After years of pan frying steaks to the charming tune of Brooklyn smoke detectors, I was delighted when I finally learned about reverse searing—a cooking method where you slowly bring the steak up to temperature in the conventional oven, and sear it briefly afterward. This method keeps the billowing smoke to a minimum, cooks the protein more evenly, and can prevent overcooking. The trade off: a comparatively long cooking time.
Since I'm always interested in trying to make a good thing work better for me, I set out to try and speed up the reverse searing method. I just needed something to bake gently, but faster. Luckily, there is an appliance that does exactly that—the air fryer. Not only can you reverse sear with great success in your air fryer, but you'll save time too.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
How the air fryer improves reverse searing
The searing part is easy—there's nothing to be improved with a screaming hot frying pan—it's the oven portion that needs help. Baking the steak is the first step in this method and it can take 20 to 30 minutes depending on how thick the steak is and how well you want it cooked. The air fryer manages to do the same thing, but with convection forced air speeding up the process. It's still gentle enough to do the trick but in about half the time.
Additionally, the air fryer is smaller, and arguably, more steak-sized. Why reserve your entire oven to gently heat a couple steaks when you can free up the stove and put the meat in a smaller appliance, reducing both cooking time and preheating time.
Reverse searing also requires that you keep a pretty close eye on the temperature of the steak. Since you'll be briefly searing it after it bakes, you want to cut off the baking time about 15 degrees cooler than the target temperature. That means testing it with a thermometer somewhat often. Personally, I found this much easier to do with an air fryer. The appliance is already at countertop height, so I didn't have to contort my body to probe the steak or stick my entire arm into a hot oven.
Finding the right fan speed
The tough part for me was determining which fan speed would accelerate the baking portion without overdoing it. Air fryers are extremely effective and I didn't want to overcook the steak right off the bat.
Like I mentioned before, you'd bake the steak at somewhere between 200°F to 250°F for about 20 to 30 minutes in the regular oven. I used this as a reference point and then tried each of the fan speeds on my Instant Vortex, which is my go-to air fryer (find out why in my review here). If your air fryer doesn't have fan speeds listed plainly, they're under names like bake, roast, and air fry. “Bake” being the lowest fan speed moving up to “air fry” as the highest fan speed.
While each setting shaved some time off of the reverse searing method, I had the most success with the “air fry” setting.
What do you think so far?
How to reverse sear with an air fryer
I started with a salt and MSG seasoned top sirloin steak about an inch and a half thick. Much thinner than an inch thick and you might have trouble keeping the center pink. Preheat your air fryer to 250°F on the “air fry” setting. This should only take a minute or two.
Put the steak onto the air fryer's grate and let it cook for 10 minutes for a medium-rare steak. My steak was 113°F at this point, with the goal of 128°F-ish after searing. I suggest checking the temperature of the steak at the halfway point to see how it's coming along, and again at around the eight minute mark. Air fryers differ from brand to brand and your steak will cook differently depending on its size. If you'd like to cook your steak to a different level, check the target temperatures in the picture below.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
A few minutes before the steak is done, heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium heat. You want the pan to be near smoking hot. Once you're happy with the steak's temperature, place the steak into the pan and sear each side for about 30 seconds. Let the steak rest for about five minutes before taking the temperature again and you should be in good shape.
My steak reached 130°F and turned out exactly as intended with an excellent crust and a plump, juicy interior. All told, the air fryer reverse searing method should only take about 15 minutes. Decidedly an improvement from the regular oven's 30 minutes. As a side bonus, cleaning the Instant Vortex grate is pretty damn effortless, and I hope your grate is too. Happy reverse searing, y'all.
