We'll be upfront: an air fryer doesn't replicate true stovetop poaching, which relies on swirling water to wrap the white around the yolk. What it does well is a very close, genuinely useful approximation using small ramekins of water — good enough for a weekday breakfast without dirtying a saucepan.
The Ramekin Method
Crack an egg into a small, lightly oiled ramekin or silicone egg cup, add a splash of water to just cover the egg, and place it in the air fryer basket. Cook at 130°C for 6–8 minutes depending on how set you want the white and how runny you want the yolk.
Comparing the Result
In our side-by-side test, the ramekin method gave a neat, evenly set white and a runny-to-soft yolk very close to a stovetop poached egg — the main visible difference was a slightly less feathered, more uniformly round shape, since there's no swirling water to shape the white.
Getting the Yolk Right
6 minutes gives a very runny yolk close to a classic poach; 7 minutes gives a soft, slightly set yolk; 8 minutes moves toward a firmer, jammy yolk. Every air fryer runs slightly differently at this precise a timing window, so it's worth testing your own machine once and noting the result.
Is It Worth Doing This Way?
If you're already using the air fryer for the rest of a breakfast — bacon, hash browns, toast — cooking the egg alongside in a ramekin saves dirtying a separate pan of water, which is the real practical case for this method rather than it being a superior technique in isolation.