Air fryers are even better with this meat thermometer hack. Here’s why

Air fryers are brilliant aren’t they? I use mine to make easy, low-fat chips, grilled veg and to crisp up food from the freezer. But meat and poultry are always a challenge. I am a chronic air fryer over-cooker.

Over the years, and during testing many excellent air fryers, I’ve served up overdone, falling-apart chicken, steaks whose medium-rare promise is far in the rear-view mirror and which would now make a nice pair of shoes, and homemade beef burgers that could double as hockey pucks.

That’s why I decided to test out a smart meat thermometer. The model I tried out is Meater’s brand-new Pro XL. You can buy it from Meater in the UK for £329 and from Meater in the US for $349.95.

However, both sites, plus the Meater shop on Amazon UK and Amazon US, have much cheaper options, starting from £79/$79.95. Just make sure you check that the model you choose can handle the high heat of an air fryer.

The Pro XL smart meat thermometer pledged to put an end to my days of turning meat into leather. Its app monitoring meant that I’d be able to check on food without opening the drawer to see (and losing heat), as well as set the exact level of doneness.

I’ve tried meat thermometers before but usually in a pan or my oven, and often for big joints of meat. Typically, there’s a display that either has to be read by squinting through the glass door, opening the oven to check it, or that links to the probe via a wire. However, an increasing amount now link to an app, like the Meater Pro XL and previous iterations of Meater.

The Meater Pro XL looks similar to the earlier Meater Block but with a few differences. These include the ability to recharge via a cable rather than batteries, and its four wireless probes being able to withstand high heat cooking and open flames: up to 550°C/1000°F, meaning that there’s no issues with popping it in an air fryer.

It also has unlimited range when connected via Meater Cloud, so there’s no need to be close by to monitor cooking – during testing I was able to wander around my house well away from the kitchen.

Even better, I was able to put the probes in the dishwasher after cooking: so no matter how greasy they became, they emerged squeaky clean and I didn’t have to scrub a thing.

Air fryer + meat probe cooking

I decided to cook a whole chicken, a steak and a pack of lamb chops. I started with the one I thought might be the most challenging: the lamb chops. I prefer my lamb to be a little pink: something that can be tricky to get right, especially when cooking in an air fryer.

I liked that the Meater Pro XL came with four probes, one for each chop, so I didn’t have to run the air fryer twice. However, the probes are thick compared to some meat thermometers – 5mm in diameter – meaning that inserting one into a small lamb chop isn’t straightforward. There is, however, guidance in the app as to how to insert probes into different types and cuts of meat.

Each probe is also numbered, so when cooking four identical cuts, you can see in the app or on the display screen when thinner pieces of meat are done before their thicker counterparts. However, once they were in the air fryer, it was hard to see which probe was which: I had to lift them up with tongs to check before removing them.

Something that also came in useful in the cooking set-up was that air fryer is an option alongside barbecues, deep fat fryers, smokers and ovens. Levels of doneness are too: for the chops I had a choice of anything from rare to well done. I chose medium, and the grill/roast setting on my air fryer (190°C/375°F).

Once the chops were in the air fryer, I noticed that the probes took a while to give me an exact remaining cooking duration. Only once they’d been in a few minutes did I have an idea of how much time they’d take to cook and so prepare the other elements of a meal.

The app gave me a five-minute warning alert before the chicken was done – allowing time to finish off parts of a roast dinner, such as vegetables – plus it added resting time

Interestingly, the thicker chop needed almost twice as much time as the others, although as cooking continued, this dropped faster, meaning that they were actually all done in around the same time.

I liked that the app showed me the ambient temperature for each piece of meat, which was often far hotter than the setting of the air fryer. This helps with monitoring if the probe isn’t in quite the right spot (as do its four internal sensors, which also make it great for smaller pieces of meat).

One by one, the chops needed to be removed from the heat to rest. Each probe showed the progress of its cooking as a chart, for those who like to replicate successful grilling.

Sliced open, the lamb wasn’t especially pink inside – in retrospect, the medium rare setting would have been more suitable – but each one was juicy and most importantly, not overcooked.

I moved onto cooking a whole small chicken. It was easier to insert a single probe, although the guidance still came in handy. I liked that the options for cooking chicken were many and included ground or burgers too.

I selected well done for the whole chicken – there is also medium well if you like a firmer result. I again chose 190°C/375°F in the air fryer.

It took several minutes before the Meater app could show me an estimated remaining cooking time but when it did, it was less time than I would have guessed had I not been using the meat thermometer. This was reassessed a few times as it cooked, but it only varied by a few minutes in the end.

I liked that the app gave me a five-minute warning alert before the chicken was done – allowing time to finish off parts of a roast dinner, such as vegetables – plus it added resting time. The chicken was thoroughly cooked throughout with no pink remaining.

Finally, I cooked steak. There are many different options in the app for this, ranging from New York strip to tomahawk, so carnivores are well catered for. I chose a medium-rare level of doneness, my favourite, and 200°C/390°F in the air fryer.

As before, it took a few minutes to settle on a remaining cooking time, and again, this was lower than I would have guessed. The finished steak was perfect: juicy, with plenty of pink inside, yet far from being raw.

As a cooking accessory, the Meater Pro XL is pricey – it’s more than the cost of a high-end air fryer and a shopping basket of meat. However, my experience of using it demonstrated a range of benefits when cooking in an air fryer.

Every piece of meat or poultry was perfectly done – so no dry bits or unsatisfying dinners – and just as importantly, nothing was underdone.

While its ability to help you cook more economically will probably never add up to its initial cost, the benefits of better tasting food, and less waiting around for it, could be enough of an advantage to justify buying.

Is the Meater XL Pro a good buy for you?

If you eat meat or poultry on a fairly regular basis, and cook for more than one person, Meater’s Pro XL smart meat thermometer could be a great buy. I was impressed by how easy it was to use, how I was able to monitor several cooks at once and make sure meat was done precisely to my liking.

The only downsides I found were the size of the probes – it’s tricky to get each one in the right place for thinner cuts of meat – and while the probes are numbered, these are hard to see in an air fryer drawer: colour coding would be my preference for an at-a-glance identification when cooking multiple pieces of similar meat.

You can buy the XL Pro from Meater UK (£329) and Meater US ($349.95) or browse all the Meater devices on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

If it’s time to upgrade your air fryer, have a look at our round-ups of the best air fryers, the best Ninja air fryers and the best air fryer ovens for our top recommendations.