Best Way to Cook Frozen Pizza in an Air Fryer? [Air Fryer 101]

I have done an article on my site talking about reheating pizza in an air fryer (which by the way works awesome). Today I will be showing you how to cook frozen pizza in an air fryer too. By the end of this article you will know the best way to cook frozen pizza in your air fryer and how long to cook that frozen pizza and at what temperature! If you love air frying and eating pizza, this is the article for you 🙂

What Frozen Pizza Did I Choose?

I don’t have that much choice due to my location in the world, but luckily I was able to pick up a decent Tesco branded Deep Pan Pepperoni frozen pizza to use. I feel like this is the ideal test as it is a deep pan and will need thorough cooking for best results. This pizza is not a mini pizza but would be considered a small frozen pizza in most parts of the world 🙂

Tesco says it is ‘meaty and cheesy’, let’s hope so 🙂

Air Fryer Basket or Air Fryer Oven to Cook Frozen Pizza?

In the past I have often only had a small 3 quart size traditional air fryer to use, meaning unless I cook small mini pizzas I would literally have to cook my frozen pizza slice by slice. It works but can be annoying if you are cooking for more than one person.

Luckily I currently have a big size traditional air fryer and an air fryer oven on test so it gave me the opportunity to see whether a bigger air fryer would still work for pizza. And it was exciting to cook frozen pizza in an air fryer oven for the first time.

Obviously, using the racks of an air fryer oven is always preferable for cooking frozen pizza in an air fryer, as it will give you more space around the pizza helping both sides to crisp up nicely!

Just for reference, I tried to place the frozen pizza in my 3.7 quart VPcok air fryer, but naturally it wouldn’t fit this pizza at all. This would leave you to cut it up into smaller slices to cook. I think any air fryer below 6 quarts in size is going to struggle to put anything but a mini pizza in whole.

However, it was great to see my 6.9 quart Uten air fryer being able to just fit the pizza inside in one piece. Although an air fryer oven is preferable for pizza, you can still make do with the larger basket or bucket style air fryers.

And just to round everyone off, you can see that the frozen pizza fits comfortably in my CalmDo Air Fryer oven, as you might expect. This is what I will choose to cook the frozen pizza in for this test. Below you can see the pizza placed into the Calmdo air fryer oven getting ready to be blasted with hot air 🙂

What temperature to Cook Frozen Pizza in an Air Fryer?

The simple way to calculate this is to take the temperature stated on the instructions for a fan oven. In my experience this also works really well when using an air fryer. This particular pizza called for a temperature of 170 Celsius or 338 Fahrenheit, so this is exactly what I used.

Check the instructions of your pizza to find the perfect temperature. As you can see below, most have temperatures for a fan assisted oven.

How Long to Cook Frozen Pizza in an Air Fryer?

My experience has shown that the simplest and best way to calculate the cooking time of frozen food in an air fryer is to simply roughly half the timing given for a fan assisted oven, and it is no different for frozen pizza. As the time given on this frozen pizza’s instructions was between 23-25 minutes, I opted for a time of 12 minutes.

The End Result of Cooking Frozen Pizza in an Air Fryer

When I first started doing these frozen food cooking tests in my air fryer it was exactly that, a test! But now I have honed my skill I can pretty much judge the best cook time and temperature on the fly. This end result proved this again, as I ended up with a frozen pizza that was perfectly browned with a crisp base. And the base had a soft center to boot! I would call that a raging success!

Tips for Cooking Frozen Pizza in an Air Fryer

• Make sure to give your frozen pizza plenty of space for the hot air to get all around it. This will lead to a crispy cheese top as well as a crisp base bottom.
• Use a rack or baking tray that has holes in it to allow the hot air to flow through and crisp up the pizza base.
• Use the temperature designated on the instructions for a fan oven, as well as halving the cook time for the same. This will give you the perfect setup for most air fryers.
• No need to use any extra oil when cooking frozen pizza in an air fryer.
• Don’t cut your pizza whilst in your air fryer as it will scratch the delicate non-stick coating (which is often prone to peeling at the best of times).
• Give a good amount of space between your pizza and the heating element at the top of the air fryer. Otherwise the top of your pizza will burn whilst the base will be underdone.