diff --git a/AsyncDisplayKit/ASNetworkImageNode.mm b/AsyncDisplayKit/ASNetworkImageNode.mm
index 8e7f5e2e3c..c1c2a51400 100644
--- a/AsyncDisplayKit/ASNetworkImageNode.mm
+++ b/AsyncDisplayKit/ASNetworkImageNode.mm
@@ -234,11 +234,17 @@
           }
         };
 
-        [_cache fetchCachedImageWithURL:_URL
-                          callbackQueue:dispatch_get_main_queue()
-                             completion:cacheCompletion];
+        dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{
+          [_cache fetchCachedImageWithURL:_URL
+                            callbackQueue:dispatch_get_main_queue()
+                               completion:cacheCompletion];
+        });
       } else {
-        [self _downloadImageWithCompletion:finished];
+          // NSURLSessionDownloadTask will do file I/O to create a temp directory. If called on the main thread this
+          // will cause significant performance issues.
+          dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{
+              [self _downloadImageWithCompletion:finished];
+          });
       }
     }
   }