An Air Fryer Love Affair
My roasted rosemary fingerlings just beeped. Braving the steaming innards, I test one: Perfect, in record time, without heating up the whole kitchen on a hot July day.
I might be in love: I’d snuggle my air fryer but it’s kinda hot right now.
And I don’t even feel obligated to say that, though the Cosori company offered me the appliance to demo, having found my dietitian/writer website. What the heck? I thought: I have to cook anyway.
Here’s what I found out in my first week with an air fryer.
First off, I found out what an air fryer is. It’s essentially a small convection oven, using air movement to help heated molecules collide with food more frequently, cooking food much more quickly than a standard oven.
I started my testing with a few rounds of frozen appetizers — mozzarella sticks, spring rolls, and “bird’s nests,” strings of onion, kale, and carrot held together in little bundles by tempura batter. The air fryer worked great for all of them, cutting the cooking time by half or more compared to using the oven.
Compared to deep frying in oil, air frying the appetizers took about twice as long — which is a minimal disadvantage (8 minutes instead of 4, for example), especially since the preheating time is much shorter with the air fryer, clean up infinitely easier, and the end product substantially lower in fat.
Next I made zucchini fries from scratch. I was skeptical about how a food with such high moisture content could cook adequately in such a short time. They turned out great, the breading crunchy despite the fact that I stacked them two layers deep. (I did stack purposefully, crisscrossing the second layer of the first perpendicularly to increase airflow.)
They lacked a bit of the greasy crunch that is so satisfying in fried foods, which — from reading the user manual — could be remedied by spraying the fries a bit more liberally with oil.
I then tackled “fried” fish, which turned out equally well, and a bit better actually since I paid more attention to spritzing oil more evenly on the hand-breaded fish. The cookbook that accompanies the air fryer was spot-on with the recommended timing for this and all the other recipes I tried.
I was particularly excited about the fried fish for a few reasons. The first being that a few months ago I discovered the best tartar sauce recipe ever. More importantly, however, is that frying fish at home has yielded inconsistent results for me, as well as a lot of oil, and a fishy smell throughout the house that seems to taint the pan for a few more usages, no matter how thoroughly I clean it.
Those problems are a thing of the past. Pass the tartar sauce, please.
I made a lovely discovery the next day when I turned leftovers into lunch. Microwaving leftover fries, pizza, and many other leftovers produces a spongy, chewy, or otherwise unpalatable product. Thus, I usually use the oven for reheating these foods so they regain their crispness. Instead, I used the air fryer, which revived the foods in a fraction of the time.
Though unsubstantiated, my hunch is that this also cuts down significantly on energy use. Especially if you have to up the air conditioning to compensate for using your oven in the summer.
I really fell in love when making air-fryer kale chips. I love kale chips, but have struggled to achieve a uniform crispness in the oven: usually I end up with a combination of slightly-burnt and pretty-much-raw kale chips. A few months back, I created a slightly more consistent batch by dropping the heat to about 250 F, and increasing the time significantly, stirring and fluffing every 5–10 minutes.
Air-fryer kale chips, on the other hand? 5 minutes!!! And with much more consistency than any of my oven attempts. I ate the whole batch without sharing.
Three more successes followed in succession, as I closed out my 5-day air-fryer trial. Fried chicken thighs were to die for — perfectly moist inside with a crunchy exterior achieved through brushing the flour coating (gluten-free, in the case) with melted butter.
Roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes also came out perfectly. When I roast potatoes in the oven, I usually end up with a good product that is crispy on one to two sides — the surfaces touching the baking sheet as they are tossed mid-way through.
These potatoes browned evenly over all surfaces, which made the insides even dreamier, and again the time suggested in the cookbook was impeccable.
Finally, I made shrimp, simply prepared with a drizzle of olive oil and a shake of corn meal, ideal for shrimp tacos. The six minutes the shrimp cooked was just right — tender and cooked through, with no toughness. When I make shrimp on the stove, I shuffle them around continuously to make sure they cook evenly, and still end up with some firmer than others.
A top benefit of the air fryer is not having to “tend” the foods that I would normally cook on the stove — the watching and turning and adjusting the pan’s position over the heat. With the air fryer, you start it, flip or shake when the machine reminds you, and that’s it! I found I had many extra minutes for tidying the kitchen or preparing other components of the meal, along with a less busy mind. Lovely.
Clean up is a breeze, which is a huge selling point. Any other countertop appliance I have — blender, juicer, Instapot, slow cooker, food processor, dehydrator, Raclette grill — all require more clean up that the air fryer, which has only two parts to clean. The two nesting “baskets” have really effective non-stick surfaces, so a quick wipe-down with a paper towel followed by a soapy sponge, and you’re done in about a minute.
Being frugal, I’ve always struggled with the idea of home deep frying. I can’t fathom using a cup — or even several cups — of oil to prepare a meal. And being a dietitian, I cringe at reusing frying oil repeatedly, as its composition becomes less stable and less healthy with each use, even if you know your way around smoke points. The air fryer allays these issues, without having to handle all that used oil.
Cooking for a crowd isn’t its strong suit. Due to the size of the basket, it works best for 2–3 meat entrees, and 3–5 side dishes and appetizers, depending on the food and the appetites.
Other minor disadvantages are the chemical smell that accompanies many new products, but that dissipated by the third use. The air fryer produces a small amount of white smoke during this initiation period, but I was reassured by the manual that this was normal.
Speaking of, I was really pleased with both the manual and cookbook. The writing is clear, concise, and accurate, which I experience far too infrequently with product manuals. My only edit would be to add a section on adjusting recommended times for pre-made products, such as the appetizers I bought. But, it wasn’t difficult to wing it and do some guess work on the timing.
Lastly, having a small kitchen, countertop real estate is in short supply. However, with how versatile and convenient the air fryer has already proven to be, I’ve started brainstorming some rearrangements so I can keep it handy for everyday use.
I’m just getting started, but I’m pretty psyched about it. Thai Salmon Cakes, you’re next: Fry, fry again — even if at first you do succeed!
This is the air fryer I tried:
Thanks to Harold McGee for his interpretation of all thing food and cooking, including how convection cooking works:
On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
