My $50 silicone liner turned my air fryer into a smoke machine

Last spring I grabbed a fancy silicone liner from a kitchen store because I thought it would save me scrubbing time. First use with some chicken thighs, it melted right onto the heating element and filled my whole apartment with acrid smoke. Took me 2 hours to air out the place and the liner was a total loss, plus I had to scrape burnt rubber off the basket. Anyone else had a bad experience with those liners or do they work if you buy the right kind?

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olivia_morgan81d agoProlific Poster

Those silicone liners are a gimmick, plain and simple. The heat from the air fryer gets trapped differently than the manual claims, and you end up with melted messes like you described. A bit of parchment paper cut to size does the same job for pennies and without the toxic smoke. The only thing I use that resembles a liner now is a small oven-safe tray that sits below the basket. Honestly, saving ten minutes of scrubbing isn't worth an apartment full of fumes. Better to just soak the basket and spend the extra minute with a sponge.