I don't understand why so many people are raving about air fryers!

[BorisJohnsonsHair]

So many people I know have them, and keep trying to tell me how marvellous they are.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't actually see what I would cook in one. We eat a lot of curries, stir-fries and then things like sausage and mash, lasagne etc.

I have a combination microwave/grill/oven, plus a normal oven and gas hob. Also use a slow cooker. Why would I need to add another gadget? I honestly can't see when I'd use it.

And please don't say chips are as good as proper chips! We only have chips maybe once every couple of months, so like them deep-fried.

It's no different to washing the tray or dish you've oven baked something in. Do you only wash those once a year occasionally?

I'm pretty lazy and it only takes a minute or two to wash them by hand. I don't find the dishwasher does non-stick surfaces any favours so never put them in.

The drawer is the equivalent of using a pan (saucepan or frying pan), so it needs cleaning after use like you would with a pan. They are non stick so they take less than a minute to wash by hand.

Listened to a programme on radio four recently where all the experts ( chefs etc) were slating them big time. Just another fad.

Got home last night from a gruelling time at the vets. Too tired to start to cook. Husband popped chips in the air fryer. Done in 6 mins!

Mine has a sauté function

Ah OK the one we had had holes in the basket so you couldn't do wet things, they would just drain through and make a mess.

The basket is usually removable leaving a cooking pot underneath for saucy things

We bought a second hand air fryer off dh's colleague.
It's pretty good for chips but haven't used it for much else.
We also bought a halogen oven from aldi.
This was for us, a game changer.
We use it for almost everything. It's a mini oven and it uses far less fuel than our fan assisted electric oven. It's saved us loads of £££ and far easier to clean.

No I don't wash oven trays. We use baking paper directly on the shelf, about 3-4x then change it, and I occasionally use oven cleaner spray on the whole oven including the shelves. The only time I'd use a separate tray/sheet would be if I was baking cookies, which is very rare. I don't think we even own any trays now. I tend to wreck the non stick on those too so it becomes a pain having to wrap them in foil etc.

I put all my hob pans in the dishwasher. We only have one rarely used non stick one (and I'm about to get rid of it) because all the non stick stuff gets ruined, so we only buy stainless steel now.

I have ADHD, I'm not just lazy and careless, I have brain farts that cause stuff to get forgotten/left/done improperly. I would rather buy stuff that's easy to deal with otherwise it gets wrecked, unfortunately. That's one reason why I thought the dual drawer might be good for us, as one drawer can be in use while the other gets cleaned and then if we do want to do a full roast dinner or whatever we can make sure both are cleaned in time.

Also no hot water tap in kitchen at the moment which also makes washing up a bit of a pain... hmm will think.

liveforsummer the bit underneath ours wasn't really a pot, it was more shovel shaped with only 3 sides. I thought they were all the same!

But chefs are experts in chef cooking, not normal everyday people cooking. They might think they are a crap fad but look at all the people here who love them.

I start with the basket in there when I cook the veg and then take it out for the rest of it.

They are small ovens, too small for a family of 4 adults so I use the oven. I have a multi cooker than is an airfryer among other functions and barely use it (good for rice though)

Just a comment on the using one side while the other is being cleaned - my dual (Sur la Table - Costco) will only work if both baskets are in, even if you only want to use one side.

For things cooked on the hob, you cook them on the hob. It doesn’t really replace that, just the oven.

I don’t like ‘beige food’ but I love my air fryer. It’s a basic one with one drawer but there are only two of us. It lives in a cupboard when not being used. It cleans really easily, too. We use it for things which cook quickly and therefore heating the cavernous oven would be uneconomical and take much longer for the small amount of food we want to cook. It also doesn’t need reheating, and is more intense, making it way faster than the oven. A few things which work for us:

Salmon fillets with julienned veg and soy sauce in foil parcels, to go over rice

A piece of char Sui pork to go into stir fries

A couple of small apple crumbles make with previously stewed apples took 10minutes instead of 25-30 in the oven

Roasted vegetables of all sorts

Reheating portions of batch cooked food which dry out or change texture in the microwave

Frozen pastries, from frozen to breakfast in no time

And loads more.

It cost us £43 and is worth every penny.

The dual basket Ninja will work with just one drawer in.

i use it for 4 adults but it depends what you're cooking.

I'm looking forward to using it to supplement the oven at Christmas too - it was always like a game of Tetris fitting everything in the main oven at at the right time!

I have ADHD, I'm not just lazy and careless,

I'm just lazy and forgetful 😂 No excuses.

Listened to a programme on radio four recently where all the experts ( chefs etc) were slating them big time. Just another fad.

They were only comparing chips done in an air fryer with chips done in a deep fat fryer! Of course you can’t beat the deep fat fryer for chips but the air fryer has 1001 other uses which they didn’t even mention. It was such a stupid, segment!

Summary is:

Quicker
A lot less fat/if any
Economical

I never use my oven or slow cooker any more.

Useful for people to know, and why I named mine in my post.

To be fair my dual was £100, so there has be some functionality downsides.

I do like mine. It's great for the usual chips, baby potatoes, whole chicken, chicken nuggets etc. But I wish I knew how the people who say they haven't used their oven in months are managing that. There are 4 of us at home (not an unusually large number!) and there is no way our air fryer is big enough to cook meals for all of us, day in and day out. And what about pizza? We eat it every week, whether home made or shop bought. Ain't no way to fit that in an air fryer!!

I thought the thing was, especially now, that they use less energy. Not sure whether that’s true though.,
Like a pp, I don’t have a lot of worktop space so I don’t want to clutter it up with a large appliance.

For things cooked on the hob, you cook them on the hob. It doesn’t really replace that, just the oven that’s what I initially thought, so was really curious.
so taking cost into account saving is not that much after all if you still use your oven and then the air fryer as a finisher. It’s probably £7-8 cheaper a month than normal oven.

My ninja has this magic setting called steam meals. I can put rice and water in the bottom, veg on the low rack and raw marinated chicken breast on the top rack, and press the steam meals button. It takes max 20 mins (needs to build pressure then 8 mins cooking). Rice, chicken and veg all perfectly cooked. If I had done it in the oven, I would have needed that on for half an hour, plus using the hob for rice.

I can also pressure cook a casserole in an hour which would be 2.5 in the oven and it comes out with the meat so tender. Plus for an easy quorn nuggets and chips meal, 10 mins max.

As someone with a tiny kitchen and a tabletop oven, I don't understand it either. People are like, "Just toss it in the air fryer!" No space for it and not seen a convincing argument to use the space for it. I have one of those oven safe look like they could be used in a normal fryer thing if i wanted to "air fry" type style something that works fine.