Air fryer people

Is a hot air fryer worth it?

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Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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There has been a big hype about air fryers for some time. Last Christmas the Arrow family has been endowed with an air fryer. A Cosori model. Some pretty cool things have been made in it, but I wonder if it's actually better than just an oven with a raised grate inside. I've asked questions. The answer is "It's all about the convection." There is air circulation, yes. My question, is it actually better than an oven, or is it a small scale oven you can use when you don't want to use a big scale oven?

I like the idea of air frying vs. deep fat frying. For obvious reasons. But, is the taste really the same? As good? The heat transfer between hot oils and hot gasses is significantly different.
 
I'm not sure there's a big difference between an air fryer and my (beloved) convection toaster oven, except I believe the air fryer has a much bigger fan and much more air circulation?
I'm extremely biased - love my convection toaster oven, which fits pizza and darn near anything that's going to be a meal for the two of us. I also put it outside on the patio to cook when it's super hot summer out and avoid heating the house. We only use the regular gas oven - which takes 27 minutes to come to temperature - for Thanksgiving Turkey, Paella, and other special occasion feasts.
 
My new house has an oven with an "air-fryer" setting. It requires the pan to be on shelf level 3. It's not much different than roasting except that it doesn't require a pre-heat cycle and the food cooks faster. I like it but I don't know how it compares to one of those little specialized air fryers.
 
G-Man said:
I'm not sure there's a big difference between an air fryer and my (beloved) convection toaster oven, except I believe the air fryer has a much bigger fan and much more air circulation?
I'm extremely biased - love my convection toaster oven, which fits pizza and darn near anything that's going to be a meal for the two of us. I also put it outside on the patio to cook when it's super hot summer out and avoid heating the house. We only use the regular gas oven - which takes 27 minutes to come to temperature - for Thanksgiving Turkey, Paella, and other special occasion feasts.
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Right. Where I am coming from is say, fish and chips. Beer battered cod fish. You -can- bake it. And it will be fine, but there is a difference between baked and deep fried in taste and texture. I just wonder if you air fried it, if it would be closer to deep fried oil vs. baked.
 
Yes! Other than a rice cooker it's the best appliance available. Closer to deep fried.

It doesn't replace a grill or smoker but the convenience is off the charts.
 
not only do I have those same exact bowls but I also have a cosori air fryer/toaster thingy. I really like it because it is both a toaster and an air fryer. well, and a lil oven too! I wouldn't recommend someone get a separate air fryer unit but if u need a toaster u might as well get an air fryer/toaster combo.
 
We picked up a super simple $29 air fryer at either Costco or Sam’s. Fixed 400 temperature and a simple dial timer. It does everything we want it to. We’re not cooking gourmet seven course meals in it, but we use it instead of the microwave or heating up the big oven for a lot of stuff.

Friends of ours have a much fancier one. I’m ok with ours.
 
Sac Arrow said:
My question, is it actually better than an oven, or is it a small scale oven you can use when you don't want to use a big scale oven?

I like the idea of air frying vs. deep fat frying. For obvious reasons. But, is the taste really the same? As good
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It's on the spectrum.
 
We like ours. Fast to pre heat, and cooks faster than the oven. My oven takes flying comparison to just pre heat.
 
Cheap ones will disappoint. Good ones work great and have other modes that are useful. We’ve had several air fryers. These days we’re using a Breville Smart Oven. We rarely use our full size oven anymore.
 
eman1200 said:
not only do I have those same exact bowls but I also have a cosori air fryer/toaster thingy. I really like it because it is both a toaster and an air fryer. well, and a lil oven too! I wouldn't recommend someone get a separate air fryer unit but if u need a toaster u might as well get an air fryer/toaster combo.
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I think we all know you had those same bowls
 
When I umm I mean my kids reheat pizza in the toaster then I hear about it from the non pizza eater in the house.

Solution-all pizza reheat done in air fryer! All bacon reheat too. Toaster oven is pristine and family life is harmonious, all for the low low price of $119 before Covid
 
Reheating fried foods is great in the air fryer. Chicken wings, fish, fries, onion rings, etc. All the things that seem like a great idea to put in a takeout container until you open it up the next day and the breading is mush or sloughs off easily. Same with pizza. Bacon. Garlic bread.
 
We use ours pretty regularly. But, unlike an oven, whether conventional or convection, it needs to be cleaned after every use.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Right. Where I am coming from is say, fish and chips. Beer battered cod fish. You -can- bake it. And it will be fine, but there is a difference between baked and deep fried in taste and texture. I just wonder if you air fried it, if it would be closer to deep fried oil vs. baked.
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We had a Cosori for a few years and replaced it with a Typhur. We don’t have a toaster oven or convection mode on our wall oven and it’s a good tool to help keep the house cooler during the summer.

For whatever reason, the chips uniformly are better than oven baked and worse than deep fried. We’ve tried it all, from twice baking to spray with pam before cooking and seasoning after they come out. It’s primarily a texture thing.

OTOH, we’ve dumped frozen battered
sticks in for fish tacos and they turn out pretty decent, but those seem to retain grease in the batter when flash frozen.

We’ll smoke naked wings and crisp them up in the air fryer. Not quite Plucker’s good, but close.

Like an instapot/pressure cooker, it’s just another tool.
 
I’m a fan. I can have fried chicken without the fat. And better at reheating than the nuke - pizza and other foods don’t come out soggy.

Ours has the slide-out buckets. We had an toaster oven type before, and it was a pain to clean.
 
My first airfryer, one of the round ones would like to blow things out the top ON FIRE (I learned to stop using those parchement lining disks in the thing). I quickly learned that it was of limited capacity and I could do the exact same thing with the convection modes on my wall ovens.

I now have one of these breville toaster oven things that has an airfryer mode. I use that from time to time.
 
When lazy we’ll take a grocery store rotisserie chicken, cut it up, and crisp the skin on the grill. It only takes a few minutes. If I’m feeling even lazier than rotisserie, or the weather is bad, the skin crisps nicely in the air fryer. Skin becomes like thin pork rinds.
 
We have one. It works well for typical pre-breaded/packaged frozen foods like french fries, chicken tenders, egg rolls, popcorn shrimp, etc. I've also done homemade chicken wings and catfish fritters in it- they were allright but I would say not as good as fried would be.

It's basically just a mini convection oven so figure anything that would be good in the oven is a little better and more convenient in the air fryer.
 
Zeldman said:
The new name for a convection oven.

And yes, we have an air fryer. We use it quite a bit. It doesn't heat up the house like the full size oven does.

Or take as long.
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Thanks. Yeah - we shopped for one for a bit. I was offering up option K for the survey as a sad joke.

They strike me as being basically a convection oven. When our (convection) toaster oven broke we considered one an option but I was able to patch ours. Finding something that still lets us toast stuff, warm up our hot plates for our steaks, etc and on occasion air fry stuff without filling up the counter was a little bit of a challenge.
 
air fryer: We recently upgraded our toaster oven to one that's capable of air frying. Not life changing, but still worth it. Gets used regularly.

instant pot: We got one of those recently, too. I think we've used it twice.

nutribullet: What a FPOS. Motor brushes overheated and it bit the wax tadpole.

We replaced the nutribullet with a refurbed vitamix. That thing sparks heap joy. Gets used a lot.
 
GeorgeC said:
instant pot: We got one of those recently, too. I think we've used it twice.
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Got one of those a couple years ago. Also used it only twice... as a pressure cooker. Use it quite often as a slow cooker or as a yogurt maker.
 
Having had toaster ovens for many years,and liked them,upgraded to an air fryer .you have to remember the air fryer does everything faster.
 
Jim K said:
For the record, I am against air frying people, and I'm appalled you would suggest it.
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If I was starving in the Andes and had an air fryer and electricity, I think this would be a don't knock it till you try it thing.
 
GeorgeC said:
air fryer: We recently upgraded our toaster oven to one that's capable of air frying. Not life changing, but still worth it. Gets used regularly.

instant pot: We got one of those recently, too. I think we've used it twice.

nutribullet: What a FPOS. Motor brushes overheated and it bit the wax tadpole.

We replaced the nutribullet with a refurbed vitamix. That thing sparks heap joy. Gets used a lot.
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We have an air fryer lid for our instant pot…used it a couple of times, but my wife hasn’t figured it out yet, so we don’t do a lot of air frying. We pressure cook a lot, though.

Vitamix? Gets used at least twice a day.
 
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To me, air fryer is a miniature convection oven with a faster fan, lower max temp, and little basket. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone actually using it to cook healthier, but more to pretend to cook healthier while really saving time and effort by buying frozen ready to fry junk food and "air frying" it. So if you want french fries or poppers at home, the frozen con-agra whatevers in the air fryer are the way to go. You can make low end bar food at home, and sometimes better than the average low end bar or fast food place.

We have one, I never use it. GF likes it, and has figured out how to cook actual chicken and other food in it.

Not a replacement for either pan frying or deep frying, again to me.

I do like our big toaster/convection oven though. Maybe 12x12. Great for reheating leftovers that don't microwave well, and also as a second oven to bake a potato in or toast things while the main oven is doing something else.
 
I think so. We got a Ninja Foodi a few years ago and can pretty much make almost anything in there
 
Sac Arrow said:
I just wonder if you air fried it, if it would be closer to deep fried oil vs. baked.
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Air fried, once you learn how to do it, is about as close to deep fried as you can get. You still need an oil, but 0 calorie/fat/cholesterol Olive Oil works great.

If you just flop some chicken in dry flour and seasoning and then air fry it, your going to get chicken with a dry, raw flour coating as an end product. But, if you flour and season your chicken and the spray it with olive oil so that there isn't any dry flour, it will come out like you deep fried it.

I have not had luck using a dredge or wet batter. It comes out weird.
 
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