Do I need an airfryer?

[Crunchymum]

I guess if I have to ask the answer is probably no.

What do people cook in them? Are they difficult to clean? Do they really make (cooking) life any easier?

I was looking at a Ninja that's about £120 on offer. Will this one be crap? Do I need to go more expensive?

As someone who's only owned an airfryer for two weeks, I say YES!
Forget the name. They are basically a small oven, anything you cook in your oven you can cook in the airfryer quicker and cheaper. You can put your casserole dish or tin or whatever in it too, so you only need to wash what you put the food in, not the fryer itself.
You can make cakes it it!
It's magic and I love it and mine was only 40 quid but I wanted to start cautious. I'm already thinking of buying another one and hardly ever using my oven again! 😂

I mainly use mine for speed-cooking kids meals.

It is brilliant for this.

Oh and I've used it nearly every day since I got it! Most complicated thing so far cauliflower cheese, we love cauliflower cheese here. Came out brilliant, did it in two foil tins that fit mine like a glove.

Yes you do. Ninja is probably the air fryer of choice. We use ours everyday, wouldn't be without it.

So far, so good.

Being able to cook food for kids quickly would make life easier (work / hobbies etc).

So you can cook anything you would usually cook in an oven, in an airfryer at a faster speed?

Anything that you oven cook to be crispy is far better in the air fryer. It is especially good at ‘beige food’. It’s sort of like a turbo charged hairdryer for food.

some people go all out and cook things like roast chicken in them, and I have, but the oven is better imo. Great for roast root veg though.

I have a ninja foodi which doubles as a pressure cooker which I really rate for stews and soups as well. I can’t recall if ours is 2 or 3 years old but it’s had high use in that time.

I finally caved a couple of weeks ago so am in the experimental phase. The answer to your question is it depends on what you like to eat and what you don't do because it is a faff having to wait for the oven.

What I have found out so far

The roasted chicken you see variations of on S M is lovely.
Roast potatoes are quick and lovey

Light things ...eg breadcrumbs need nailing down.
Food does nothing for a while and then it is done done in the blink of an eye

Write down what your start settings are and then you know what the base line was for tweaking it (or not) was last time

It is brilliant cooking the beige buffet things the kids like & prevents them leaving the oven on all day.

Jamie Oliver's air fryer recipes are good... Shame you have to put up with his Mockney Lad bluster and fat fingers bothering the food to watch the videos.

It is great for cooking for one or two people without having buckets of leftovers. Super useful for when you have variable numbers at home.

I have been told that you should reduce temperatures by 20/ 30 DegC and cooking time by a third to convert traditional recipes to air fryer ones... I have yet to test this.

Cleaning is super easy - I have the Ninja Dual.

It is not quite big enough to take a half baked baguette from Aldi... I have to cut a small bit off the end of the stick.

So far I think it is worth it... Is it life changing? Not yet.

It’s sort of like a turbo charged hairdryer for food. Genius description, that's exactly what it's like. Airfyer my arse - turbo-charged-food-hairdryer is what it is. 😂

If you have space, get one of the small combi ovens that include an air fryer function, much easier to use and get things in and out of, more flexibility and wider range of tins/trays that you can do things on. Obviously they are bigger though

Yes Turbo charged hair dryer is a good description. If I had realised how much air was involved I would never have tried toasting breadcrumbs in it.

Yes they are brilliant, time and cost effective but I wouldn't spend loads, they all work on the same principle. I paid £40 manual not digital timer. . Obviously pay more if you ' need' a larger one. But I didn't.

I'd second this. The 'top loading' air fryers can be difficult to get trays of things in and out easily, although you can get trays with handles that make things easier.

What they're very good for is cooking small amounts of food for one to two people and reheating things like pastries and pizza. The kind of thing where you think 'I'd do that but is it worth putting the oven on'.

Or if you have teens who want to do things like make themselves fish finger sandwiches at random times of day.

Also good for food that you'd otherwise grill or fry and it frees you from having to watch it - sausages, bacon, chops etc. You just set the timer and leave it and it turns off at the end so you don't have to go back to it straight away.

You'd need a bigger one when cooking for more people. We have a small cheap Costco one and it's great for us, but they now have one that's like a microwave oven and I'm kind of hoping that ours will break so we can get that one instead. This would be brilliant for anyone starting out/in small accommodation - they just wouldn't need an oven at all.

https://www.costco.co.uk/Appliances/Small-Kitchen-Appliances/Cooking-Specialty/Instant-13L-Gourmet-Air-Fryer-Oven/p/9765

"What do people cook in them? Are they difficult to clean? Do they really make (cooking) life any easier?"
You can cook almost anything.
On most airfryers, the parts that touch the food are dishwashable.
Yes it makes cooking/life easier.

I have used mine about 3 times since I got it. It just sits on the side gathering dust. Absolutely pointless. I just whack the oven on and use that all the time like I did before. I don’t like having to be so close to whatever is cooking and moving the drawer out and shaking everything etc. Too much faff. I prefer just chucking things in the oven and leaving them, adding stuff on different trays etc as I need to.

An emphatic yes from me. I resisted and resisted (frankly due to misplaced snobbery) until my MIL purchased me one for Christmas. Now I use it daily and barely use the oven. Its quicker, easier to clean, at a convenient height and just all round super easy to live with.

Bought mine thinking it was a bit of a luxury. Quickly realised that it's a godsend.
Cleaning is basically the same as cleaning your oven except that there's much less of it, it's easier to get at the insides, and everything that comes out of it is small enough to fit in the dishwasher, so in reality it's much easier.

I'd suggest you get one with shelves and not drawers as you don't have to rethink your cooking methods. I have this one and can recommend it. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/325368016
Sorry the link seems a bit unreliable but it's the Pro Breeze 12l model which is available at various places from £80 upwards.