For The Crispiest Dressing, Skip The Oven

We all know how an oven fills up during family gatherings, whether for holidays, special occasions, or routine Sunday dinners. Roasting pans, casserole dishes, and baking sheets rotate in and out, vying for prime pre-dinner cooking space. Dressing is pretty high in oven hierarchy, but it's still a major heat hog, sometimes taking an hour or more to cook, depending on the recipe. Here's something to ease that logjam: Just pull out your trusty, compact air fryer. You can totally skip the traditional oven and get an extra-crispy crust across the entire exterior. 

The air fryer method works for both dressing and stuffing, basically any version that's cooked in its own pan rather than stuffed inside a big bird. Air fryers work by convection heat, blowing hot air throughout the small, boxy, countertop appliance. As air circulates, your dressing or stuffing cooks much more quickly, generally about half the time required inside a typical oven. All that hot air within a small space also helps crisp up the exposed area on top. 

When calculating the correct time and temperature for cooking dressing in an air fryer, it can vary slightly depending on whether it's a traditional cornbread-style dressing or a cubed bread stuffing. The terms get intermingled these days, but a traditional stuffing typically cooks inside a turkey, resulting in a much softer, juicier side dish, while dressing is a lone ranger, baking in its own pan. However, an air fryer changes the dynamic, giving each an equal shot at crispy crunchiness, perfect for sopping up Aunt Betty's famous gravy. 

First up is a cornbread dressing, the Southern go-to for holiday meals. This is where an air fryer really shines, maintaining the moist dressing interior while toasting up the exterior. As is true with a conventional oven, you'll need to cook the cornbread first, then transform it with your favorite dressing ingredients. Choose a pan that fits easily inside the air fryer, and slightly grease the sides and bottom.   

To keep hot air from drying out the dressing, cover the pan with foil, and cook in the air fryer at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 to 15 minutes. The blast of circulating air can send tin foil flying like a fanciful kite — so tuck it firmly under the edges of the pan. Next, remove the foil and cook for another 10 minute or so, creating crispy little peaks and grooves across the exposed top. Keep an eye on this last step, pulling it out if the top starts to harden or char. 

Stuffing, by definition, is "stuffed" inside the cavity of a turkey or whole chicken, but it too can thrive separately in the air fryer. Just use your chosen bread cube stuffing recipe, but follow the same general steps as when making air-fryer dressing. Timing and temperatures for both dressing and stuffing can vary per recipe, so a general rule for converting oven-based recipes for an air fryer is to reduce the recommended time and temperature by about 25%, adjusting as needed as cooking proceeds.