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.
This post is the best. Honestly, to me, the best thing about the air fryer is how it warms up leftover pizza. Putting in the microwave makes it mushy. Warming up an entire oven for a slice of pizza seems overkill. And on a frying pan is slow and a pain in the ass. To me, a slice of leftover pizza is the air fryer's Oscar moment.
YES! Air fryers bring leftover pizza back to their former glory and in only slightly more time than the microwave. I'd say it brings back to 90% of its initial glory which is much better than the microwave
One thing that isn’t discussed as often is how EXPENSIVE it is to pre-heat and run a large oven. Air fryers are much more economical - they are quicker, are heating less volume and drawing far less power. I haven’t done the math but I think there’s probably a break-even on the expense of the purchase (especially if you go budget friendly/on-sale) vs continuing to run a conventional oven.
Ok. Because I had to, I ran the numbers. I’d estimate an annual cost to run an oven of about $60/year. I assumed I cut this by 75% by using an air fryer and so my breakeven is 3 years. AND I get better food faster.
Ohhh YES. And I forgot to mention I made crescent rolls (from the tube) last week! Which was a great move because my kids were otherwise lukewarm on dinner but loved those.
I’ve also resisted getting the air fryer (and the instant pot) likely for pretentious reasons. When I visit family and they show me how they use the air fryer, one step always seems to be emphasizing that the amount of oil they use is minuscule. 🙄
But I agree. I think I would use an air fryer at times that my oven is inconvenient for, like quickly roasting a bulb of garlic which I do often to make sauces or garlic butter. I microwave a lot of vegetables for myself and my kids that perhaps would be better if cooked in a tiny fast oven.
I promise I actually know the difference between a bulb and a clove of garlic, but when I first read your comment, I envisioned one tiny garlic clove in an air fryer. Tiny oven for tiny garlic.
I love our air fryer and use it for all the great things mentioned here (salmon, veggies, heating up pizza or french fries) but one thing I struggle with in the toaster oven style air fryer is clean up. If you use a basket to take full advantage of the circulating hot air, there are inevitably crumbs and drips down on the bottom heating element and tray that get baked on. Anyone have easy solutions for this?
Oh! I meant to address this. Mine has a pull-out tray on the bottom that catches the crumbs and drips, so it’s pretty easy to clean if something gets super messy (mozzarella sticks). But my other move is to use a sheet of parchment paper on the basket. Seems to be thin enough that things are still crisping nicely but for sure contains the mess.
Depending on your air fryer model, there are some parchment paper options for air fryers of various sizes. Not super environmentally friendly, and not perfect, but they do take most of the mess. Our liners are not 100% fitting our air fryer, but I make do.
We have the Breville smart etc air fryer and I use a thin sheet of tinfoil on the lowest rack to protect the bottom heating element when I use the basket.
My absolute favorite thing about the “air fryer” is that unlike an oven, it SHUTS ITSELF OFF WHEN IT’S DONE. The freedom this buys me – I can throw something in and then go do chores or start bedtime routines etc and not feel like I need to keep an ear perked for the timer alarm. I routinely make the box-mix brownies in the air fryer the night before our ski days, and I just start them while I head into bedtime routines and then I pack all the ski gear into the car after that, which is like 8 billion trips to and from the car, and the brownies just finish whenever they finish without me needing to worry or think about it. I get them out when I'm done, not when they're done. The ability to work around MY schedule, instead of working my schedule around whatever's in the oven, is a major feature for me.
I also use it to keep dishes warm if I’m doing a big meal like a holiday thing – a serving bowl or a small casserole dish fits inside and I just set it to Keep Warm while the other things still cooking finish up in the actual oven. Takes a lot of the pressure off trying to have a variety of dishes ready at exactly the same time.
This is not related to the air fryer but I want to acknowledge the work that goes into being a ski parent. The 8 billion trips to the car. See also camping parent. Keep up the good work. I salute you.
Oh yes - skiing in the winter, camping in the summer! My kids wiggled and cajoled our family up to three days of skiing a week this year ("the season is so short!") and man, have I come to loathe the flight of stairs from my front door to my car. I do all of this in a Prius, so the tetris-ing of all the gear is borderline comic in its precision. And of course, skiing 3x/week means I am firmly in the realm of needing to pack all our lunches, including hot lunches in thermoses which obviously need to be prepared the morning of, because no way am I affording lodge meals that many times over. (hence the brownies - a ski day is not finished until everybody is eating brownies on the drive home!)
