Cooking crispy air fryer diced potatoes with peppers and onions takes just 20 minutes in an air fryer if you skip the optional soaking step. And whether you call these home fries, cottage potatoes, potatoes O Brien, or diced hash browns, they are DANG GOOD!
Wash the Russet potatoes and cut them into ¾″ cubes.
To get the chopped potatoes to come out as crispy as possible, add the diced potatoes to a bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for at least 1 hour. Drain the water and blot the potatoes dry. ***NOTE: Soaking the potatoes in cold water can be skipped if you’re in a hurry but you’ll still want to blot moisture from your fries after washing the potatoes.
While the potatoes are soaking, prep the remaining ingredients by chopping the green bell pepper and onion. Set them aside.
Combine the dried potatoes, oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a medium sized bowl. Do NOT add the peppers and onions yet, they'll burn if they get added too soon.
Preheat the air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes.
The air fryer diced potatoes will cook for a total of 20 minutes, if you're adding peppers and onions, they get added after 10 minutes. Add the seasoned potatoes into the air fryer basket and cook them for a total of 10 minutes, making sure to flip them or shake the basket after 5 minutes.
Add the peppers and onions to the air fryer. Continue cooking them for a total of 10 more minutes, flipping them after 5 minutes through cooking, or until they're to your liking.
Notes
Don't overcrowd your air fryer or the potatoes won't get brown and crispy. Make more than one batch if needed.
Soaking the potatoes for 1 hour in cold water before cooking helps get them extra crispy, but if you don't have time for this you can skip this step. Just make sure you still dry the potatoes with paper towels!
Toss or stir the fried potatoes every 5 minutes during the cooking process, which takes about 20 minutes total.
Wait on adding the peppers and onions until after 10 minutes of cooking time, otherwise, they will burn.