Do I need an air fryer?

[Triceratopsrock]

We don’t do too baldly on electricity use. So far about £150 PCM for a 5 bed detached family home. Oil for heating at about £70 PCM.
electic price rises are going to cripple us on top of childcare.
looking at my smart meter over the past month of so, most of what turns it red is the oven. Children are fussy twats and we eat way too many nuggets etc cooked in the oven.
will the outlay of an air fryer save me money? Assuming I need a big one as er are a family of 5.
also fuck of grammar police, it’s Friday and I’m deep into my Lidl rosé!

I have a dual drawer model. Expensive to buy but I honestly think it will pay for itself in two ways - one that it uses less energy because of being so much quicker, and two that it makes me far more inclined to cook from scratch as it’s so much easier.

I just line the drawer (on top of the plate thing) with baking paper and put the flapjack in like that. Then lift the whole thing out and it’s just the right size for my biscuit tin! I also have a 1litre loaf tin that works really well for small bread loaves and cakes. And a 6inch cake tin that works too. I’m baking loads more as it’s so easy, which does save money as I’ve not bought biscuits etc for ages, and I use a lot of fruit which is free at the moment like plums and apples.

@Soontobe60 Air fryer sausages are the best. Exactly how we like them!

I’d say no to the lasagne / shepherds pie. But what I would do is batch cook some big lasagnes, portion them up and freeze then they can quickly be reheated in an air fryer where they’ll stay crispy on top and moist inside.

@Soontobe60 from scratch - it would heat up ready made ones no problem but from scratch are much better!

You can cook anything in it providing it fits. It's easy to cook lasagne etc in smaller dishes.

I've got the Tower 10 in 1 and absolutely love it.

It's amazing for frozen croissants @Sluj . They take about 7 mins and come out perfect. I have had good results with pre cooked pies too but I think it would depend on how liquid the filling is and the size of the fryer. I cut a small Higgidy pie in half to cook it but that wouldn't work with a very runny filling. In general it's great for pastry and anything that you would want to be crisp/golden.

Another stupid question... What's the difference between an air fryer and a halogen cooker?

I love my air fryer more than my entire family. Yes.

Interested how people claiming to cook sausages in 6 minutes. All of the recipes I’ve found say 15 minutes and having done it anything less than that would be undercooked.

I wouldn't even recognise what an air dryer is if it dropped on my foot! But I've never had a microwave either & wouldn't know how to use one 🤣

I mainly use mine for things like salmon and chicken breast which is sliced and kept in the freezer. Can stuff about 400g in there (I have a small one) , I find once it’s hot the next batch takes about 12 minutes (vs 18 minutes). Chips don’t take long either.

Oh yeah frozen croissants too.

Two questions for those in the know!

Can you cook ready meals in them? Don’t have them often, but keep some in stock for when I’m having a bad day.

Is it safe to put tinfoil dishes in (these are what I use for portioning out when batch cooking).

Also, am assuming they come with good instructions re converting fan oven cooking times?

@Furries yes to all your questions! I find the timings need tweaked to your specific air fryer and needs but I generally half the time and then check on it and maybe a couple mins more

@YerAWizardHarry - that’s great, thanks for the quick reply! Definitely think I’m going to look into getting one.

One last question for those that have one. Do you have shelves or baskets? And are you happy with what you have or do you wish you’d gone with the opposite?

Get an all in one if you can then you can use it for everything. They're great for batch cooking and some have a pressure cooker function which saves energy.

According to a post on the Facebook group, 20 mins on 180 deg from frozen. Not tried myself.

We've had our ninja foodi for a few months now. Yes it was expensive but I've used the oven avg twice a month since I bought it. I've decided to put the oven at the far end of kitchen when we redesign it as it's so barely used. The hob is only used for frying eggs these days. Everything is cooked in the foodi. It can be awkward when cooking different things eg, I'll steam rice first, take it out and keep warm then cook the curry.
Chicken wings and corn cobs in the AF are delicious.

Yes to ready meals. This is one of the reasons I have one - being able to heat up one portion of something I've batch cooked without using 't'big oven'. Ready meals similar method. You just reduce the temp and time given on pack apparently.

Yes to foil dishes - anything that goes in an oven is fine.

We only use the microwave for heating liquid foods, again hardly used.
Takeaway pizza reheated in the AF is so nice.

Read the instructions. Most on Amazon have pdf links to manual and recipes.

They're all different watts so will take different times to cook things.
The cheapest one we'd seen was 32 quid. Tiny compared to ninja but did enough chips for three last night. It's 900w.
Many are 1500w but some are higher.

They will all cook quicker than an oven. But you may need a bigger one for a big family or a dual option if you want to cook different things at the same time.

Worth going to Currys to look at the differences between them.

@Cynderella - that’s really helpful, thank you.

now off to peruse what’s out there!

Yes, I barely use my oven now

I just got a princess air fryer and I absolutely love it brilliant for kiddy food