Air Fryer Cinnamon-Sugar Donuts Are Ready in 10 Minutes

Enjoy your donuts without the guilt.

Easy cinnamon-sugar donuts made in the air fryer, ready in just 10 minutes. Joe Lingeman/TNS

Love donuts, hate deep-frying? Same. Luckily, there’s a way to get around that. If you aren’t currently the proud owner of an air fryer, let this be the recipe that convinces you to buy one. With a can of biscuit dough and just the teensiest spray of oil, you can be enjoying warm, flaky donuts in just 10 minutes—no hot oil splatters or deep-fry thermometers in sight.

The air fryer uses convection to circulate hot air around whatever you put inside. Our editor, Meghan, discovered the air fryer has its strengths and weaknesses—but donuts are a definite strength. She found success making donuts with crescent roll dough, but to make things even easier, I opted for canned biscuit dough, which is already shaped into rounds and produces taller, flakier donuts.

How to Prevent the Donuts From Sticking

You’ll want to spray the air fryer basket with just a bit of oil to make sure the dough doesn’t stick. Avoid a nonstick cooking spray such as Pam, which can damage the nonstick coating of the basket. Instead, opt for an olive oil or coconut oil spray (which are also both great for spraying onto homemade popcorn).

Frying the Donuts

After cutting small holes out of the center of your biscuits, you’ll place them in a single layer in the basket of the air fryer (depending on the size of your fryer, you’ll likely need to make the donuts in two rounds), then set to 350 F and cook, flipping once, until golden-brown. Then, go ahead and fry up the donut holes too!