this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Plus one for airfryer. Bought one that was on discount a few years back, has a spot on top of the cabinet when not in use but it's almost always on the counter.
I find that I use it pretty much every day for one thing or another, so mine has earned permanent counter residence. I’ll probably buy a much fancier one when this one kicks the bucket.
What do you use it for? I got one as a gift a couple of years ago, I used to to make tater tots once (admittedly they were pretty good, but I don't generally eat tater tots) and I tried to make fried tofu but it simply came out dry on the outside. Since then the thing has been sitting in its box - I can't get rid of it because the person who gave it to me visits sometimes.
I suppose we probably just cook different sorts of food - everything I make is either boiled or pan-fried. (I don't ever use my oven either. I've been thinking of replacing it with a cooktop for more cabinet space but I think that would lower my home's resale value.)
Aside from all kinds of recipes I make pretty regularly (buffalo cauliflower, green bean fries, homemade pizza rolls and jalapeno poppers, etc.) I also regularly use it to heat frozen food or leftover pizza, to thaw bread, to roast vegetables... Tonight I used it to cook the protein I was making for an asian dish while I stir fried the veggies and made the sauce.
Huge variety of options. Maybe watch some YouTube videos of quick recipes and get inspired!
What do you use it for? I can’t think of a single thing that I would need an airfryer for. Between a standard convection oven and a deep fryer there is a better tool for anything you would possibly use the airfryer for.
I think you could get away with an oven and a deepfryer with everything, but in my experience an airfryer is generally faster than the oven, and less oily than a deep fryer (I wanna say more healthy but I don't really know enough about the details, so I'll just stick to the objectively "less oily").
I use it for fries (sweet potatoe fries most often), anything resembling nuggets (like vegetarian nuggets/schnitzels, other veggy pattys, falafel), fry-snacks (eggrolls, samosa, bitterballs), and you can get a bit adventurous with trying our breads, vegetables, or other stuff that you would just plop in the oven.
Oven (or airfryer) fries and snacks aren’t even close to being as good as deep fried. Especially the bitterballen and kroketten are bad. Because it’s not actually frying, but baking, you don’t get the nice thin crunchy outside, to compensate for this they make special airfryer versions of these but those have a really thick outer crust to give that crunchiness and it just doesn’t work. Same goes for oven fries, they have this artificial layer on the outside to give it some crunch but that’s just not very good.
I just don’t get any of it. If you want to eat junkfood, eat junkfood. If you want to be a little healthier, then eat it less often. There are plenty of actually healthy snacks that aren’t a gross artificial version of proper junkfood.
Idk, I've got good experiences with stuff from the airfryer so far, also in terms of crispiness and stuff. It's idd different from a deepfryer, for sure, but works good enough for me. Also gotta say that I don't have a deepfryer anymore, and when I had one years ago it was an annoying device to use, so I guess the ease of use is also something that makes me like it.
It's different from a deep fryer because an airfryer isn't a fryer at all. It's literally just a small convection oven + clever marketing.,Most people I know already have a convection oven in their kitchen so there really is little point to getting an additional one that just takes up space on the counter.
A large oven uses a lot of electricity that is wasted for heating up that entire space.
An air fryer is nothing but a small convection oven. That means it heats up almost instantly, wastes much less heat, can circulate the air much faster for faster baking, and uses substantially less heat. And it doesn’t generate the smell of deep frying.
We use ours almost every day. The oven is basically not used unless we make full size pizza.
The standard convection oven isn’t a better tool except in size.
Our air fryer is also quite good at making things like potatoes or tofu crispy, not deep fried crispy, but nice and crispy without that much oil or the amount of time it would need in the convection oven.
We had an air fryer, loved the food but it was SO difficult to clean. The sides would shred our sponges. Eventually we stopped using It because timed save from cooking was lost twice over from cleaning it. And then it was recalled anyways
Ah, our just has a basket that goes right in the dishwasher