The air fryer is an indispensable part of my cooking arsenal these days. You better believe I’ll be using it to take the pressure off my oven on Thanksgiving. It makes quick work of anything you’d be oven roasting—like peppers, or salmon— in a fraction of the time, and you can put it away if you need the counter space back. This year for the holiday, leave the oven available for other things while you air fry a pumpkin pie.
A great pumpkin pie is cooked gently, so the mixture doesn’t split, and has a well-baked pie crust. In a conventional oven or in an air fryer, this can be easy to manage if you keep a couple things in mind. Pumpkin pie filling is a custard filling, also sometimes called an egg-rich filling. All this means is that eggs make up an important part of the ingredient list and they’re responsible for binding the other ingredients—but they need to be cooked gently. According to America’s Test Kitchen, “When custards such as crème anglaise are heated, they turn thick and creamy as milk and egg proteins unfurl and bond with each other. However, if they are overheated, too many bonds form and the proteins clump.”
If you’ve ever had a gritty or watery pumpkin pie, this might be why. Besides the eggs, pumpkin pie includes its namesake purée, sugar, spices, and a liquid, like evaporated milk. This makes for a rather wet mixture. Wet mixtures easily lead to soggy crusts. To avoid this with all pumpkin pies, blind bake the crust before adding the filling.
If you don’t have an air fryer, or you’re in the market for a new one, try one of these:
How to air fry a pumpkin pie
Despite its reputation for aggressive convection heating, you can both blind bake and gently bake a pie in the air fryer. To tackle both of these things, use a lower temperature and the “bake” setting instead of “air fry.” The pie will still bake quicker than it would in a regular oven.
Set up your blind baking as you would normally. With the pie pastry fitted into a pie plate, line the pastry with parchment paper and fill it with pie weights. (I use dry beans, but you could use ceramic beads, sugar, or rice.) Place the crust in an air fryer heated to 350°F on the “bake” setting. This is easy to do in the swinging door model.
A note for basket-style air fryers: I have a basket model that just fits a 9-inch aluminum pie plate, so there’s no room for my hands. To lower the pie in without burning yourself or dumping your pie in sideways, make a foil strap. Tear a piece of foil about 16 inches long. It needs to sit under the widest part of the pie and come up on both sides with enough length for you to grab the ends. Fold the foil three or four times lengthwise to make a strap about two or three inches thick, like in the picture. Grab the strap’s ends, lift and lower the pie into the basket. The strap will stay so you can take the pie out later. Bend the ends down so they’re in the confines of the basket.
Bake the crust with the weights in it for about 10 minutes, or until the edges are taking on color. Lift the weights out by gathering the parchment paper edges. The crust should look dry on the bottom. Use a fork and prick the bottom crust five or six times. Close the oven and bake it for another two minutes so the bottom can cook through. It shouldn’t, but if the crust puffs at all in the bottom, just use an oven mitt to press it down and flatten it. Reduce the temperature to 325°F and leave it on the “bake” setting.
Fill the blind baked crust with pumpkin pie filling. If you’re using the basket model, leave the crust in the basket of the air fryer. It’s easier to fill while it’s already seated. If you have the swinging door variety, take the whole tray out of the oven. Fill the shell while it’s on the tray, and return the whole thing to the oven. Bake the pie for five minutes at 325°F, and then reduce the temperature to 300°F and continue to cook the pie for another 10 to 20 minutes. All the while, keep it on that “bake” function. The pie is done when the edges of the filling are just beginning to take on color, and the center is set with the slightest hint of a jiggle. Cool the pie on a wire rack. Enjoy it warm, room temp, or chill it in the fridge if you prefer it cold.
When baking your pumpkin pie, keep in mind that the timing will vary. That’s why the last time frame is rather wide for an air fryer. Air fryers models differ in their speed, pie recipes have more this and less that, and consider if your pie is deep-dish or not. Check on your pie after it's finished the initial five minutes at 325°F, then change to 300°F for 10 minutes. Depending on how set the filling is at this point, you may need to continue baking it for more time.