I have interest in buying an air fryer. Being a popular small appliance, I have read how great they are for cooking. But are they for cooking or reheating? Can they replace a toaster oven? How easy is to clean an air fryer? Does it require cleaning after each use? I rarely read anything about how easy or difficult is to clean certain small appliances or gadgets. For me, that is important.
I generally cook our meals for my husband and I, and we don't eat precooked frozen food very often. We don't mind eating leftovers so we do use either our microwave or toaster oven for reheating. Thank you for any help and information.
I enjoy mine but it is not an essential part of my kitchen. I probably use it for reheating more than cooking, similar to my microwave. An air fryer is a small convection oven. If you look inside mine, it has an element in the top, like a traditional electric stove. The powerful fan pushes the air around while it cooks, allowing people to use less oil for all sorts of items. Some microwaves have a convection feature that I believe uses a similar process.
It is wonderful for browning or reheating foods, especially take out food like pizza or French fries. I also have used it to cook chicken breasts, Brussels sprouts and bacon wrapped asparagus. Toast would be possible but I have a regular toaster that I still use.
My basket is deep so it can be tricky to remove items that are in another dish or anything that can't be just dumped out of the basket or removed with tongs. You also need to remove the entire drawer to remove the basket, requiring more room on your counter.
As for cleaning, there is no way to fully clean the element and the top inside of the fryer. I suppose you could use an oven cleaner but I don't know how the plastic parts would survive. The crumbs fall to the bottom, like a toaster oven and the hot element would kill off any germs. You can remove the basket and the drawer and those need to be cleaned out pretty much every time you use it. I put the basket in the dishwasher often but the drawer is made of plastic so I generally hand wash it so it will last longer. Some of the higher end air fryers are more contained and might be easier to keep clean.
I'm interested in getting a combination air fryer/pressure cooker when it comes time to replace this one. Both Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi have their own versions and it would be nice to have one less appliance on my shelves or countertop. Or I will get one that is shaped more like a toaster oven.
I would look for a bargain at a thrift store or garage sale, or see if a friend could loan you one to try out before shopping for a new one. They were very popular for Christmas a couple of years ago so there might be a glut of nearly new ones that haven't been used very much. Plus, then you will know what features you like and which ones are not important.
Size and cleaning an air fryer.
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We have the InstaPot Vortex air fryer that has 2 slotted type shelves & a bottom solid shelf. Does anyone have a recipe to cook canned biscuits in it? I've tried, but don't want to continue to waste food that isn't cooked and not worth eating.
Thanks in advance for any recipes or hints.
Here is a site that indicates that you need to place parchment paper in the bottom basket of the air fryer and mist it with some oil first before placing your biscuits on it. Then you bake them for 8 minutes at 340 degrees. Please read the directions here. airfrying.net/
This site says you can & its much quicker than a conventional oven. ~ takes about 8 minutes in a Vortex Air Fryer
See more info: vortexrecipes.com/
There are several good recipes for baking canned biscuits in an air fryer and I do not believe there is very much difference in what brand of air fryer you have but most of them have a recipe book and may have this recipe also.
I like this site because it has recipes for the canned biscuits but also for croissants and other types of canned items.
Maybe you can adopt them to your air fryer.
I have to ask...what is the benefit of doing them in an air fryer? I find they are super easy and come out consistently if done in the oven.
I guess if you don't have an oven and all you have is the air fryer, that is why you may be asking.
Just curious what the benefit is in trying this. All of my friends (but one) who got air fryers ended up donating them because they did not do what they thought they could do. I would love to hear success stories. Thanks!
It is easy to provide recipes such as this one forktospoon.com/
and this one www.emerils.com/
and this one which is actually donuts
but the question is, why did your other attempts fail? Were you looking for someone who had actually done it and overcome some difficulty you were facing? If so, what difficulty was it?
The one thing I did see was that you really should not use anything with a batter. The only things that do well are things in a frozen state. More info here www.tasteofhome.com/
Avoid using any oil and reduce the calories for a crispy fried flavor with this appliance that circulates hot air around the food. This page contains recipes for a power air fryer oven.
