product has not.
Cooking in two batches is what destroys the air fryer’s main practical advantage. Measured energy figures show the running-cost saving against an oven collapsing once a second batch is needed, which we set out in do air fryers use a lot of electricity. Anything that turns two batches into one is solving a real, quantified problem rather than an imagined one.
The caution is fit. Which? advises: Make sure you buy racks that are the right size for the air fryer you have.
Racks are sold for specific models, and a rack that blocks airflow or touches the element is worse than no rack. If you are unsure how much room you have, our guide to air fryer capacity explains why the litre figure on the box is not a reliable guide to usable space.
5. A cake pan or silicone moulds
Recommended by testers, but not from a comparative trial. America’s Test Kitchen suggests a round cake pan opens up baking, with a practical sizing note: Our favorite air fryers will fit an 8-inch pan, but if your air fryer is smaller, a 6-inch could be more helpful.
Which? makes the same suggestion for silicone muffin moulds and adds that built-in handles make lifting them out of a hot basket easier.
Buy this one only if you intend to bake. It is the accessory most likely to sit unused in a drawer.
6. A glass dish
Popularity-based, with one genuine material argument in its favour. As Which? puts it, glass doesn’t use non-stick coating and is usually dishwasher-safe.
If nonstick coating is a concern for you, a dish that has none sidesteps the question entirely.
Two conditions apply. It has to fit with clearance around it, and it has to be a dish rated for oven temperatures. Not all glassware is, and thermal shock is a real failure mode.
7. Skewers
Retailer data only. The single useful specific from Which? is dimensional: Smaller drawers typically require shorter skewers (around 15cm), whereas larger models can accommodate lengths of 18 to 20cm.
Measure before buying.
What we would not buy
-
- Anything sold as a universal fit. Both sources repeat the same warning about dimensions on nearly every item. Baskets differ enough that universal accessories tend to fit nothing well.
-
- Perforated liners bought specifically for the holes. The one organisation that trialled them did not find the airflow benefit the marketing describes.
-
- Large accessory bundles. A seven-piece kit is a way of selling six items you did not choose alongside one you did.
-
- Metal utensils, however well reviewed. They scratch the surface you are trying to protect.
And the honest baseline, from America’s Test Kitchen: You don’t need a liner to air fry, but they make cleaning your air fryer a whole lot easier.
That sentence generalises to this whole category. None of these items is necessary. They buy convenience, and one of them buys certainty about temperature.
What this article cannot tell you
-
- Which brand of any accessory is best. Only one category here has been trialled at all, and that trial compared types rather than crowning a product.
-
- Whether a specific accessory fits your model. We have not measured any appliance. Check your own basket dimensions.
-
- How long any of these last. No durability data exists that we could verify.
-
- Whether silicone accessories release anything into food at air fryer temperatures. The available laboratory work concerns silicone bakeware in ovens, not air fryers. We explain the limits of transferring that evidence in our liner guide rather than assuming it carries across.
-
- Whether the Which? liner result holds for US products. The trial used UK-market liners, and the retailers named in it are British.
Frequently asked questions
Do air fryer liners need holes in them?
Not according to the only independent trial we found. Which? reported no meaningful difference in cooking quality between perforated and unperforated liners, and concluded that not overfilling the basket matters more.
Can I cut a silicone baking mat to make my own liner?
Which? says yes, with two conditions: Be mindful not to cover any heating elements and ensure you properly weigh down the liner with food.
Those conditions are the same ones that apply to bought liners, and they are not optional.
Is aluminium foil a cheaper substitute for a liner?
It is cheaper, and manufacturers disagree about whether it is advisable. The disagreement is specific and worth understanding before you decide, so we set out both positions in can you put aluminium foil in an air fryer.
Will a liner stop me having to clean the air fryer?
No. Liners cover the base of the basket. Grease still reaches the walls, the drawer and the element above the food, and the element is the part that most often causes problems. Our guide to cleaning an air fryer heating element covers the part no liner protects.
Are accessory bundles good value?
Rarely, and not because of price. Bundles are assembled around what is cheap to manufacture rather than what you will use, and every item in them carries the same fit risk that the individual items do.
Related reading
Sources: Which?, 8 great accessories for your air fryer (15 July 2026), which states that its lab has not tested the items listed; Which?, Air fryer liners tested, a hands-on trial whose page carries a display date of 28 July 2026 while its underlying publication metadata records July 2024, so the age of the trial is uncertain; America’s Test Kitchen, air fryer tools (February 2023), whose named liner winners sit behind a members-only review we could not read; USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (updated 24 June 2024); and Philips support documentation. Both Which? pages carry retailer affiliate links, as does this one. The evidence tiers and every judgement about which accessories are worth buying are ours.
