Easy Air Fryer Samosas
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These Air Fryer Samosas are so easy to make you’ll find yourself making them again and again but believe me, no one will complain! In fact, they’ll probably cheer every time you make them.
Crispy pastry is wrapped around a simple filling of potatoes and peas and spices for this air fryer take on our favorite Indian Restaurant appetizer, the samosa!
These are vegetarian samosas but if you want to make them vegan use vegan butter to make your pastry. I’ve successfully made vegan puff pastry with vegan butter for these Vegan Sausage Rolls so I have no qualms suggesting that you can use it here.
Let’s make Samosas in the Air Fryer !
I’m going to preface this post with this simple fact; these are not traditional samosas and I am not from India. BUT I am making these for my Facebook group the Great British Baking Show Bake-Along.
It’s pastry week in the group and the choices were
- Signature Bake: Samosas
- Technical Bake: Puits d’Amours (which we already did several years ago) here’s my Puits d’Amours post and a photo!
- Showstopper Bake: Sharing Picnic Pie
Since we’d done this season before and I’d already done the Technical Bake I decided on Samosas. The technical is a TON of work, rough puff pastry, choux pastry, jam, AND creme pat. And I’d been wanting to try my hand at samosas. IN MY AIR FRYER.
So here we are. And it’s SOOOOO tasty right here. Lol. Join me!
Easy Samosas
These Air Fryer Samosas are so flavorful. The filling is the best I’ve ever made. Plus using the air fryer means my house doesn’t stink like deep fat frying. I LOVE THAT PART!
I sort of combined two recipes but then totally winged it as well. Rahul’s dough recipe from the GBBO website was the pastry I made. I added a little more salt to it because my butter was unsalted.
Ruby’s more traditional recipe is not on the GBBO site. I found it on another weird site that may or may not have been spammy. I only stayed long enough to see how many potatoes to use, and the general spice profile.
As far as the flavor of the filling goes it tasted a little TOO strong before I air-fried the samosas. But once they were cooked the flavor was perfect. I think air frying gave the onions and jalapeños a chance to cook and mellow.
If you’re unsure about the flavors or you don’t like a nice big bold flavor I definitely recommend starting with just SOME of the garam masala and cumin, maybe even the onion. Just add some of it, stir it up, and have a taste. If you like it stop there, if you want MORE flavor add more until it tastes good to you!
What do I serve them with??
You can make a simple sauce of yogurt, mint, and cucumber, like this Raita or you can try a chutney! This aloo gobi from Splash of Taste would pair really well with these samosas too. Or serve them with their Aloo Tikka recipe!
Or even go for this Vegetarian Jollof Rice, it’s so flavorful and the perfect accompaniment to any meal. Or for the non-vegetarians out there try this Chicken Tikka Masala!
Going for an air fryer vegetarian meal?? Try these Air Fryer Falafel and make a whole meal out right in the air fryer, just add a fresh salad and dinner is served!
Try these Bombay Potatoes if you want to change up your dinner routine!
What do I need to Make Air fried Samosas?
- An Air Fryer-I used the Cosori for this recipe, It’s my favorite air fryer at the moment
- all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- butter
- water
- potatoes
- green peas
- onion or shallot
- garam masala
- cumin
- jalapeño (optional)
- light olive oil
- fresh ginger
What if I don’t want to make the dough?
Can you buy fresh samosa dough in the store? I’ve never seen it but I live in a small town in Alaska so my knowledge of what’s available is limited. Now, you could use pie crust dough as a substitution for samosa dough. It’s not THE same but it’s very similar. The only thing you would need to do is roll out the dough to be much thinner than how it comes out of the package.
How to Fill Samosas
This is how I filled them. Is it the right way? I. think. so? But probably not! But these worked.
- Step 1 Roll out a piece of dough into an oval about 3 1/2 inches by 6 inches
- Step 2 Wet down the long side on the left and fold over the top third of the dough
- Step 3 Fold up the bottom third to make a little cone, open up the cone
- Step 4 Fill the cone with roughly a tablespoon and a half of the filling
- Step 5 fold over one edge
- Step 6 wet down the remaining flap and fold it down to seal it up
Again this is how I did it. There are probably tons of videos on it if you’re so inclined to watch them.
If you don’t have an Air Fryer, you can Deep Fry these at 315° for 8-10 minutes in batches of 3-4!
Air Fyrer Samosas
Ingredients
Samosa Pastry
- 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter cold, cubed
- 1/3 cup warm water
- 2 Tablespoon light olive oil for brushing on the samosas before air fryer
Samosa Filling
- 8 ounces potatoes yellow potatoes work well
- 1/3 cup green peas
- 3/4 teaspoon garam marsala
- 1/2 teaspoon salt more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger grated
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 Tablespoon light olive oil
- 1/4 cup onion minced
- 1 Tablespoon jalapeño chopped , *optional*
Instructions
- Make the pastry: mix the flour and salt together
- cut the butter into the flour until it resembles crumbs
- add the water and stir with your hand until the dough comes together
- then knead lightly for about a minute
- wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Make the filling: peel the potatoes and chop
- bring a small saucepan of water to a boil and cook the potatoes until soft
- put the peas in the bottom of a colander and pour the hot potatoes over them
- rinse in cool water shake to drain and put in a mixing bowl
- add the remaining ingredients *see note on spices and adding them below* and gently mash the potatoes with the back of the spoon, try not to crush all the peas, you don't need a smooth mashed potatoes mixture, just lightly mashed is good
- taste for spices and add more salt if needed, the mixture may taste TOO spicy now but will mellow when air fried
- roll the dough into a 12-inch long rope, cut into 12 pieces
- cover lightly with a damp towel
- get a little dish of water to help seal the samosas
- line a baking pan with parchment or foil, set aside
- preheat the air fryer at 400° for 5 minutes
- take one piece of dough and roll out to roughly a 3 1/2 by 6-inch rectangle this doesn't need to be perfect
- lay the rectangle on your hand with the long side by your pointer finger
- wet that long end, fold the top down to about the middle, then fold the bottom up to form a little cone (see photos in the post for a better idea!)
- fill the cone with filling, fold over the top of the cone, wet the dough, and seal, lay on the prepared baking sheet
- repeat with 5 more samosas
- lay the prepared samosas in the basket and liberally brush with oil
- air fry for 15 minutes, turning after 7 minutes, brushing the side that didn't get oil with oil
- finish filling the remaining samosas
- air fry them the same way
- serve hot
