Vegan Recipes for Your Air Fryer, From Cauliflower Wings to Donuts

If you have an air fryer, be prepared for some hot, crispy goodness, as there are endless vegan air fryer recipes out there.

The cooking appliance, which is essentially a mini convection oven, has become wildly popular in recent years. Not only does it cook food quicker than a standard oven, but it also replicates the tasty method of deep frying food without requiring immersing the food in oil, meaning air fried food is a healthier alternative to its deep fried counterpart.

So to kick off your air fryer love affair, we've rounded up a few of the savoriest, tastiest, and easiest plant-based air fryer recipes, from sides to desserts.

The air fryer is a great vehicle for roasting vegetables to perfection. You could totally wing it, by simply adding the spices of your choosing to the veggies of your choosing — but if you're not a natural in the kitchen, we recommend this recipe for Air Fryer Roasted Vegetables from the blog The Dinner Bite.

The recipe uses zucchini, bell peppers, broccoli, and onion, and the marinade is made with smoked paprika, garlic granules, Herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice.

To make Sweet Simple Vegan's Easy Vegan Filipino Spring Rolls (Lumpiang Shanghai), you simply fill spring roll wrappers with a mixture of ingredients including plant-based ground beef, veggies, and a flax egg; then, roll them up, and cook them. The blog provides instructions for cooking via either air frying or deep frying, with the air fryer version only requiring a thin layer of oil.

Potatoes are one of nature's greatest gifts to humanity. There are endless ways to cook a potato, but if you'd like to follow a recipe, this recipe for Crispy Air Fryer Potatoes by Detoxinista sounds sublime. All you'll need to do is cut yukon gold potatoes into 1-to-2-inch chunks, season them with olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and fine sea salt, and toss them in the air fryer at 360 degrees for 15 minutes.

To reheat any leftovers, the blog recommends that you simply toss them back in the air fryer at the same temperature for a few minutes, rather than the microwave.

If you're experimenting with an air fryer, making cauliflower wings is a must. Cheap Lazy Vegan's recipe for Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Wings uses spices including garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika for flavor, as well as both bread crumbs and all-purpose flour for a crispy skin.

And it only takes air frying them at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes to crisp them to perfection.

The blog From My Bowl has a recipe for Healthy Vegan Onion Rings, which is much easier than it sounds — as long as you can figure out how to cut the onions. Luckily, the accompanying YouTube video involves a handy tutorial on how to slice your onion and peel apart its layers just so.

Onion rings are typically always deep fried, so this recipe is a great alternative for anyone who wants to enjoy some onions ring without risking a greasy feeling in their stomach afterwards.

If you have a sweet tooth and are up for a bit of a challenge, we recommend attempting to make Plantifully Based's Fried Apple Cider Donut Bites. Typically, doughnuts are deep fried, but the blog promises that the air fryer "is truly perfect for this recipe. You don’t need to deep fry to get something delicious."

Key ingredients you'll need include apple cider, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, allspice, and vegan yogurt. The recipe requires a bit of finesse, but you got this.

Blogger Mary Allyson's recipe for Chocolate Lava Cake is vegan, gluten-free, and free of refined sugar. Instead of flour, the recipe requires oats and almond flour; the recipe also includes a spotty banana, coconut milk, apple cider vinegar, and of course, chocolate in the form of cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

You can't make cake by pouring a batter directly in the air fryer — instead, you'll need four ramekins that can fit in your air fryer basket, meaning everyone gets their own mini cake. Just pour the batter in each one before baking. The full recipe can be found in the description of Mary Allyson's YouTube video.