Easy Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Recipe

Grilled cheese sandwiches are one of those basic dishes that nobody seems to cook in quite the same way. Some favor pan frying, others use a toaster oven, but recipe developer Kit Hondrum makes use of an air fryer. Hondrum also likes to make her sandwiches with sourdough bread, since she loves the taste of it, but she tells us that "you can absolutely use another kind of bread if you don't have sourdough" or if you, yourself, are not a real fan of its flavor. For a similar consistency, a crusty loaf of Italian bread would work quite nicely.

This sandwich is made with three different types of cheese, which makes it somewhat fancier than the standard grilled cheese, but you can dress it up even more if you wish. Hondrum suggests "fresh, thinly sliced tomatoes for a tomato grilled cheese" or says you can "add prosciutto or turkey if you want to add some meat." You could also use deli ham to make an air-fried ham and cheese. As to what to serve with these sandwiches, tomato soup is classic, although Hondrum says she prefers a green salad herself.

Ingredient-wise, this is a pretty simple recipe, requiring just five components. There's the bread, of course, sourdough or whatever kind you prefer. There's also some mayo for the outside to get a crunchy crust — Hondrum uses avocado oil mayonnaise, but any mayo will work. For cheeses, she uses mozzarella, cheddar, and Parmesan, although you can tinker with these, as well, using whatever cheeses you like best.

Hondrum starts off by spritzing the air fryer with oil, but she doesn't worry about preheating it. If you've found that yours works better when you do preheat it, then by all means go ahead and do so — the cook temperature is 400 F.

Spread mayonnaise on one side of each bread slice, then put the bread in the air fryer, mayo side-down.

Sprinkle or layer the bread with the cheese depending on whether the latter is grated or sliced. It doesn't really matter as long as you've got the cheese pretty evenly divided among the bread slices. Set the air fryer to 400 F if you haven't already preheated it, then cook the sandwiches for about 3 minutes until the cheese has melted.

At this point, Hondrum says to fold the cheese-topped bread slices, turning them from open-faced sandwiches into closed ones. Press them down with your hands or a spatula to flatten them a bit, then cook them for 4 minutes. Flip them, then cook them for 4 more minutes.

Hondrum says that she uses the Cuisinart TOA-65 air fryer, and that in this model it took 10 minutes for her sandwiches to be done. She does say, though, that your "cook time could be longer or shorter with different air fryer models."