Air fryers…what’s the hype?

[mummy203]

am I being unreasonable thinking air fryers are hype? Or am I just not getting it yet

I’ve been bought a 4L tower one, not used yet because I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. At first I thought fab I will use instead of my oven, but all the tutorials seem to show everything cooked separately chips for 20mins, chicken for 20mins and so on. There’s not enough room to put everything in for a family meal to cook at the same time. I can’t see how this would work cooking a meal for even 2 people. If you have to put half the dinner in the oven anyway then why use the air fryer at all just put everything in the oven at the same time 🤷🏼‍♀️ What am I not getting?

Agree with PP - it really does depend on what you want it for. I tend to cook the bulk of our meals on the stove top so I'm not using it for the main family meals. But I have always hated turning on the oven for relatively small things and also hate the fact that it takes forever to heat up those small things - and that's where the air fryer is a win for me. Things I've used mine for over the last few weeks include:

Cooking a pack of sausage for the kids when entertaining as they didn't want the main meal we were having.
Roasting tomatoes and onions for lunch for me and DH (takes 15 minutes and uses much less power than the same in the oven)
Chicken nuggets and chips for DD's dinner last week
Croissants for the DC on the weekend
Heated up the taco shells in 2 minutes rather than turning on the oven, heating it up etc.
Cooked a whole aubergine with a miso paste for my lunch
Cooked 2 boneless chicken breasts for DD's dinner and DS' sandwiches
Made spanakopita and will do it again - freezing individual ones to cook as needed in the air fryer.

Oh, I also roasted some butternut for a risotto but that was awful - we lost out on the sweetness of slowly roasted butternut so I won't do that again.

I’m not a kitchen gadget person & don’t usually get sucked into these things but I love my air fryer. No preheating for10 mins, cooks way quicker, massive reduction in my bills. Was fed up with putting a big oven on for 8 chicken nuggets & a few chips! Everything goes in together & cooked in less than 10 mins.

I've noticed a lot of timings are off on the instructions. If you google air fryer recipes, they all require less time. So I can do nuggets in about 10 minutes or chicken breasts in about the same. We do skinny fries and they take 10 minutes or less - chunky ones might take longer. Roasted vegetables take about 15-20 minutes.

You have to pick your battles with it. It won't do everything.

Also it is very cheap. Our electric oven will cost 2p a minute to run from when the new cap is in place. That's 40-60p for some nuggets and chips! Air fryer is like a quarter of the price if that.

Cleaning is very easy especially if you have a shower/jet head on your taps. Squirt some fairy liquid in, jet it out, cleaned and degreased in about 30 seconds.

Had this battle in my head too.

Its too small for a 'family dinner'. So i would end up using the cooker anyhow
Its convenient for quick chicken nuggets etc. Why would i want to make quick junk food easier?
Its cheaper to use. If i have to turn the oven on every time i use it it isnt cheaper.
Its quicker to cook. So what? Being organised is more important. By the time its been washed after use is it really quicker and cheaper?

Its something else to sit on the worktop taking up room that any visitor to the house will ask if its good. I will reply it is amazing whilst making all of the above mistakes. Eventually i will put it in a cupboard or sell it on fb marketplace.

Its quicker to cook. So what?

What do you mean?

Used ours twice, felt pretty underwhelmed and sold it on. Maybe should have given it more of a go. Felt the same way about the slow cooker to be honest!

The tutorials show 'how to cook a chicken', or 'how to cook chips' because those are the most common questions people ask.
I've got an induction air fryer with a glass bowl and extension ring, it can cook a medium chicken and roast spuds. It costs less than the gas oven, and I can reduce that even further by cooking the chicken in the microwave and part boiling the spuds first. We also use it for baking.
We don't eat junk food, I can't - I have IBS, so no nitrates. I looked at the different types and sizes and what they can cook before I bought it. I can't imagine buying an expensive gadget without checking it out first and it seems odd to complain when you haven't even tried it yet.

@Tessasanderson Things being quicker to cook is literally the biggest advantage for me. I don't have time to prepare meals that then take an hour or more to cook - most of the time I'm working until at least 6pm then rushing downstairs and desperately trying to get a meal into DC by 6:30 (earlier for DD if I can manage it) because bed time is at 8 or 8:30. I use the slow cooker sometimes for the same reason - I can stick a whole bunch of stuff in at lunch time and then it's ready by the time I'm finished work.

I mean, I totally get that this might not be a huge benefit for everyone, but for me, it definitely is.

I had a slow cooker, used it twice and never bothered again.

I have a dual drawer one for my family of six. Can cook a whole meal easily (admittedly veg is steamed on hob separately)

What i meant was......so what? As long as im organized i dont get much benefit from cooking something in 10mins rather than 20mins in the oven. OK cheaper in air fryer but if i cant fit a proper family meal in it, am i actually saving?

Just to add - I'm sure if I had a dishwasher i wouldn't find it a nightmare to clean, but I don't, and it is a pain cleaning the basket and the other part the basket slots into !

I fear it wont be big enough to cook for a family of 6 big eaters.

I’ve looked at the pros and cons of these for a long time, so thank you for everyone’s comments! I do like the idea of it but don’t think I can get past how bulky it would look on the worktop - aesthetics before function for me.

Love mine so much I have two! 😃

I have a 3 shelf, 12L Tower one along with a Ninja Foodi. I very often use them together. If I'm doing fish and chips for instance, I do the fish in the Tower and the chips in the Ninja. Whole chickens are excellent in the Ninja.

Yes they are quite bulky but fortunately I have plenty of worktop space.

Wouldn't be without them!

Well, no, @Tessasanderson, you're not, but a single person who only wants 4 chicken nuggets is. Literally one of the whole points of the air fryer.

We've got a Tower one which has shelves instead of baskets. We love it, some things come out so much nicer than in the oven and it cuts the cooking time.
It's a bit tight getting a full meal for 4 in it, but tbh one of the reasons we got it was to stop putting the main oven on for half an hour just for one garlic bread or 4 spring rolls to go with a stir-fry etc. For that it's fab and definitely saves on energy costs.

Thats exactly where i end up.

I dont think i ever need to cook 4 chicken nuggets quickly. Thanks

I've had a small one for a couple of weeks. I cook meal for two.

Things I've cooked in it, some of these several times

• oven chips with sausages (chucked in together)
• chips with scampi (12 minutes chips, then scampi chucked in for second 12 minutes.)
• Today I roasted some carrots and then chucked some pan-fried chicken breast on top for the last five minutes. This was following a Hello Fresh recipe.
• Roasted potato wedges for another recipe
• Roasting vegetables for other Hello Fresh recipes

Things I've used my fan oven for

• pizzas
• shepherds pie. (I had a square dish which just fits in the air fryer, but wasn't sure it was big enough, so decided to just use the oven.)

I'd say cleaning the non-stick air fryer pot is easier than cleaning my frying pan, though each takes only about a minute under a running tap.

You write in an oddly superior tone @Tessasanderson. It's really strange. We're discussing what the purpose of air fryers are. One of their purposes is to save electricity when one is cooking a small amount of food. If that is not a requirement for your family, then fine, irrelevant to this discussion, but fine.

This is the reason I sold my airfryer.

Not being funny, but with the initial outlay for both of them and the cost of running both, plus cleaning, plus worktop space,wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just...use the oven?

I love mine. Family of 4 here. I do the kids dinner in it. Dont waste time pre heating oven and their dinner is ready in 15 mins instead of 40. I do any oven based meal in it. Also a tip is to buy a small raised rack to put inside so you can layer food, i.e roast veg for 15 mins then put fish in tin foil on top, on the rack.