Cooking in an air fryer: mini cutlets with cheese filling

We decided to try how the shaitan-machine air fryer would handle cooking something like meatballs. We approached the task unconventionally and decided to prepare something more interesting than just cutlets. What we ended up with is described and shown a little further down in the post

600-700 g of pork-beef minced meat1 large egg50 g of panko breadcrumbs1 tbsp of whole grain mustard

3 cloves of garlic100 g of hard cheese

salt, pepper, spices (we used a mixture of “khmeli-suneli”)

We used ready-made minced meat, which significantly speeds up the preparation stage. The only somewhat labor-intensive process is grating the garlic. After that, we beat the egg in a bowl, add the garlic, minced meat, mustard, and all the spices, and mix thoroughly. We cut the cheese into cubes with an edge of about 1 cm. 

We form a ball with our hands, flatten it in our palms, place a cube of cheese in the center, and carefully wrap it so that there are no air pockets inside.

Each ball is evenly coated with panko breadcrumbs.

After that, we place them in the air fryer basket and bake at 200°C for 15 minutes. If you don’t have an air fryer – no worries. Such meatballs can be baked in the oven at 190°C for 25 minutes.

Our subjective opinion – it turned out to be a very interesting combination of flavors. The cheese inside melted, the minced meat was fully cooked, yet retained its juiciness. And all this without a drop of oil. Therefore, we are once again convinced that the air fryer is the perfect healthy alternative to frying.

These meatballs pair wonderfully with shopska salad and French fries, also prepared in the air fryer with just two sprays of coconut oil from the bottle.

Bon appétit!