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These air fryer churros are crisp on the outside, soft in the middle, and hold their ridges without a drop of frying oil. You make a quick choux pastry on the stove, pipe it into short sticks, freeze them for 30 minutes so the ridges set, then air fry at 360F until golden. Toss them in cinnamon sugar while they’re still hot and dip them in thick homemade dulce de leche.
Quick Look: The Best Air Fryer Churros
- 🥨 What it is: Choux pastry churros piped, frozen, then air fried and tossed in cinnamon sugar.
- ⭐ Why it works: Freeze the piped churros 30 minutes before they go in. That’s what holds the ridges.
- 💛 Why you’ll love it: No pot of hot oil, no thermometer, no disposal. Pipe once and freeze the rest.
- ⚠️ What to watch for: Toss them in cinnamon sugar the second they come out. Once they cool, the sugar won’t stick.
- ❄️ Make ahead: Pipe and freeze the dough, then air fry to order. They don’t keep once cooked.
- ⏱️ Ready in: 15 minutes of work plus a 30-minute freeze. Plan for about an hour start to finish.
Why this recipe works
- Crisp cinnamon sugar shell with a light, custardy inside, like a cream puff in churro form
- The ridges stay sharp and deep, not flattened, thanks to one freezer step
- Makes 22 churros from ¾ cup of flour and one saucepan
- Pipe a batch, freeze it, and have hot churros on demand for the next 3 months, the way I keep from scratch mini cinnamon rolls in the freezer
- Four ingredients in the dough, all of them already in your kitchen
- No pot of frying oil to heat, monitor, or throw away
Ingredients You’ll Need (and Why)
Quick context before the list: Spanish churros use a simple dough of flour, water, oil, and baking powder, while Mexican churros are made from choux pastry, the same dough behind cream puffs and éclairs. This recipe is the Mexican style, which is why there are eggs in the ingredient list and why the interior comes out light instead of dense. It’s also the reason the cinnamon sugar coating belongs here, since Spanish churros are traditionally rolled in plain sugar.
- All-purpose flour – Cooked directly into the boiling water and butter so the starch gelatinizes. This is the step that makes choux behave like choux, and it’s why the dough can hold a piped ridge at all.
- Eggs – Two medium, added one at a time once the dough has cooled. They make the dough pipeable and they’re what puffs it in the air fryer. This is the only step in the recipe with a judgment call in it, so check the notes in the recipe card for how to tell when you’ve added enough.
- Butter – Unsalted, so you control the salt. One reader found the original amount too salty for a dessert, so I’d start light and adjust.
- Cinnamon and granulated sugar – The coating. Toss the churros while they’re still hot so it clings.
Full ingredient amounts in the recipe card.
Substitutions and swaps
- No piping bag: a heavy-duty ziplock with the corner cut works. You still need a star tip taped inside, or you’ll get smooth tubes instead of churros.
- No star tip: a Wilton 1M is what I use. Any large open star tip works. A closed star tip gives shallower ridges.
- Butter for extra stick: brush the hot churros with melted butter before tossing them in cinnamon sugar. Two readers suggested this and they’re right, the coating clings much better.
- Dips: thick homemade dulce de leche is my default, but sweetened condensed milk, Nutella, homemade caramel sauce, or warm white chocolate ganache
How to Make Air Fryer Churros
- Cook the dough. Bring the water, butter, sugar, and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Reduce the heat, add the flour all at once, and stir hard with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot and forms a smooth ball.
- Cool it down. Transfer the dough to a stand mixer bowl and beat with the paddle attachment for 3 to 5 minutes. This isn’t optional. If the dough is still hot when the eggs go in, you’ll scramble them.
- Add the eggs. Beat in the eggs one at a time, waiting until each is fully absorbed before adding the next. The dough will look broken for a second, then come back together glossy and sticky.
- Pipe and freeze. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe 3-inch sticks onto a parchment lined sheet, snipping the end with scissors. Freeze for 30 minutes. This is the step that keeps the ridges sharp.
