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?

We don't tend to do entire oven meals, so it works really well for me. I might make crispy tofu to go in a stir fry, do veggie nuggets to go in tacos, roasted veg for a pasta sauce, sausages to go with mash. Even for baking, it saves having the whole oven on and zero preheating.

Not meaning to be anything. If the way i discuss things offends you then i honestly dont mean to. I was trying to work out if they do in fact save electricity if they cant cook enough. I seem to have sorted this based on others answers (Surely the idea of the discussion is for those that have one to answer the questions for those that dont). Thank you for telling me how i need to respond in future.

Yes, i was trying to get it clear as i was quite tempted. I have enough useless gadgets at home taking up space, i dont want to make another mistake. Hopefully i didnt offend you as well

4 L is pretty small. I think a lot of these are too small really.

I got a Breville 10L one and it's brilliant. No dual drawers but I don't need them, I just add stuff on the trays at the appropriate time like I would in an oven. I can cook for 3 easily and could probably stretch to 4 if necessary.
I can fit a roast or a small to medium pizza in it no bother.

Like others, I have not used my oven at all since I got it.

We were given an old version of the tefal actifry. It's big so we store it in a cupboard and get it out when we need it. It has a rotating paddle so you are limited as to what you can use it for. We always do our chips in it, makes them nice and crispy and they cook quicker than in the oven. Also good for things like nuggets, wings, homemade pitta chips etc.

We will eventually upgrade to a newer model, without a paddle.

We bought a Breville 11 litre air fryer/rotisserie/oven and it's brilliant. It's bigger than a regular air fryer but we wanted the additional functionality/size.

Our range cooker keeps breaking down (bloody AEG) and I'm sick of fixing it. With rising electricity costs it seemed logical as we don't use a huge oven often. I also don't want to spend another £2k on a new range just now.

It's loads more efficient and we barely use the range any more. It gets up to temperature and cooks so much quicker too. I've still to master baking cakes but everything else is a cinch.

Downsides is that size limits what's achievable so doing a roast is difficult without multiple sessions. But ultimately a small inconvenience.

I have a ninja air fryer and use it to make oven chips usually in half the time of the oven. Will definitely be trying more things soon.

Sal

Love mine. Cheap to use and cooks quicker than an oven in many cases tasting better too. Roast chicken has become a regular evening meal, done is 50 minutes, instead of a weekend treat.
Not made cakes in it yet, but it's fabulous for cookies and warming mince pies!
We have a duel one, which I am thrilled about, as we often need two things.
Perfect also for the teenager who wants to have a quick meal before going out.

@Tessasanderson

I think the thing is most people have their conventional/fan oven sized for the largest meal they will cook during the entire year. Maybe Xmas dinner with the rellies ? Giant turkey with all the trimmings etc.

The vast majority of us don't fill our oven up with food everytime we cook. For me I fill the oven less than 1/3 full every time I use it.

And even people that have large families don't necessarily need to cook for all the family at the same time. For example if you have 3 teens coming in at different times and all want to use the oven on three separate occasions, the saving you would get by having an air fryer would be really significant.

For people who fill up the oven every time they cook the benefits are of course less, and yes, it's perfectly understandable that they see less benefit.

Hope that helps.

Got the 9.5l twin basket ninja.

Haven't missed the oven once since we got it, as it does everything we need for a meal at different heats/times synchronised to finish together.

The temperatures are reliable, no forgetting stuff, minimal cleaning (baskets are dishwasher safe), no need to preheat unless you're baking, no bending over, crouching down and reaching in for heavy tins, switches off when it's done, it's pretty much idiotproof. And far, far cheaper to run. It also just plugs into a socket, which instantly saves you a hundred quid if your oven packs up, as you're not having to pay for removal and installation. Which is more than half the cost of the ninja.

Most common things we've done have been roast chicken, potatoes, vegetables, jacket spuds and sweet potatoes, wedges, cheese on toast and bacon. Lots of bacon.

Combined with the slow cooker (which I'll probably eventually replace with a combined slow and pressure cooker) and hob, there's no need for an oven anymore.