The most absurd part is Wednesdays, when we do a couple hours of night skiing at a tiny local slope less than an hour from home. I'm sure I don't need to tell you just how cold ski boots can get when left in a car for a full day in winter, and how firmly they hold that cold inside themselves forever after, so instead I find myself lugging our three pairs of boots in from the car to my desk at work each Wednesday morning, and then very very noisily lugging them back out to the car as if to announce my weekly early departure to make it to the slope on time.
(but - to bring it all full circle - on Wednesdays I have grandma pick the kids up at school and meet me at the slope with all their gear, and they get McDonald's on the drive to fortify everyone. There is inevitably a good amount of fries leftover, which after being in a car for 30 minutes of driving and then 2-3 hours of skiing are cold and soggy and congealed - but which heat up WONDERFULLY in the air fryer. Shaking those fries out into the basket and crisping them back up, to enjoy them in blissful silence, is my ski-night celebration once the kids are all in bed and the car is unpacked again. AIR FRYER FOR THE WIN)
My passive aggressive mom sent me an air fryer attachment for my instant pot with a bunch of low-fat recipe cookbooks. Needless to say, those got donated.
Air fryers are absolutely NOT diet culture any more than my oven is diet culture. It’s a device that makes cooking easier. (My oven has an ‘air fry’ setting that I use all the time, too.) Being able to make your own food should be a source of pleasure, because it means you can adjust things to your taste instead of being subjected to what the takeout place wants. (Nothing wrong with takeout, but it’s always nice to customize things.) In conclusion, an air fryer is an object with no moral valence. Enjoy it!
Sheet pan dinners!! If you're only cooking for 1-2, all of those magical "put the chicken and the vegetables on one pan" dinners fit in the toaster oven/air fryer, which means less clean up and less time. I basically don't use my oven anymore.
I do not have an air fryer (but do have two instant pots, weird) but I am told they excel at re-crisping delivery French fries that got soggy on the trip.
Our air fryer has been a game changer--we have four kids with different feeding needs. Being able to heat something up for one member of the family quickly while we are cooking other stuff has been so helpful. Also it works well with reheating leftovers which my kids were previously resistant to since everything would be somewhat soggy reheated in the microwave and who wants to take all the time to heat up the oven to reheat something for 5 minutes. This is our air fryer era and I will continue to sing it's praises to anyone who will listen.
But the Instant Pot does not make it faster. All the cooking times are... exaggerations, if not outright lies. The time it takes to come up to pressure is never counted. It's like saying making pasta only takes 8 minutes. Sure, after waiting 20 for the water to boil.
I used to own a regular pressure cooker before the IP was invented. The only thing I ever used it for was cooking beans from dry and making chicken stock because it took forever to come to pressure. I think a slow cooker is far better at making things easy and fast, but you do have to plan ahead.
I think it depends on what you're making. I love the Instant Pot pot for stews / soups with the cuts of meat (chuck roast, pork shoulder) that do best with a long, slow braise. So an hour in the Instant Pot (even when you add coming to pressure and natural release times) is preferable to having the oven on for four hours or babysitting it on the stovetop for the same amount of time.
I think I didn't quite get it right. The big deal with the InstaPot isn't speed, it's being able to preschedule cooking time so that it needs less attention.
Eating a toasted bagel from it right now! I think it makes excellent toast but it is a little slower than my old toaster, ironically. (But I did ditch my toaster and have no regrets!)
We only use it for toast...as in, do not have a toaster. We use it for heating and baking and toasting all sorts of bread products. Plus, as I mentioned in another comment in this thread, we cook virtually anything else you can think of in three, and reheat most leftovers there, too. I'd say ours is in use 2 or 3 of 3 meals daily.
You can get the not-marketed-as-an-air-fryer convection toaster oven (Breville BOV845BSS Smart Pro Countertop Oven). It's a bit smaller. I finally bought one on Black Friday, although I mostly plan to use it in the summer when I want to cook food but don't want to sweat.
It makes great toast and you can set the darkness level just like a regular toaster. Or you can switch to bake mode and make "toasts" that are more like crostini. