To not understand the fuss about air fryers?

[whatthen]

People keep raving about them and I got one as a present and I used it a couple of times and gave up on it. It doesn’t cook food any quicker than a normal cooker.

I’ve tried again today and I’ve now been waiting an hour for a baked potato to cook. Would’ve been done by now in the oven. What is the point? What am I missing?

Bit of a lazy over generalisation there. You can easily cook from scratch using the air fryer. Our oven is great and used a lot for roast dinners etc but for a weekday meal it's just easier and quicker to use the air fryer. I agree with the above poster, meat and fish seems to be so much nicer in the air fryer.

@bruffin Cooking for yourself I can see the point. My point was, salmon, veg and a warm plate from an oven = multi functional. Airfryer is a small fan oven.

Genuinely interested in what you are having along side your salmon? If usually have crispy broccoli and kale (done in the oven alongside the salmon but wouldn't fit in the air fryer) or salad and new potatoes, in which case I'd poach/ steam the salmon above the potatoes.

Can I ask what "from scratch" meals you are making and got how many people?

I'd love to use mine more, especially as we need to drastically cut our bills, but I really struggle with what I can use it for.

Off the top of my head from last week we had hunters chicken baked potatoes, baked cod dish, Parma wrapped chicken, honey BBQ chicken tenders with potato wedges and oriental salmon.

It’s excellent; just takes time to warm up as our is one of the bigger ones.

i never have crispy brocolli and only occassionaly cook kale in the over, but there would be room for both of them in air fryer with the salmon. I sometimes add cherry tomatoes to the salmon. i usually have beans or peas and broccoli and boiled potatos., although baby potatoes witha spritz of olive oil and seat salt are lovely in the air fryer.
t.

Baked potato needs 10 mins in microwave followed by 15 in airfryer depending on size.

I think it depends on:

1. What sort of food you eat
2. How many you cook for
3. How much time you need to save

We don't eat oven chips/chicken nuggets/pizza etc
There are 5 of us, so we need more oven space
I enjoy cooking and have the time to do it

DD on the other hand works long hours, lives alone and eats a lot of semi-prepared food so it suits her really well

4 portions of salmon would definitely fill my air fryer with no room for anything else.

I only find it good for one thing, e.g just the salmon but would then up using the oven for other things.

Maybe our air fryer is too small!

You don’t eat pizza??

I have a small one, but there is only 2 of us.

My air fryer is definitely too small. No way we'd get a pizza other than a Chicago town microwave size pizza in there!

Sorry I thought you were saying you don’t eat pizza - full stop

Not all of them.

We have the Ninja Foodi and it's an air fryer/ convection oven, dehydrator, pressure cooker and slow cooker all in one. Expensive but more than worth it.

It's the best kitchen appliance we own and the cooking time and running cost can't be compared to our big oven. We use it daily.

Yeah you’re missing the point. I microwave a JP then whack it in the air fryer on max for 10-15 min and have a lovely crunchy skinned potato, without heating my large oven for a whole hour for two spuds.

I do chicken thighs in there all the time too - why heat a whole oven for a couple of bits of meat?

The figures don't add up because you don't understand that a power rating for an appliance is the maximum power it can draw. Not the actual power it draws all the time during use.

A 2.4kW oven might draw 2.4kw during the 10 mins it takes to heat up, then 200W for every minute it is on after that.

Whereas an airfryer might draw 2.4KW during the first 3 minutes it takes to heat up, then 50W for every minute it is on after that.

They will both be rated at 2.4kW though.

If you want to find out how much energy something actually consumes you need to use a smart meter or one of those smart plugs. As ovens are often hardwired into the mains using a smart plug to monitor them can be difficult sometimes.

In winter, most of that extra cooker energy goes into your house so is not entirely wasted (although you could argue it would be cheaper to generate it from gas at 1/3 the price).

In summer it is very much wasted and to some people undesirable as it makes a hot kitchen even hotter !

When it clearly says on the side of a box that they will run from 1100watts to 2400watts (some run between 1250watts to 3000watts) that's what it is. Even the smallest tiniest airfryer averages 850/1000watts per hour once warm. The only cooking appliance that runs on 50watts or less is the Tower Compact 1.5litre slow cooker which was the ones built in the late 60s/early 70s which were revolutionary at 35watts, but took 12 to 15 hours to cook anything. The same size modern slow cookers are generally between 120watts to 200watts cooks stuff in approximately 5hours, but not as well in mine/childrens/grandchildren’s opinion.

thanks for the tip about the plug, it maybe worth using that to double check my electric suppliers figures which are on the computer.

@Parker231 I eat it in a restaurant but don't like shop bought pizza and am crap at making my own

They would be soot 🤣

But you clearly aren’t using it properly if it’s taking the same time as an oven.

Yanbu. I was given one but I can't get it to work. Rubbish. Better in a proper oven