Air Fryer Dinner Rolls

January 17, 2020

Air Fryer Dinner Rolls

Dinner rolls are the soft, milk-enriched yeast rolls that turn up at family dinners and holiday tables — the kind you tear apart and butter while they’re still warm. This version swaps the oven for an air fryer, baking a batch of 12 in the basket instead of heating up a whole oven for a small amount of bread.

The dough itself is nothing unusual: flour, warm milk, a little sugar and butter, yeast, salt, and an optional egg for extra richness. What’s different is the appliance doing double duty — a switched-off, closed air fryer makes a genuinely good warm spot for the second rise, on top of doing the actual baking.

Air fryers run hotter and closer to the food than an oven, so these bake at a noticeably lower temperature than a conventional oven recipe — around 300°F (150°C) rather than 350°F (175°C) or more. The trade-off is that tops brown fast while bottoms lag behind, so a quick flip near the end evens things out. What comes out is soft and light with a golden top, close in texture to an oven-baked roll, just made in less time and without warming up the whole kitchen.

An optional tangzhong step — cooking a small portion of the flour and milk into a paste before mixing it into the dough — makes the crumb even softer and keeps the rolls fresh a day or two longer. It isn’t necessary, but it’s worth doing if the rolls are going to sit out for a day before serving.

Ingredients

Makes 12 rolls

350 g bread flour, plus extra for shaping (or all-purpose)
210 ml whole milk, warmed to about 38°C
1 egg, room temperature (optional, for a richer crumb)
50 g unsalted butter, softened
15 g unsalted butter, melted, for brushing
25 g granulated sugar
7 g active dry or instant yeast (1 packet)
6 g fine salt
optional: flaky salt (or garlic-herb butter, or egg wash with sesame or everything seasoning), for topping

Directions

Warm the milk to about 38°C (100°F) — noticeably warm on your wrist but not hot. If using active dry yeast, stir it into the warm milk with a pinch of the sugar and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until foamy; if using instant yeast, skip this step and whisk it straight into the flour instead.

Combine the flour, remaining sugar, and salt in a large bowl (adding the instant yeast here too, if that’s what you’re using). Add the milk mixture, the egg if using it, and the softened butter, and mix until a shaggy dough comes together. Turn it out and knead by hand for 7 to 10 minutes, or 5 to 7 minutes with a stand mixer’s dough hook, until the dough is smooth, soft, and only just tacky. Work in a little extra flour if it keeps sticking to your hands.

Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and leave it in a warm spot for 1 to 1½ hours, until doubled in size.

Line the air fryer basket with parchment, or oil a 6 to 9-inch pan that fits inside the basket. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll each into a smooth, tight ball. Arrange them just touching each other for rolls that pull apart, or with a little space between for rolls with more crust all the way round.

Cover loosely and let the rolls rise again for 45 to 60 minutes, until they’re puffy and touching. A switched-off air fryer with the basket closed works well as a warm spot for this second rise — otherwise any warm corner of the kitchen does the job.

Air-fry at 300°F (150°C) for 15 to 18 minutes, until the tops are golden and the rolls are cooked through — an instant-read thermometer in the center should read about 190°F (88°C). Don’t preheat the air fryer on a hot setting first, and check a few minutes early the first time you make these, since air fryer models vary quite a bit.

Air fryers brown tops much faster than bottoms, so if the underside of a roll still looks pale once the tops are done, flip the batch over and give it another 1 to 2 minutes.

Brush the warm tops with the melted butter — plain, or stirred with chopped garlic and herbs for extra flavor — and scatter over flaky salt if using. Let the rolls cool for a few minutes before pulling apart and serving warm.

Notes

For a softer crumb that stays fresh a day or two longer, cook 2 tbsp of the flour with 60 ml (¼ cup) of the milk in a small pan over low heat, stirring, until it thickens into a smooth paste (a tangzhong). Cool it slightly, then mix it into the dough with the rest of the ingredients. It’s optional, but it’s the single biggest upgrade to texture.
Bread flour gives more chew and structure; all-purpose flour works fine too, for a slightly softer roll.
Bigger rolls, or a stuffed variation, take longer — up to 25 to 28 minutes. Rolls this size are usually done closer to 15 minutes.
Store leftovers airtight at room temperature for up to 2 days, or freeze the baked rolls for 2 to 3 months and refresh them in the air fryer for 1 to 2 minutes before serving.
Pre-baked frozen rolls (like Sister Schubert’s) don’t need proofing at all: put them straight from the freezer into the basket, brush with melted butter, and air-fry at 350°F (175°C) for 4 to 5 minutes, until warmed through and lightly browned.
Raw frozen dough (like Rhodes rolls) needs thawing and rising first: leave the frozen dough balls at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours until soft, then let them rise in a warm spot for 1 to 2 hours until roughly 50 to 100% bigger. Air-fry at 325°F (163°C) for 10 to 14 minutes, brushing with melted butter in the last 2 minutes, and leave about 1 inch (2.5 cm) between the rolls as they expand.