Recipe This | Homemade Air Fryer Fishcakes (2024)

Let’s make homemade air fryer fishcakes just like Grandad’s patties. Loaded with mixed flaky fish, mashed potatoes, and then breaded before air frying, these are the best fishcakes you will ever cook.

If you are looking for an authentic fishcakes that are easy to make and cook perfectly in the air fryer, then these are the ones for you.

This air fryer fishcake recipe was originally shared with you back in 2015. We have since updated air fryers and created an even better recipe for you.

Grandads Patties

Growing up I had an amazing grandad. He never drove a car and drove me around in the front basket of his cycle. He was the fittest person I ever knew and loved a pint of beer and sang like Frank Sinatra.

He died when I was 11 but prior to that he was my biggest food influence.

He got me hooked on black puddings, liver and onions, using leftovers to make delicious soups and stews and grew loads of fresh fruit and veggies in his allotment that I binged on whenever I got the chance.

Maybe that is why I still eat black pudding whenever I get the chance and don’t see anything wrong with eating raw carrots with the skin still on.

His day job was as a fisherman.

He was a great fisherman and cooked the most amazing fish and the treat of the week was on a Thursday night when he made the most amazing fishcake patties.

I would then ask him for them at other times too and he would get out his rusty frying pan and make the best ever fishcake patties.

I have tweaked grandad’s patties as they were high sage and hubby is allergic to sage and made them air fryer friendly.

So, if you want air fryer fishcakes, then these are simply perfect for you.

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Can You Cook Fishcakes In Air Fryer?

Yes, you can. You can cook frozen fishcakes in the air fryer or follow our recipe today for homemade fishcakes.

But let me tell you something that makes these fishcakes in the air fryer even more SPECIAL.

We are cooking the fish in the air fryer first.

You see, before owning air fryers I would poach the fish, allow it to cool and then make the fishcakes.

However, instead I am going to be showing you how to first choose the right fish, air fry the fish and then put them together with leftover mashed potatoes.

What Are Fishcakes Made Of?

Ask an old school fisherman and they will tell you that fishcakes are made of half leftover cooked fish and half leftover cooked mashed potatoes. Season a bit and then coat in breadcrumbs.

But note careful the mention of leftover cooked fish as this is the important bit.

You see they will often grab fish leftover that is not going to sell and use a bit of this and a bit of that to make perfect fishcakes with.

So, it can be like a mix for fish pie and great for bargain hunting on some fish deals or clearing out your freezer before you make them.

For fish we used pink salmon, cod, and pollock.

This also keeps your fishcakes more budget friendly thanks to swapping some of the cod for pollock.

What Fishcake Seasoning Should You Use?

As I mentioned the hubby is allergic to sage, so we swapped this for a few alternative favourite herbs to make it more flavoursome.

• We seasoned the fish with dill before air frying
• We seasoned the patties before breading with coriander, parsley, and thyme

This provided the fishcakes with a fantastic flavour and all these items came from my kitchen cupboard.

What About The Mashed Potatoes?

Well, we love to keep everything in the air fryer. After all, don’t you just HATE it when you see an air fryer recipe and it says fry this in a pan, or use the microwave for this.

Therefore, in our simple fishcakes we make our famous air fryer baby potatoes and then mashed them once cooked. They are our all time favourite potatoes and taste so good mashed for fishcakes.

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Fishcake Ingredients

Fish – I recommend using a mix of any boneless fish that you can mash easily once cooked. We went with some salmon, cod and pollock. Though if you are on a budget I recommend doing just pollock and haddock.

Potatoes – You can use the air fryer to make your mash as we made our air fryer baby potatoes and then mashed them. Or use up leftover mash, or even make our instant pot no drain mash.

Breading – You will need a breading production line (more on this below) with a beaten egg bowl, a breadcrumbs bowl, and a flour bowl.

Seasoning – I also recommend adding extra seasoning to your breadcrumbs bowl and your flour bowl. This adds extra flavour and otherwise this recipe for air fryer fish patties can be rather bland. I recommend parsley for your flour and then dill, parsley, and basil for your breadcrumbs. Then extra seasoning for your patties before breading of salt, pepper, coriander, parsley, and thyme.

