Air Fryer Donuts

Air fryer donuts are the easiest and quickest way to get donuts on the breakfast table! Crispy outside and a soft, fluffy inside! We coated these in cinnamon and sugar to recreate our favorite donut in the air fryer.

I grew up with fried biscuit donuts as an occasional treat for breakfast. We would mostly have these for special occasions or when my mom just woke up in a really good mood. <— The best!!

Never heard of biscuit donuts? You’ve been missing out!

They’re literally just a tube of biscuits that have a hole cut out and then deep-fried. Once you toss them in sugar or glaze them, they taste just like donuts. They would honestly rival any bakery donuts…they’re GOOD!

Anyway, they were always easy to make, but then you had a pan of grease to deal with and a house that smelled like hot oil. And who wants to deal with that mess first thing in the morning?!

So when I got an air fryer, one of my first things to try making was biscuit donuts.

Honestly, I didn’t have very high hopes. Would they be just like a baked biscuit that was coated in sugar? Well…kind of…UNTIL you follow my special tip and dunk ’em in melted butter. It gives them that just fried taste and texture. Heaven!

They taste just as good as pan-fried, yet the clean-up was less than 2 minutes and I had no grease to get rid of. It was a dream!

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Ingredient Notes:

• Biscuit dough– We are going for easy as possible with this recipe, so we just buy a can of refrigerated biscuit dough. Try to avoid layered biscuits for this recipe though, they work great for our maple bar donuts, but for sugar-coated, non-layered is better.
• Coating– We will need melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon for the fantastic coating!

How to Make This Air Fryer Donut Recipe:

1. Open your can of biscuit dough and separate out all the individual biscuits
2. Cut out the center with your method of choice, using a donut cutter or just the cap from a water bottle.
3. Put only the donuts, not the donut holes in the air fryer and spray with cooking oil.
4. Cook the donuts for 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. Flip them halfway through. You may need to cook in batches to finish all of your donuts depending on the size of your air fryer.
5. Put the donut holes in your air fryer basket and again apply cooking oil.
6. Cook the donut holes for 4 minutes.

How to Coat the Donuts in Sugar:

1. Put your melted butter into a shallow bowl.
2. In a separate bowl combine the cinnamon and sugar in the recipe.
3. After removing the donuts from the air fryer dunk them in the butter and then into the cinnamon sugar mix covering both sides of the donut for the best-tasting results!

It probably seems a little…decadent…to dunk a donut in a bowl of melted butter, but I’m not here for the healthy food right now. I’m here for hot, freshly fried donuts and this is the key!

Alternative Donut Toppings:

You could add almost any topping to a donut and it will be yummy. It is still a donut after all. I will add a few ideas that are super easy below, but if you want to put forth more effort you can fully customize your donuts to your taste!

Common Questions

More Recipes You Will Love:

• One of my favorite quick desserts is an air fried Oreo!
• These grilled cheese sandwiches are crispy on the outside and loaded with cheese on the inside!
• We also have an easy way to cook frozen tater tots!
• Made from scratch buttermilk biscuits in the air fryer.
• Brown sugar and cinnamon homemade pop tarts!