How To Cook Catfish In Air Fryer
How To Cook Catfish In Air Fryer Without Being Catfished?
When we mention catfish, we’re not referring to the television show named “Catfish.” Instead, our focus is on catfish as a type of seafood. In this article, we’ll explore how to prepare catfish using an air fryer. I must confess, I’ve never cooked catfish before. Therefore, this journey of learning how to do so will be shared by both of us.
Preparing Catfish For The First Time
One of the cool things about catfish, you will be able to make delicious meals with it. There are many options that you can choose to cook your catfish. You can bake, deep-fried, grill and air fry your catfish.
The catfish can be paired with many things, such as sandwiches, greens, hot sauce, dipping sauce, etc., just to name a few. In the next section, you’ll learn about more things that you can pair with the catfish.
Sides That Go With Your Catfish
Just as how your meat protein is important the same can be said for your sides. If you don’t have a side then the meal isn’t complete.
Catfish has many varieties of side dishes that you can choose from. If you have your favorite side dish then you can use that instead. If you don’t have a side dish that you like, try these out for size. You can try macaroni and cheese, green beans with bacon, collard greens, and my favorite Hush Puppies.
Why Everyone Loves Air Fryer?
The reason why everyone loves the air fryer because it’s healthier than using a deep fryer. There is no longer a need to cook with a lot of oil, nor will there be a hassle of cleaning up. Thanks to the cooking oil all of these are avoided.
The air fryers have been a trending topic since of late, they have been a hot commodity that you can get in any shapes, sizes, and colors. Once you buy an air fryer, you’ll never cook any other way again.
Tips And Tricks Of An Air Fryer
When you’re using an air fryer for the first time, I’ll admit it’s a little bit challenging. Don’t worry I got your back, here are a few tricks and tips that I will provide for you:
The first thing you do when you receive your air fryer for the first time is to read your owner’s manual. Each air fryer brands are different, it can be different by its features and the power level on the air fryer. Also, ensure that you read all the manuals so that you can be familiar with your air fryer functions.
Some air fryer baskets will come with a nonstick coating, but others will come without this. You can lightly spray the air fryer basket oil.
Before buying an air fryer, you should ask yourself, how many people are you cooking for. You should find out which air fryer is right for you in terms of how many items can hold in one basket.
The important part of cooking in an air fryer is flipping whatever you’re cooking during the halfway mark. You can use a kitchen utensil to help you to flip over the item so that the food item that your cooking, can evenly cook on both sides.
How To Cook Catfish In Air Fryer
Here is an air fryer recipe that you can try for yourself.
Parmesan Catfish
Try this southern style food, that you can do with your family. This recipe will be so good that you will be licking your fingers and wanted for.
Ingredients:
- catfish fillets (4, thawed)
- fine yellow cornmeal (1/2 cup)
- flour (1/4 cup)
- paprika (1 tsp)
- cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp)
- egg (1 large)
- onion powder (1/4 tsp)
- garlic powder (1/2 tsp)
- buttermilk (1/4 cup)
- salt (1/2 tsp)
- black pepper (1/2 tsp)
- grated parmesan cheese (1/4 cup)
- lemon (1, in 4 wedges)
How to Prepare Air Fryer Catfish- Directions:
- Set your air fryer temperature to 400 degrees F for 2-3 minutes to preheat.
- Measure and add your pepper, flour, salt, paprika, cayenne, onion powders, garlic, cheese, and cornmeal, in a dish and mix well.
- Whisk the buttermilk and your egg in a different dish. Mix well.
- Dry off each catfish fillet with a paper towel. Coat both sides of the catfish by putting it into the egg mixture. You only need a thin coating on both sides of the catfish to let the cornmeal crust stick. Make sure to let any excess egg mixture on the catfish drip back into the dish.
- In the cornmeal, mixture bowl press the catfish on both sides of the fish. Make sure that all the catfish fillet is covered evenly and fully.
- You can either use your hands or tongs, to carefully place catfish fillets in the air fryer basket evenly.
- If you want your catfish fillet to come out crispy, then give it a light spray with some olive oil. It also prevents your catfish fillet from sticking to the air fryer basket.
- Set your air fryer timer for 12 minutes to cook the catfish fillet. During the halfway cooking timer of the catfish fillet, flip the fillet using your tongs.
- Take out the catfish fillet from of air fryer basket. Ensure that the catfish fillet is cooked through properly.
- Serve your catfish fillet with any sides of your choice. You can also serve it with dipping sauce and lemon wedge.
Notes on the Parmesan Catfish
In this recipe, the catfish fillet could have been cooked fresh, thawed, and frozen. If you were not to thaw out the catfish fillet and just cook it frozen. You would have to cook the frozen catfish for a longer time. The size and thickness of the catfish can make it cook for a long time too.
If you were not able to get any of the seasonings, then you could use your favorite seasoning. You could use any seasoning that you had available.
Conclusion
We’ve learned that it is bad to catfish, wait, sorry wrong catfish. Okay, what we learned that catfish is an actual fish. We also learned some basic stuff about air fryers amongst other things as well. I hope you learned something in this post as well, until next time.