The BEST Air Fryer Frozen Mozzarella Sticks

Air fryer mozzarella sticks are the perfect snack and they go from frozen to golden and gooey in just minutes.

Serves: 3+ Time: 5 minutes Cookbook: Matt’s Kitchen

While frozen foods aren’t typically the norm in our house, sometimes you can’t beat the convenience of going from frozen cheese sticks to crispy batter-coated sticks of gooey cheese just begging to get dipped in a bowl of marinara sauce.

While you can certainly do these in the oven, we’ve found that air frying is by far the better way to go. Why? Because it’s lightning fast, cleanup is a breeze, and, perhaps most importantly, it leaves our oven completely open and accessible for other dishes we want to make at the same time.

Let’s get to it!

Jump Ahead:

❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
🧀 Ingredients Needed to Make Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks
🍴 Equipment You’ll Need in the Kitchen
🥄 How to Make Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks
❓ Air Fryer Frozen Mozzarella Sticks: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs
♾️ More Air Fryer Recipes

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easy: If you’re looking for easy air fryer recipes, this is it! Feed a crowd on game day, your kids after school, or treat yourself to a tasty snack when you need it most.

Fast: Want to serve up a quick snack that requires absolutely no prep work? Mozzarella sticks are here to save the day!

Crowd Pleaser: Mozzarella sticks make a perfectly easy appetizer for football season, holiday get-togethers, and any other occasion. Everyone loves mozz sticks with their ooey, gooey melted inside and accompanying dipping sauces. Round out game-day options with chicken tenders, french fries, and air fryer pizza rolls.

Ingredients Needed to Make Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks

Frozen Mozzarella Sticks: Choose your favorite brand of mozzarella sticks for this. If you have homemade mozzarella sticks in the freezer, pull them on out! A few brands we’ve had success with are Trader Joe’s, Farm Rich, TGI Friday, and even Great Value.
Favorite Dipping Sauce: Mozzarella sticks take to a variety of dipping sauces like ranch dressing, BBQ sauce, and pizza sauce. Personally, we wouldn’t be without our favorite marinara sauce when we serve mozzarella sticks.

Equipment Needed In the Kitchen

Air Fryer

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Tongs

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Air Fryer: We have the Ninja Foodi air fryer and love it. It’s a rather large air fryer and can hold bigger batches, which is perfect when we have company coming over or need to make extra for a potluck. In addition to air frying, it also dehydrates, roasts, and bakes, and we can throw all the inserts into the dishwasher.
Tongs: A good pair of tongs is essential in the kitchen and for this recipe. You’ll need to flip the mozzarella sticks over halfway through the cooking time and they’ll be quite hot at that point.

How to Make Air Fryer Mozzarella Sticks

Mozzarella sticks are the most perfect appetizer, snack, (dinner??) ever. Here’s how to go from frozen to enjoying every morsel of that delicious cheesy goodness in just a few minutes.

Pre-heat the air fryer

First things first: preheat your air fryer to 390 degrees F. If you have a timer setting, set it for 5 minutes total cook time.

Take those mozzarella sticks out of their packaging and look them over. Any cracked or broken ones shouldn’t be placed in the air fryer. If they are, all of their contents will spill out, and that’s just sad.

Air fry your mozzarella sticks

Once you have a preheated air fryer, place the mozzarella sticks in the air fryer basket in a single layer. You can fit in as many as will lay without overlapping. This allows the hot air from the unit to circulate during cooking time and gives you the best results.

Let the air fryer get cooking for 1-2 minutes then flip those puppies over. Cook for the remainder of the time and voila! You have crispy mozzarella sticks in just five minutes of cook time.

Note: Check on the sticks during the last minute or so of cooking time. Make it your goal to pull them out of the air fryer right as the cheese melts. If there’s a pinhole in any of the sticks, you’ll start to see the cheese ooze out just the tiniest bit. Pull it right then. See the picture above for an example of what that looks like.

If you have smaller than normal mozzarella sticks, start checking them at the 3-4 minute mark.

Let them sit for a minute to cool a tiny bit, then serve with marinara sauce and enjoy!

dip mozzarella sticks in marinara sauce_1

Air Fryer Frozen Mozzarella Sticks: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs

Do I have to preheat the air fryer?

We’ve found preheating to be the best way to get the cooking process going. Preheating also eliminates the guesswork as to when the mozzarella sticks will be ready.

Do they have to be placed in one layer in the air fryer? I’m trying to feed a crowd!

We get it. You have a ton of mozzarella sticks for your crew and you need to air-fry them all. And maybe you have a smaller air fryer. Can’t you just dump the whole batch of them into the air fryer basket and get it over with?
Unfortunately, no. Air-fried foods need to be in one single layer and not overlap so the hot air from the machine can circulate and cook them evenly. Thankfully, this goes fast, so if you have a lot to cook up, you should be able to get it done in record time.

My mozzarella sticks are thawed. Do they need to be frozen?

You can absolutely air fry them if they’re thawed. Follow the instructions above, but reduce the total cook time to 2 minutes and flip at the 1-minute mark.

How should I store extra mozzarella sticks after I’ve made them?

Keep them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to snack on them again, pop them in the microwave or in the air fryer for a quick minute to heat them back up.

More Tasty Air Fryer Recipes

Want more crowd-pleasing air fryer recipes for your next game day get-together? Here are some of our favorites.

Air Fryer Chicken Strips in Three Ways: Go from frozen chicken tenders to hot and steamy, tender chicken for the kids to dip, the adults to put on salad, and the adventurous to make into tacos.
Air Fryer Apple Chips: Whip up a delicious snack loved by kids and adults – crispy, crunchy, sweet apple chips!
Air Fryer Pumpkin Seeds: Perfect for the fall, pumpkin seeds are super easy to make and the flavor combinations are endless.