15-Minute Air Fryer Quesadillas

Whether you need a quick snack or easy appetizer for your next get together, these air fryer quesadillas fit the bill. You’ll only need 3 ingredients and about 15 minutes to get them on the table, and they’re a great way to repurpose leftover meal prep proteins like shredded chicken, barbacoa beef, or carnitas. I’ve provided recipes for all kinds of fillings, even vegetarian options, so you can make your quesadillas work for any diet. Let’s get into it!

Ingredients for Air Fryer Quesadillas

At its core, this is a super basic recipe. You’ll need tortillas, cheese, and some form of protein like chicken, beef, or veggies. I’ll briefly touch on everything I used and other recipes you could use for your own air fried quesadillas.

The Best Tortillas for Quesadillas

If you’re anything like my and can’t decide between corn or flour tortillas, just use both! HEB makes great corn and flour blend tortillas that provide the flavor of corn tortillas with the malleability and structure of flour tortillas.

I’ve tested these quesadillas with both 100% corn and 100% flour tortillas, and they work fine with both. However, it’s worth mentioning that the blended tortillas are a bit larger than standard corn tortillas. So if you’re using corn, you may need to reduce the amount of chicken (or filling) you use.

You may also want to check out the protein tortillas from my rotisserie chicken burritos.

Shredded Chicken

The recipe calls for a Kinda Healthy original recipe for shredded Mexican chicken. You can get an idea of what the recipe looks like in the video below.

I’ve also included other recipes you can use in the recipe card’s notes section at the bottom of the post. Or if you have another go-to protein recipe, feel free to use that.

Cheese

Any cheese should get the job done here. If you have a Mexican cheese blend of something like Monterey jack, quesadilla cheese, and maybe a little cheddar, go with that. Freshly grated cheese will always be superior for melting in recipes like these air fryer quesadillas, but I’ve used pre-shredded without any issues.

And if you wanted to make an air fryer cheese quesadilla without any other proteins, I’d probably double the amount of cheese per tortilla.

How to Make Quesadillas in an Air Fryer

I use an 8-quart Duo Crisp for all my Instant Pot air fryer recipes, but these quesadillas will work in any air fryer. You may even be able to make more quesadillas at once in larger air fryers.

If you do have an Instant Pot air fryer, the next tip is an easy one to follow. Use the wire rack that comes with it to hold the quesadillas closed during air frying.

If you’re using a different air fryer, any oven-safe object will work. It doesn’t need to be very heavy, as the cheese should melt and seal the quesadillas rather quickly.

The recipe calls for flipping the quesadillas halfway through cooking, which is optional, but I highly recommend it to get an extra crispy and golden brown exterior on both sides. The contact with the hot air fryer basket works a bit differently than the circulating air on its own.

What to Serve with Quesadillas

Making a meal out of your air fryer chicken quesadillas? I’ve got you covered with a handful of pairing ideas:

• Mexican caulfilower rice
• healthy Mexican street corn salad
• Mexican roasted zucchini
• refried black beans
• smoked frijoles charros

And in case you need a few dip options, check out this healthier Mexican fiesta dip, light queso dip, or guacamole salsa.

Whether you end up serving your air fried quesadillas straight up with all the fixin’s or making a full spread with sides, I’d love to hear about it. I always appreciate comments and recipe reviews letting me know what you think about my recipes! And if you have a question about these quesadillas I forgot to cover, you can drop it in the comments below as well.