- Air fry from frozen. Preheat the air fryer to 360F for 3 minutes. Peel the frozen churros off the parchment, arrange them in a single layer with space between them, and air fry for 13 to 14 minutes until golden. Work in batches and keep the waiting churros in the freezer.
- Coat while hot. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl. Toss the churros in it the second they come out, while they’re still hot enough for the sugar to stick. Serve them with a bowl of thick pressure cooker dulce de leche for dipping.
Texture note: These are crisp outside and light and airy inside, the way choux pastry always is. If you’ve had a cream puff or an éclair, that’s the interior you’re getting, piped into ridges and rolled in cinnamon sugar. They’re their own thing rather than a copy of a fried churro, and the contrast between that crackly sugar shell and the airy middle is the reason I keep making them.
About the freezer step
Thirty minutes is the minimum. An hour is better and doesn’t hurt anything. If you’re piping a big batch, freeze them solid on the sheet, then transfer to a freezer bag and keep them for up to 3 months. Air fry straight from the bag, adding a minute if they’ve been frozen more than a few weeks. This same pipe-and-freeze approach is why I keep reaching for the air fryer for dessert, the same basket handles fudgy air fryer brownies and soft air fryer chocolate chip cookies.
Tips for Success
- Beat the dough for the full 3 to 5 minutes before adding eggs, or you’ll get scrambled bits through the churros
- Preheat the air fryer, always. Cold basket means soft ridges
- Leave space between churros so air can circulate, they won’t crisp if they’re touching
- Toss in cinnamon sugar immediately, the coating won’t stick to a cooled churro
- Serve within a few minutes. These do not hold well and they don’t reheat into anything good
If you want to go deeper on the technique itself, Food Crumbles choux pastry guide breaks down the science better than I can in a recipe post.
Air Fryer Churros FAQs
The dough, yes. The finished churros, no. Pipe the churros and freeze them raw, then air fry whenever you want them. Cooked churros go soft within about 15 minutes and there’s no good way to bring them back. If you want something cinnamon sugar that actually keeps, my churro cheesecake bars with a crescent dough base hold for days.
You need something with a star tip. A piping bag is easiest, but a heavy-duty ziplock with a star tip pushed into a cut corner does the same job. What you can’t skip is the star tip itself. The ridges are what make the surface crisp up, and a plain round opening gives you a smooth tube that cooks unevenly.
That’s choux pastry doing what it’s supposed to do. The steam from the water inflates the dough and leaves an airy interior. It will always be lighter and more open than a deep fried churro. If yours are completely collapsed rather than airy, the dough was probably too wet, which usually means the eggs went in before the dough had cooled enough.
Not with this recipe. This is a choux pastry dough and the eggs are what create the structure and let it puff. Eggless churro recipes use the simpler Spanish-style dough instead, just flour, water, oil, and baking powder. That dough works too, it’s denser and chewier, and it isn’t what this recipe is built on.
They’re lighter. At about 60 calories per 3-inch churro, they come in well under a deep fried churro because you’re not adding frying oil. The dough is the same butter and flour base either way, so they’re still dessert, just a smaller one.
Anything cinnamon sugar tends to end up on this blog eventually. If you want the flavor without a piping bag, my chewy Crumbl-style churro cookies are the shortcut, churro pumpkin cheesecake bars are the fall version, and cinnamon sugar toast is the five-minute one.
Other Favorite Air Fryer Recipes
If you tried this Air Fryer Churros Recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you it goes in the comments! I love hearing from you!
Easy Air Fryer Churros
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp water
- 1/4 cup butter or 1/2 a stick
- 1 tbsp sugar
- a pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup flour
- 2 medium eggs
cinnamon sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pan, bring the water, butter, sugar and the pinch of salt to a boil over medium heat. Once the mixture boils, reduce the heat and add in the flour and mix rapidly using a wooden spatula. Continue stirring the mixture until the mixture thickens and does not stick to the sides of the pot.
