Air Fryer Stuffed Mushrooms Are The Filling Snack You Can Make Anytime

As a modern miracle, air fryers manage to combine the best aspects of deep frying and convection baking. Air-fried foods have a crispy texture and a tender, juicy interior, all without the mess of a deep fryer and cooking within a fraction of the time required in a conventional oven. Air-frying stuffed mushrooms instead of baking them will save you time so that you can make these hearty, savory snacks in as little as 15 minutes.

You're already saving a bunch of prep time by using whole mushrooms, and the filling is a simple recipe that takes all of 30 seconds to combine and another five minutes to spoon into the mushrooms. While your air fryer preheats to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, wash a 16-ounce container of medium-sized mushrooms (good types of mushrooms for this include cremini or button), pat them dry with a paper towel, and remove the stems. Then, prepare your filling mixture in a mixing bowl, spooning a heaping portion into the cap of the mushroom to create a slight mound that'll brown nicely in the air fryer. 

Spray the air fryer basket with some cooking oil to ensure that the caps don't stick to the hot basket, place the stuffed mushrooms in a single layer over the air fryer's cooking surface, and heat them for eight minutes. You can also use larger mushrooms like portobellos, but they'll require at least 10 minutes in the air fryer at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

If you're making air-fryer stuffed mushrooms for a snack to whip up on the fly, an elaborate filling will slow you down. So, the easiest stuffing would be a mix of premade store-bought ingredients that you can dump into a mixing bowl. Room-temperature cream cheese is a great tangy base that'll bind any other ingredients together. You can also crack an egg into a stuffing full of otherwise dry ingredients to help hold them together. This simple stuffed mushrooms recipe uses mayonnaise as a binder. There are vegan cream cheese brands and egg substitutes to bind plant-based stuffed mushroom fillings. 

Spice blend packets, pre-shredded cheese, dried fruit, condiments, canned veggies, store-bought breadcrumbs, cured meat, and leftover cooked grains are ideal options to make the quickest and most flavorful stuffed mushroom fillings with the least amount of effort. For example, you could make Southwestern-style mushrooms by blending a can of diced tomatoes and green chilies into cream cheese with shredded cheddar, slivers of black olives, and a packet of taco seasoning. Or try using herb-infused goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, diced pepperoni, and seasoned breadcrumbs.

Squeeze harissa and tomato paste into leftover bulgur, quinoa, or rice with garlic powder, onion powder, feta cheese, and pine nuts for a Mediterranean stuffed mushroom. A sophisticated stuffing of diced crystalized ginger and pecans, leftover cornbread crumbs, spinach, and a couple tablespoons of shiitake mushroom and herb broth would also be a crowd-pleasing appetizer.