For a simple side dish or sausage topping, air fryer peppers and onions is one of our go-to recipes!

Easy to make and so delicious, these lightly air roasted and seasoned veggies will leave you wanting more!

silver fork piercing mix of cooked peppers and onion in blue bowl on wooden board. — Look at those colors – all ready to eat!

Ingredients

To make peppers and onions in the air fryer, you’ll need:

Bell Peppers – Choose any color you like; just keep in mind that green bell peppers taste slightly bitter.
Onions – We use yellow onions, but you can also use sweet onions or red onions if preferred.
Oil – We use avocado oil; sunflower oil, canola oil or vegetable oil also works well.
Garlic Powder – To add some flavor; feel free to skip if you don’t like garlic.
Salt – For some flavor. Add more or less to taste.
Black Pepper – For flavor.

Recipe Tips

We’ve made air fryer peppers and onions quite a few times. Here are some tips and need to knows that we learned whilst making them:

The color of bell peppers you choose won’t affect cooking time – but may affect flavor. Green peppers are usually the least sweet of the bell pepper colors. That’s why we like red, orange, or yellow for this particular combination.
It’s important to cut the peppers into slices of roughly the same thickness and the same goes for the onions. This helps them cook evenly – you don’t want some pieces to be overly brown while others are just getting soft.
You can change up the spice blend if you choose. We like to keep it simple and let the flavor of the onions and peppers do the talking.

We use this air fryer for our recipes and it has been great.

Step by Step Instructions

If you want to make these air fryer bell peppers and onions, follow the recipe steps with process photos to see exactly how we made them in our kitchen.

If you’re feeling confident and don’t need the photos, you can scroll down to the recipe card.

orange bell pepper on wooden cutting board with pepper strips cut up in front. — Cut the bell peppers into strips.

First, wash the bell peppers and cut them into halves or quarters. Remove the inner core and seeds.

Then cut the pepper pieces into slices of roughly the same thickness.

whole onion on wooden cutting board with round slices of onions on board in front. — Cut the onions into rings.

Next, peel the onions and cut them into rings. Remember: The onion rings should be of similar thickness so that they cook evenly.

At this time also preheat your air fryer to 380 degrees Fahrenheit.

raw peppers and onions covered in spices in mixing bowl on white counter top. — Add the peppers and onions to a bowl.

Meanwhile, add the raw pepper slices and onion rings into a bowl. Also add the oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper into the bowl.

Toss everything until evenly coated.

raw peppers and onions in black air fryer basket on white counter. — Add the veggies to the preheated air fryer.

When the air fryer is hot, add the veggies. Gently shake the air fryer basket so that everything is evenly distributed (this helps with even cooking).

cooked onions and peppers in black air fryer basket on counter. — The peppers and onions should be soft.

Air fry the peppers and onions at 380 degrees Fahrenheit for 13-16 minutes until soft.

Your exact cooking time can depend on the thickness of the peppers and onions, your air fryer, and personal preference.

air fried onions and yellow peppers in blue bowl on wooden board. — These peppers and onions are ready to be served!

When everything is done, remove the peppers and onions from the air fryer, add them to a serving bowl, and enjoy!

What to Serve Onions and Peppers With

These onions and peppers are a really nice combo that works well as a simple side dish. They have a taste that goes with things that are grilled – from meats to non-meat alternatives.

Another way we like these is as a topping on a sausage. We made Italian sausages in the air fryer and topped them with peppers and onions while on a bun. So good!

To be fair, we actually made Italian sausages WITH onions and peppers – all at the same time in our air fryer – that also worked out really well.

Related Recipes

Here at Simply Air Fryer, we love combination recipes. Here are some more tasty combos that you can try out at home – it’s all veggie combos that work really well together!