To investigate the effect of pretreatment methods on the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in air-fried fish cakes. Fish cakes were prepared from frozen silver carp surimi， and the fish cakes in the experimental group were treated with three pretreatment methods (pre-frying， pre-frying + freezing， and pre-frying with coating) before air frying， and the direct air-fried fish cake was the control group. The AGEs contents， physicochemical indicators and their correlations in the interior， surface and batter layer of air-fried fish cakes were analyzed. Compared with the samples of control group， the pre-frying and pre-frying + freezing significantly increased the oil absorption (83.83% and 203.48%) in the surface layer of fried fish cakes， which accelerated the Maillard and lipid oxidation reactions， leading to an increase of 120%~151% in CML content. On the contrary， the golden crust formed in the pre-frying with coating group reduced the oil absorption (72.63% and 60.00%) and water loss (3.87% and 0.70%) in the interior and surface layer of the samples， and further decreased the generation of AGEs by weakening the lipid oxidation and the degradation of furosine. And the CEL content decreased by 59.32%. Correlation analysis showed that oxidation reaction and Maillard reaction had a positive correlation with the generation of AGEs in fish cake， and the highest correlation coefficient was found between lipid oxidation and AGEs content. In conclusion， the battered pre-frying not only improved the color of fried fish cakes but also decreased their AGEs contents via depressing the lipid oxidation and Maillard reaction.