Are Air Fryers Diet Culture?
Because I love mine so much.
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As I mentioned recently on the podcast, I did, after much deliberation, finally acquire an air fryer in last November’s Black Friday sales. I’ve been using it several times a week for about two months now, and y’all have asked about it enough that I’m devoting an entire newsletter to All Things Air Fryer today.
First, let’s talk about my initial air fryer resistance.
Number one, I didn’t want more countertop clutter. I agree with
that clean countertops are an arbitrary measure of maternal/domestic perfection AND YET I CRAVE THEM. I felt allergic to the idea of adding another appliance to counters already containing a blender, a toaster, a fruit basket, and a tray that is supposed to artfully contain frequently used clutter but actually just always looks like an explosion of charging cables, some lip balms and broken pens (just to start the list), plus a constantly overflowing basket of various carbs that we just called Bread Mountain.But then one day, my good friend, and local air fryer enthusiast, Rachel, helped me solve this by brainstorming some better kitchen organization strategies and suddenly all my counters were clearer and we’d stashed my toaster away and made space for an air fryer. (Bread Mountain now lives in a lower cabinet. I promise no carbs were harmed in the making of this newsletter.)
Still, did I want to use that glorious open space for an air fryer? I’ve been firmly in my takeout era ever since my divorce and related major cooking burnout. And I was deliberating on this question, when
said: “Skip the air fryer. It sounds like a ... guilting-yourself purchase. It's fine that you're not into cooking these days and you don't have to try to change that.” Amen!Plus, I have philosophical objections to air fryers. The name is blatantly diet culture; air fryer manufacturers want you to think they cook food in a healthier way by “frying” it with air instead of oil.
But as
explained here, this is not frying:An air fryer does not fry anything. It’s a compact, countertop convection oven. Which means it gets hot real fast and circulates that hot air with a fan. Things can get crisp in the air fryer, sure, but you’re not cooking anything submerged in hot oil— you’re just using hot air that’s moving. A chicken thigh that’s been soaked in buttermilk, dredged in seasoned flour, and cooked in a cast iron skillet or pot full of hot fat is heaven. That same piece of chicken cooked in an air fryer is a perfectly fine piece of chicken. It is not fried chicken.
The key to loving your air fryer, at least for me, is not expecting it to fry anything, but embracing what it can do well: cook things, especially vegetables, very fast and get them nice and brown without heating up your kitchen and without leaving a lot of stuff to cleanup.
I also haven’t changed my cooking style, so when I roast broccoli in the air fryer (which I do often!), I still toss it in olive oil first (plus salt and lemon). Hot air is what cooks it, oil is what makes it taste good. If I skipped the oil, the broccoli would just dry out, which seems dumb and not tasty. My air fryer broccoli is nutritionally identical to the broccoli I’d roast in my regular oven, it just cooks faster.
My final objection is that in calling these devices “air fryers,” manufacturers are teaching us to expect them to do something new and different. But they are just small ovens, using hot air to cook our food, just like our regular ovens use hot air to cook our foods. The only difference is speed: Air fryers use convection heat, and they are small, so they preheat much more quickly than regular ovens (especially if your regular oven doesn’t have a convection setting). I’m not sure why they couldn’t call them Fast Ovens, but I guess see above re: diet culture.
That said, the fact that the air fryer does all your oven-y things more quickly is, in my eyes, the entire selling point.
And this is precisely because I’ve been feeling so ambivalent about cooking and yet still have to do it a few times a week to feed my children, least. (Even I am not reckless enough to pay Uber Eats prices for kids’ meals! And yet, nuggets do not bake themselves.) The air fryer has also added a bit of fun and novelty, elements that are hard to come by when you’re churning out the same four or five kid-friendly dinners night after night. I didn’t need to buy a new appliance to achieve that goal; a new cookbook might have done the trick nicely. But it’s been an added perk, and maybe a little lesson to remember when I next hit the wall with cooking burnout.
Speaking of: In the last few months, I’ve felt my cooking rage start to lift. I’ll save the longer story about why that’s happening for another day, but suffice to say, that having a device that can take food from raw or frozen/oven preheating to fully cooked in under 30 minutes is low-key a game changer. Even if I haven’t even thought about dinner prior to 5pm, let alone remembered to take something out to thaw and set the oven to preheat, I can still make dinner happen. Roasting vegetables in the air fryer takes almost exactly as long as it takes for a pot of pasta to boil and cook. This opens up a whole world of possibilities. Namely the possibility that I will make and eat a vegetable!
This does not mean I think you need an air fryer.
If you have a convection oven or a toaster oven, you’re basically already air frying. If you already love to cook and are happy with how dinner gets made, you don’t need to optimize that! And if you’re firmly in your own takeout era…I love that for you and don’t let anyone tell you that ordering well isn’t a valid form of meal planning.
OK, OK Just Tell Us What To Air Fry!
First up: Here is the air fryer I bought.
I’ll be honest, aesthetics were a big factor. I really like that it comes in navy blue?! And yes, I paid a premium for that. But Breville air fryers have excellent reviews, and I was specifically interested in a toaster oven style so I could replace my regular toaster.
The odd kettle-shaped ones seem a little less versatile, but I also haven’t tested one so don’t come for me. If you love your odd-shaped air fryer, I’m happy for you! And for anyone in the market: Here is the one Julia Turshen loves (as of this writing, also marked wayyy down!) for a more budget-friendly option.
And here’s what I’ve been making in it:
Julia Turshen’s lemony kale salad with crunchy chickpeas (that’s the air fryer part).
Julia’s meatballs, both these spiced lamb ones and her insanely delicious pork ricotta meatballs from What Goes With What.
Amy Palanjian’s salmon bites.
Roast broccoli, as described above (no recipe link here, but I do basically every vegetable at 15-18 minutes at 400).
All manner of frozen kid-friendly foods. I have one kid who lives on pasta but won’t touch chicken nuggets and one who is the exact opposite. I can now make both of these fast kid dinners happen in the exact same timeframe without getting any extra pans dirty, because the nuggets get tossed right onto the metal air fryer basket, which requires no cleanup.
Dumplings; I just toss them in frozen and follow the package directions. Have experimented with spraying with a little cooking oil to get the outsides more crunchy, highly endorse.
Air fryer cookies!! Mine fits a quarter-sized baking sheet, so I can easily do a dozen cookies or even just a couple if I have dough on hand and want a quick treat. I do make excellent from-scratch cookies, but this tub of dough has become a staple for quick movie night/play date/anytime snacks.
OK Team Air Fryer: Tell us what you use yours for most and drop recipe links as you like!
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This isn’t a recipe, but my air fryer makes any and all restaurant or takeover leftovers much easier to reheat/taste way better.
When my ex and I split he took his toaster style air fryer. I tried to replace it with a lesser model (the fryer, not the guy) and I regret every second. You’ve inspired me to go for gold and get the one I really want. The fryer. Not the guy.