Maybe if you have an all singing and dancing twin oven setup and cater for eight every night, it wouldn't be as great in comparison, but for us, it's perfect.

I absolutely LOVE my air fryer! Everything tastes so much better from it. I got the dual Ninja so plenty of space to cook family meals for 4. DH is a huge fan as it makes making tasty meals easy.

If I got rid of it I honestly think the rest of the family would revolt - they all love it!

We've just bought one and I love it. Not had time to try doing much in it, but we've done bacon, fish fingers, chicken drumsticks and roasted some veg in it so far. Oh, and jacket potatoes. Even if you have to cook in batches I reckon it takes less electricity to do that and pop it into the oven (especially if you have a small half oven) at a low temp to keep warm. Even if it does not use less electricity I prefer the way things come out (what we have done so far) and it is quicker.

I am organised and I have an airfryer. Good combination.

We have the same and use it lots. This week we've used the oven once for pizza. Everything else we'd normally put in the oven was done in the air fryer.

We're a family of 6 and I have the two drawer ninja air fryer. I love it, I only use the oven now for pizzas.

I line mine with foil, I never have to wash the basket out. Quick wipe and job done.
I can't find any liners big enough for mine, hence the foil.

I agree with this. Pressure cookers are amazing , and no nasty non stick surfaces like air fryers

I've had mine a month. Only used the oven a couple of times since

@Skodacool It uses a fraction of the electricity that an electric oven uses
is that because it’s smaller or because of some other genius? I mean if you got 2 would it still be cheaper than running a big oven?

It's much quicker with no preheat time. So a small chicken in 50 minutes rather than an hour and half, plus preheat time. It is also smaller so unless you really need a larger space, it works out cheaper for general daily use.

Just idiot proof for teenagers getting in from school, really - they can rustle up beige things from the freezer if I have a meeting & get home late.

I've occasionally cooked chicken or salmon in it to go with a stir fry or curry, as dd2 is vegetarian so it's convenient to do a veggie main with meat/fish on the side. It's pretty good at that, better results for a couple of fillets than I'd get pan frying.

I'd say, as kitchen clutter goes, it gets more use than the breadmaker or the slow cooker, but non essential. I bought mine off a mate for £25 & it was definitely worth it. Not sure I could justify buying one new...the kids would definitely miss it, but it does get used for more random shite in breadcrumbs than I want to encourage.

I'm so happy to see this thread because I've been umming and arrring for a few weeks on whether to buy one. Can anyone recommend one that costs less than £100 that will roast a whole chicken? There are so many different ones out there and I like the look of the Tower T14001 17 litre (sorry I don't know how to post links on iPad app)

@Tessasanderson

If you’re regularly cooking one meal with lots of ingredients for a large family and using the full space within the oven, (and the hob too?) an air fryer probably won’t save you any time and won’t be worth the additional outlay.

Generally, I’m cooking a quick simple meal for 1 or 2 people as DH doesn't usually eat with us. As there’s no pre-heating required and I can cook food from frozen, it really works well for me.

(I live very rurally so rely on having 2 well stocked freezers and many of our weekday meals will include ingredients straight from the freezer)

Pretty sure 4l is tiny? I was advised 12l for 4 of us.

I'm another Ninja Foodi owner. I can go weeks without using my oven. PP have mentioned how you can't cook everything at once - yes, that's true. But - for example - yesterday I pressure-cooked 1kg gammon joint (30 mins), then gave it 10 minutes with the air fryer function on 180c. Then I wrapped that in foil and left it keeping warm in the top oven, along with the plates we were going to use to eat on.

Then I pressure-cooked my potatoes for mash (8 minutes) and mashed them into a dish, which then was covered with foil and put to keep warm with the bacon and plates.

Finally, I pressure-cooked some shredded cabbage (1 minute)

The only thing I didn't use the Ninja for was the onion sauce, which I made on the hob.

I wouldn't be without my Ninja Foodi! If I had the worktop space I'd have the dual-zone air-fryer as well! (I am currently working out how to fit it in 😁)