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Air Fried Steak

by Victor Martinez 12/15/22

This is a continuation of the last journal entry, where I used the air fryer to make an egg. This time around, I wanted to see if you could make a steak successfully in an air fryer. I chose a steak because it is a complex food to cook depending on type of cut, size, and desired doneness of the steak. My overall goal is to cook an edible steak that lands at the medium-well level of doneness.

For this trail run, I decided on a sirloin steak with about half an inch of thickness. Prior experience with frying an egg gave me a baseline for what I could do differently for the steak. For starters, I wanted to preheat the air fryer, so I turned the temperature knob that is on top of the fryer to 400F. Then set the timer knob on the front of the fryer to 30 minutes. This caused both the yellow and green indicator lights to turn on, meaning the fryer was on and heating up. While the air fryer was heating up, I took the time to season the steak with salt and pepper on both sides. Then I rubbed olive oil on both sides so the steak would not stick to the tray. Once the steak was all prepped, I checked the air fryer to see if it was done heating to 400F. Upon glancing at the front two indicator lights, I noticed the heating indicator light was turned off, meaning that the fryer had finished heating to my desired temperature.

It was now time to put the steak in the tray! With an oven mitt on, I removed the tray from the hot air fryer and gently placed the steak on the tray. While the steak did start to sizzle instantly, I quickly placed the tray back into the air fryer. I decided to use the constant flip method, where I would flip the steak every 30 seconds so it would cook evenly and not burn on one side. After the first 30 seconds, I got my tongs ready and flipped the steak over. To my surprise, the steak was cooking well and was not burned at all! I then continued this process for another 7 minutes, flipping every 30 seconds. On the final flip, I pulled the tray out of the fryer and placed the finished steak onto a plate, letting it rest for a few minutes.

The results after cutting into the steak were a success! I achieved my goal of cooking the steak to medium well doneness, and it tasted great! Overall, it was a satisfying experience to be able to use an alternative method of cooking so effectively. I would have never guessed that we would come up with another appliance that could be used in the kitchen everyday. The only caveat that I would try to avoid next time is the amount of smoke caused by cooking the steak in the air fryer. The air fryer did a poor job of ventilating the smoke. Next time I will have to leave a window open so all the smoke can leave my apartment instead of staying trapped inside.