We wanted juicy, perfectly cooked pork chops wrapped in a crispy and deeply flavored crust. But since air fryers don’t fry in the same way that a hot pan with oil does, we had trouble achieving a well-browned, crisp crust. Pretoasting the breading in the microwave with a little melted butter helped significantly, but it was when we switched from regular bread crumbs to Japanese panko that we achieved a crust with crunch.
As with our chicken cutlets, we streamlined the dredging process by whisking the egg and flour together, but went a step further, packing a ton of flavor into the egg mixture with a double dose of mustard—Dijon and dry mustard—as well as garlic powder and cayenne pepper. However, the crumb topping flaked off when we flipped the chops during cooking. To help it stick, we scored the surface of the chops in a crosshatch pattern, creating additional surface area for the coating to cling to.