- Transfer the mixture to a stand mixer bowl or heat proof bowl and mix using a paddle attachement. This will allow the churro dough to cool down so we can add the eggs. This process will take between 3-5 minutes.
- Once the churro dough is a little bit cooler add in the eggs one at a time while continuing to mix. The mixture will become a lot more sticky. At this point, transfer the churro mixture to a piping bag fitted with a star tip. I used the Wilton 1M
- On a parchment lined baking sheet pipe 3-4 inch long churros. Cut the end using a pair of scissors or knife. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- 3 minutes before your churros are ready to be baked, preheat the air fryer to 360F. Gently remove the frozen churros from the parchment paper and place them into the air fryer basket and bake for 13-14 minutes. Depending on what air fryer you have you might have to bake these churros in multiple smaller batches. Place the leftover churros in the freezer so they don't get soft.
- In a shallow bowl or plastic bag combine the sugar and the cinnamon. Place the baked churros in the sugar mixture as soon as they come out of the air fryer, toss them in the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat them evenly.
- Serve with dulce de leche, sweetened condensed milk or even Nutella!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
what country is this from? do i need to adjust measurements to australian measurements?
The US and you can convert the measurements on the recipe card.
Gonna give thia a shot. Everyone I know loves when I make Churros but I’m never deep frying again. Friday night I was
making Churros and was going to take the 2nd batchof 6 Churros out of the deep frying pan about 2 inches of oil, and one of the Churros decided to explode sending scalding hot oil all over my forearms and hands. So needless to say I’m done with deep frying. Ended up spending the whole weekend in the hospital. Ugh. One of the nurses mentioned to me that dhe makes in her air fryer. Who knows. so gonna try this recipe ad she told me this is the one she uses and I’ll come back shortly with an update
OMG! I’m sorry that happened to you π
Why are my eggs not mixing in??? It looks like little tiny wet dough nuggets, help!
Hi Wendy! That can happen due to the temperature of the egg.
what temp do the eggs have to be then??
The mixture should be cooled down to almost room temp when you add the eggs. If the mixture is too hot, it will cook the eggs instead of incorporating and you’ll end up with little cooked pieces off egg in your dough.
Can these be cooked, rolled in sugar mix and frozen, then warmed before ready for serving?
Sure I don’t see why not!
It’s like eating air with a side of doughπ€£ππ disappointment. Yes I followed every single step correctly and they werenβt good.
Aww, that’s too bad
Thanks heaps! I tried them first in the order of the recipe, then tried them rolled in cinnamon sugar BEFORE placing in the air fryer – everyone agreed that the ones rolled in sugar prior to cooking were sooooo much nicer! Definitely going to make this recipe again!
That’s awesome!
Hi, can I freeze these and cook over fully frozen?
Yes you can freeze and bake from frozen!
chahinez
Thank you so much for this lovely recipe! Made them today and my family absolutely loved them; not even a single crumb left. I did add two tsps of vanilla extract to prevent the ‘eggy’ taste and the churros came out perfectly. I loved the taste, texture and they went so well with the dulce de leche. In fact, I’m going to make more tomorrow since I have quite a lot of dulce de leche remaining. Instructions were also clear and precise. Overall a great recipe!
Thank you so much Nessa! So glad to hear you enjoyed these churros!
Chahinez
Will it work just fine if I donβt have a tip and just do churro logs?
Yes, you can do churro logs just make sure to not make them too thick. They will laso not look as pretty as the ones that are piped!
What a great recipe! I canβt believe all that churro goodness in an air fryer. Canβt wait to try it! Thanks fir the great pics and instructions. β€οΈ
I’m so happy you liked it Dianna! Can’t wait for you to try it π
My churros keep expanding! They are more like profiteroles. Help!
The secret is to use a smaller-ish piping tip. Since these are not fried in oil, they will be very resemblant of profiteroles because the dough/batter is made in a very similar way.
Chahinez