A recipe written for a conventional oven does not work unchanged in an air fryer, slow cooker or pressure cooker. This cooking method conversion chart gives you the standard adjustments, temperature drops, time cuts and setting swaps, so you can move any recipe between appliances with confidence. Treat every conversion as a starting point and check doneness early the first time. For exact temperature swaps between °F and °C, convert units free with our converter.
Conventional oven to air fryer
Air fryers circulate heat far more aggressively than a standard oven, so food cooks faster and browns harder. The general rule: reduce the temperature by about 25°F (roughly 15°C) and cut the cooking time by about 20%. Never overcrowd the basket, or the “fryer” behaves like a steamer.
| Oven temp | Air fryer temp | Oven time | Air fryer time (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 350°F / 175°C | 325°F / 160°C | 30 min | 22 to 24 min |
| 375°F / 190°C | 350°F / 175°C | 25 min | 18 to 20 min |
| 400°F / 200°C | 375°F / 190°C | 20 min | 14 to 16 min |
| 425°F / 220°C | 400°F / 200°C | 20 min | 14 to 16 min |
Slow cooker: low vs high
A slow cooker only has two real gears. LOW (around 190°F / 90°C) gently braises over 6 to 8 hours; HIGH (around 300°F / 150°C) does the same job in roughly half the time. Lean meats and dairy do better on LOW; root vegetables and beans handle either.
| Recipe says | Slow cooker LOW | Slow cooker HIGH | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oven braise 3 to 4 hrs | 6 to 8 hours | 3 to 4 hours | Reduce added liquid by about a third |
| Oven braise 2 hrs | 4 to 6 hours | 2 to 3 hours | Brown meat first for deeper flavour |
| Simmer 1 hr | 4 to 5 hours | 2 to 2.5 hours | Add dairy and fresh herbs in the last 30 min |
Pressure cooker (Instant Pot) conversions
Pressure cooking at high pressure reaches about 240 to 250°F (115 to 120°C), so tough cuts and dried beans collapse in a fraction of the usual time. Use natural release for meats and grains, quick release for vegetables. Approximate conversions:
| Dish | Conventional time | Pressure cooker (high pressure) |
|---|---|---|
| Beef stew / braised beef | 2.5 to 3 hours | 35 to 45 min + natural release |
| Dried beans (unsoaked) | 1.5 to 2 hours simmer | 25 to 35 min + natural release |
| Chicken thighs (bone in) | 45 min oven | 12 to 15 min + 10 min natural release |
| Rice (white, long grain) | 18 min simmer | 3 to 5 min + 10 min natural release |
| Pulled pork shoulder | 4 to 5 hours oven | 60 to 90 min + natural release |
Conversion rules of thumb
Four rules cover most situations. One: air fryer means 25°F/15°C cooler and about 20% less time than the oven recipe. Two: slow cooker HIGH takes roughly half the LOW time. Three: pressure cooking needs far less liquid, since almost nothing evaporates, cut the liquid by about a third. Four: always verify with a thermometer the first time you convert a recipe, because every appliance runs a little differently. Our free unit converter handles the °F/°C and cup/ml maths in seconds.
Worked example: one chicken dinner, three appliances
Take a familiar recipe: bone in chicken thighs roasted in a conventional oven at 400°F for 45 minutes, with a sauce that simmers alongside. Converting it three ways shows how the rules in this guide fit together. In an air fryer, reduce the temperature by 25°F, which gives 375°F, and cut the time by about 20 percent. Forty five minutes multiplied by 0.8 is 36 minutes, so the air fryer version runs at 375°F for roughly 36 minutes, with the thighs in a single layer and turned once halfway. Check them a few minutes early the first time, because a small basket crowds quickly and crowding is the one thing that reliably ruins an air fryer conversion.
In a slow cooker, the same dinner becomes a braise. The oven’s 45 minutes at a high roasting heat translates, using the table above, into about 4 to 5 hours on LOW or 2 to 2.5 hours on HIGH, with the sauce ingredients added at the start but reduced by about a third, since a sealed slow cooker loses almost no liquid. If the oven recipe used 3 cups of sauce and stock, the slow cooker version starts with about 2 cups. Bone in thighs forgive the low, slow treatment and stay moist, which is exactly why this dish converts well, the chart’s warning about lean chicken breast drying out on HIGH does not apply to thighs, and choosing the right cut is half of every successful conversion. In a pressure cooker, the thighs take 12 to 15 minutes at high pressure plus about 10 minutes of natural release, so roughly 25 minutes from sealing the lid to serving, in the same reduced quantity of liquid.
Put the three results side by side and the real lesson appears: the destination dish is the same, but each appliance changes two things at once, the heat and the liquid, and cooks who adjust only the time are the ones whose conversions disappoint. The air fryer version will have the crispest skin and needs no extra liquid at all. The slow cooker version will have the softest texture and the most sauce, even after the reduction, because the meat gives up its own juices into a sealed pot. The pressure cooker version sits in between and wins on speed. None of them is the “correct” conversion; they are three different dinners built from one recipe, and the best choice depends on whether your evening needs crisp skin, a hands off afternoon, or food on the table in half an hour. For any temperature in a converted recipe that you need in the other scale, the unit converter gives the exact figure rather than a rounded chart value.
