What is a Beignet?
Every cultural group, no matter how big or small, has its own version of fried dough. Pennsylvania has funnel cakes. Ontario has beaver tails. Newfoundland has toutons. And New Orleans has beignets – their version of a fritter or doughnut, dusted with powdered sugar and eaten with joy. Beignets are little pillows of heaven, but those little pillows can take a while to make and deep-frying them can make a mess, so make air-fried beignets instead! By air-frying your beignets, you can save yourself a lot of work and mess and lessen the guilt that might accompany each delicious bite.
How to Make Air-Fried Beignets
Air-fried beignets start with a regular beignet dough – a soft egg and milk enhanced yeast dough. The dough needs to rise for a couple hours until it has doubled in bulk and then you’re ready to cut the beignets into your desired shape. Diamond shape is customary, but you could cut them into squares or circles or whatever shape you really like. Once the dough is ready to go, do make sure you pre-heat the air fryer first. In many instances, you don’t have to bother with pre-heating, but for beignets, you do really want the air fryer hot before you pop them inside. Brush them with melted butter generously and air-fry for just 5 minutes. They will puff up and brown.
What to Serve with Beignets
It is perfectly acceptable to eat a beignet straight out of the air fryer with just powdered sugar on it – encouraged, in fact – but if you’d like to serve something with the beignets, you could serve either a raspberry coulis (purée fresh raspberries with a little simple syrup if necessary and strain out the seeds) or a chocolate sauce. A good strong dark cup of coffee would be perfect too.
How Long do Beignets Keep?
To be perfectly honest, beignets are really only great the day they are made – within hours of making them actually. I know no-one likes to throw out food, so eat them up the day you make them or store them in an air-tight container until tomorrow. Re-heat them in the air fryer gently and forgive them for not being as delicious as they were yesterday.
How to Make Beignets Ahead
Beignets can be made ahead of time – as long as you don’t bake them. In fact, if you make the dough and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight, rather than on the counter for 2 hours, they will have more time to develop their flavor and be even tastier. So, the make ahead plan is to make the dough in the evening, rise it over night and then air-fry the beignets in the morning. Just give the dough 30 minutes or so to shake off the chill of the fridge before rolling them out and cutting them into squares or diamonds.
Meredith, can I freeze this? Please tell me I can keep this in freezer, and remove 1 or 2 at a time??
Hi Carol. Yes, you can freeze them. Freeze them on a flat baking sheet right after you’ve cut them. Once frozen, store in a zipper sealable plastic bag or air tight container and let them defrost for a few minutes before air-frying them.
Is it possible to air fryer cream puffs
Hi Diane. You could make the choux paste on the stovetop and then pipe them onto parchment paper and air fry them. I haven’t tried it, but I think it could be done. They might not be as high because the fan from the air fryer will be blowing down on them all the time. The other disadvantage is that you won’t be able to make as many at one time as when you bake them in the oven (but that might be a good thing!).
Absolutely Delicious! How could something so simple taste so good. I brushed some butter on each after they came out, threw some in a paper bag with powdered sugar then let Everyone grab their own. Everyone loved them. The entire batch was gone in less than 20 minutes. I cooked 6 minutes with the basket full.
I am going to try making and freezing before cooking. Betty it works great!
Made these and froze half. They were so good! I’ll definitely be making these again. I went for the chocolate sauce and dusted some with cinnamon sugar. Thanks for the great recipe!
Not what we hoping for. We’ve have only had beignets from a Louisiana style restaurant here in the city, those are so light & airy !! These came out more like a soft bread. Our recipe hunt will go on.
However, all is not lost.
W/ dinner tonight we’ll make a few adding some fresh garlic, chives & garlic butter to the mix. They will go well w/ the Caprese stuffed Portobello Mushroom caps & salad.
I have never had beignets before so I won’t really compare to the “real thing” but these are awesome!!! Super simple and delicious!
My kids loved making them as well!
Do you let it rest in the frig after letting it rise for 2 hours? If not, do you need to let it rise after you take it out of the frig?
You don’t HAVE to let it rest in the fridge after it has risen, but you CAN if you want to make them the following day instead of right away. If you do put it into the fridge, take it out and let it come to room temperature for an hour or so before proceeding with the recipe.
Yummy! I have your book but now that I’m following keto, a low carb diet, I can’t eat this! Would it be possible to make this using keto friendly flours? Please?
Hi BJ. I haven’t tested this recipe with any other flours, I’m afraid and am not familiar with substituting keto-friendly flours. I have seen a few links online using almond flour and xantham gum. A quick google search will give you some recipe ideas.
Our first attempt Turned out a little heavy, more like a fresh cake doughnut. They were delicious (especially dipped in guava sauce) but not as light, airy, crispy, or decadent as the real thing. It’s a good trade-off for the amount of fat and calories saved!
Hi Georgia,
You can try letting the dough rise longer next time, for about 2 ½ hours. After rolling out and cutting the dough you could also let it proof for an additional 30 minutes. This should result in lighter beignets.
These were delicious, but in more of a dinner roll sort of way. I will use the technique for just that moving forward
This came out more like a sweet dinner roll than a beignet. It still tastes good, but not what I was looking for.
Hi Tatiana. I find them to be lighter than a dinner roll. You may need to let them rise longer to get lighter beignets.
I made these and they were a big hit! I made the chocolate as well as raspberry dips (the two together were a real treat). I froze 1/2 of the cut beignets on a cookie sheet and then thawed (1 hour due to travel) and finished them off with butter brush and air fry and this also worked out perfectly. My 87 yo dad loved them both times (as well as other members of the family). I have several of your books and love reading and trying many of your recipes, they are easy to follow and I have not found one that I did not like.
This was a fail for me. My yeast was two months from expiration although it foamed in the cup and i measured the temperature. it didn’t rise overnight in the refrigerator but it did in a few hours in the oven. Didn’t rise much at all in the air fryer. Oh well.
Sorry you had an issue with your dough. It is best to use yeast before the expiration date, especially if there are eggs and sugar in the dough recipe. Some things that can effect dough from rising are if the water was too hot or too cold, if the dough is not proofed in an well oiled bowl, or if refrigerated, it is not brought to room temperature before rolling out and cut for the beignets. For proofing in the oven, pre-heat the oven to 150°F and then turn off the oven or fill a glass dish placed in the bottom of the oven with boiling water and close the oven door to create a warm environment.
Hello, is it possible to bake them?
Thanks!
You can try baking the beignets in a 400°F oven for about 10 to 12 minutes. You can also deep fry them in oil.
Meredith is there anything that can be substituted for the evaporated milk I’m lactose intolerant?
You could try a non-dairy milk such as almond or coconut milk. You could also use water, but I would use a little less than the recipe calls. You can add extra if needed to bring the dough together.