Air Fryer Ground Beef Wellington

For some reason, beef Wellington has come up several times recently at our house. And of course the internet was listening. When my mom sent me some Taste of Home recipes, there was beef Wellington in the list!

I honestly don't think I've ever had beef Wellington before, so I can't say how this compared to how it's supposed to be. But we all enjoyed it a lot. And notice I'm saying that for a recipe with MUSHROOM in it. I actually ate the mushroom. You can tell we burned things a little in our air fryer. We will do better next time. 

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
• 4 tsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp pepper, divided
• 1 cup half and half cream
• 2 large egg yolks
• 4 Tbsp finely chopped onion
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 tube (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls or crescent dough sheet
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten, optional
• 1 tsp dried parsley flakes

In a saucepan, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; cook and stir until tender, 5-6 minutes. Stir in flour and 1/4 tsp pepper until blended. Gradually add cream. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from heat and set aside. 

Preheat air fryer to 300 degrees. In a bowl, combine egg yolk, onion, 4 Tbsp mushroom sauce, salt and remining pepper. Crumble beef over mixture and mix well. Shape into 4 loaves. Unroll crescent dough and separate into 4 rectangles; press perforations to seal, if needed. Place meat loaf on each rectangle. Bring edges together and pinch to seal. If desired, brush with beaten egg.

Place Wellingtons in a single layer on a well-greased basket in air fryer. It's recommended to have a drip pan on a lower rack to catch liquid that will drip from the Wellingtons. Cook until golden brown and a thermometer inserted into meat reads 160 degrees, 18-22 minutes. Meanwhile, warm remaining sauce over low heat; stir in parsley. Serve sauce with Wellingtons. 

NOTES: We used crescent rolls like the recipe calls for, but if you can find the Pillsbury crescent dough sheets, I'd highly recommend them. The perforations just never seem to want to go back together. We also used a rolling pin to make the crescent dough wider and thinner to fit the meat loaf. 

Our air fryer is round and has a metal grate that rotates. We did not grease this well enough and our Wellingtons got stuck. We tried to flip them over halfway through because they were getting very browned on the top (because of the egg wash). They definitely fell apart. We will probably not use the egg wash next time, and also, grease things a little better. I know other newer air fryers work a bit different so yours may not have this issue. 

UPDATE: We made these again in a different air fryer and did not use the egg wash. Much better. Also, we followed the original instructions again that said to put the Wellingtons on a "tray" and not the basket. We believe this is where the biggest mistake happens. There is a lot of liquid that leaks out of the loaves and this causes the dough on the bottom to stick to the tray and not cook through. When trying to flip them halfway through, we destroyed the loaves. Using the basket instead of tray would allow more regular heating on all sides of the loaves. 

Serves 4

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Recipe from Taste of Home