Optional – I also add some lemon juice to the egg mixture as this gives it extra flavour.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this fishcake air fryer recipe it has just been our Philips air fryer. We have this one and its wonderful for many types of air fryer recipes.

Plus, we recommend you head over to our air fryer recipes category as we have more than 500 tried and tested air fryer recipes and have been air frying for 10 years.

Breading Fishcakes For The Air Fryer

This process for breading fishcakes for the air fryer is the same for all our breaded fish and learn this system and then you can rinse and repeat with other recipes.

Also note, you can do batches of different recipes at the same time. For example, we did air fryer fish fingers, air fryer fish nuggets and a batch of air fryer fish and chips.

You start with three bowls:

• 1 for egg wash
• 1 for flour
• 1 for breadcrumbs

The number #1 chef tip is to use one hand for the flour and egg and then the other hand for the breadcrumbs. That way you won’t have to wash your hands inbetween or get eggy hands on the breaded fishcakes.

The number #2 chef tip is to have a clean chopping board ready for placing the breaded food on once you have breaded it.

The number #3 chef tip is to have the bowls next to each other in the right order. I.e. flour first, then egg, then breadcrumbs.

The number #4 chef tip is to freeze leftover bread as breadcrumbs and then you can pour some into a bowl whenever you want to bread food.

The number #5 chef tip is to flavour the breadcrumbs and flour depending on what you are breading. For example, swap these flavours for our KFC spice blend and make our air fryer KFC chicken.

Here are our bowls with seasoning ready for making this breaded fishcake recipe:

Then once you have mixed the seasoning in your bowls, you’re ready for breading and then air frying.

How To Air Fry Fishcakes?

• Drain. Place your fish in a bowl and allow it to sit there for an hour. This will help with any excess liquid and then you will have a less wet fish.
• Air Fry. Next, place your fish on a chopping board, season and then load into the air fryer. Cook for 8 minutes at 180c/360f to cook the fish. Then allow it to cool.
• Batch 2. When the fish is out of the air fryer, load baby potatoes into a bowl and toss in a little extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix with your hands. Load them into the air fryer and cook for 17 minutes at 180c/360f. Then remove and allow to cool.
• Bowls. Whilst the fish and potatoes are cooling, set up your production line. With one bowl for flour, one bowl for eggs and one bowl for breadcrumbs. Then add seasoning to flour and breadcrumb bowls and beat your eggs. I also recommend adding in some lemon juice to your eggs.
• Prep. Mash the potatoes with some butter and salt and pepper. Then use a fork to flake the fish and load both into a bowl. Add the rest of the seasonings and a little more butter. Mix with your hands into fish patties.
• Bread. Next load the fishcake patties into the flour, then the egg and then using your other dry hand into the breadcrumbs.
• Cook. Air fry the fish patties for 10 minutes at 180c/360f before serving.

And I am sure you can see now how easy it is cooking fishcakes in air fryer and how you can be doing the same.

What About Air Fryer Fish Balls?

You can also use the same mixture to make some air fryer fish balls with instead. Simply make the fish mixture into meatball shapes instead and air fry for 8 minutes instead of 10.

Can You Freeze Fishcakes?

Yes, you can. But I do something different. I find myself often with too much fish mix leftover and never any breadcrumbs left.

I freeze the patties bag and then I can skip many of the cooking steps next time and just set up a production line and cook my fishcakes.

This is my spare bag of fishcake mix ready for the freezer:

What To Have With Fishcakes?

If you are in a nice restaurant, it will all be about beautiful fishcakes in a creamy tomato sauce such as the one we make.

But if you are feeding the kids a quick dinner, then I recommend our air fryer chips as a great side.

More Air Fryer Breaded Fish Ideas

• Air Fryer Fish Fingers
• Air Fryer Thai Fishcakes
• Air Fryer Fish Nuggets

Your fish patties in air fryer recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.

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