Conversion choices compared at a glance
The table below gathers the headline adjustments from the three sections above into one place, so you can see the direction of every change before you start cooking.
| Moving a recipe to | Temperature change | Time change | Liquid change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air fryer | Reduce by about 25°F / 15°C | Cut by about 20 percent | No change, though a light coat of oil helps browning |
| Slow cooker on LOW | Fixed gentle heat, around 190°F / 90°C | Roughly double the HIGH time; hours instead of minutes | Reduce added liquid by about a third |
| Slow cooker on HIGH | Fixed heat, around 300°F / 150°C | Roughly half the LOW time | Reduce added liquid by about a third |
| Pressure cooker | Fixed high heat, around 240 to 250°F / 115 to 120°C | A fraction of the conventional time, plus release time | Reduce by about a third, but keep at least 1 cup of thin liquid |
Two rows deserve emphasis because they cause the most confusion. The pressure cooker row’s time looks impossibly short until you remember the release: 15 minutes at pressure plus 10 minutes of natural release plus the minutes spent coming up to pressure is a real world total much closer to half an hour, and recipes that quote only the at pressure figure are not lying, just incomplete. And the slow cooker rows show why “convert the oven temperature” is the wrong question for a slow cooker: the appliance has no dial to convert to, only a choice between its two gears, so your real decisions are LOW versus HIGH and how much liquid to hold back.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Overcrowding the air fryer basket. Piled up food steams in its own moisture and never crisps. Cook in a single layer, in two batches if needed, two crisp batches beat one soggy one.
- Converting the temperature but not the time in an air fryer. Dropping 25°F without cutting roughly 20 percent off the time overcooks small items, especially anything breaded or sugary.
- Adding the full oven quantity of liquid to a slow cooker or pressure cooker. Sealed appliances keep their moisture. The full amount leaves stews watery and sauces thin, and dilutes the flavour you browned the meat to build.
- Lifting the slow cooker lid to check progress. Each peek releases the built up heat and adds a noticeable stretch to the cooking time. Trust the converted time and check near the end.
- Using quick release on large cuts of meat. A sudden pressure drop can toughen meat and spray starchy liquid. Natural release for meats and grains, quick release for vegetables, as the pressure section advises.
- Adding dairy and fresh herbs at the start of a long slow cook. Cream can split and herbs fade over hours of heat. Both belong in the last half hour, whatever the original oven recipe said about timing.
How to convert a family favourite with confidence
The safest way to convert a recipe you love is to change one appliance variable at a time and write down what happened. Convert the dish once using the chart, check doneness a little earlier than the converted time suggests, and note the actual time your appliance needed, your air fryer may run hot, your slow cooker may run gentle, and that note is worth more than any general chart from the second cook onward. Keep the seasoning and liquid decisions from your first attempt in the margin too. After two or three conversions you will have your own correction factors, and moving between appliances stops feeling like guesswork. When a recipe also mixes units. Fahrenheit temperatures beside grams, cups beside millilitres, settle all of those in one pass with the free unit converter before you start, so the only experiment running in your kitchen is the appliance itself.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert oven temperature to air fryer?
Reduce the oven temperature by 25°F (about 15°C) and cut the cooking time by roughly 20%. So a recipe at 400°F for 20 minutes becomes about 375°F for 14 to 16 minutes in the air fryer. Check food a few minutes early the first time.
How long is 8 hours on low in a slow cooker on high?
About 4 hours. As a rule of thumb, slow cooker HIGH takes roughly half the time of LOW, so 6 to 8 hours on LOW becomes 3 to 4 hours on HIGH. Tough, fatty cuts convert best; lean chicken breast can dry out on HIGH.
Can I put less liquid in a pressure cooker?
Yes, pressure cookers lose almost no moisture to evaporation, so reduce the liquid by about a third compared with the stovetop or oven version. Keep at least 1 cup of thin liquid so the cooker can build pressure.
Do air fryers need preheating?
Most models benefit from 3 to 5 minutes of preheating for even browning, especially for frozen foods. Because the cavity is small, an air fryer reaches temperature far faster than a full size oven.
Can I convert any oven recipe to a slow cooker?
Almost any braise, stew, soup or pulled meat recipe converts well: 1 hour of oven time becomes roughly 4 to 5 hours on LOW or 2 to 2.5 hours on HIGH. Reduce the liquid by a third, brown the meat first, and add dairy, pasta and fresh herbs near the end.
Why does food taste different from an air fryer than an oven?
The intense circulating air browns surfaces faster and drives off more surface moisture, so air fried food tastes crispier but can seem drier than the oven version. Tossing food in a thin coat of oil before air frying compensates for this and gives the most oven like result.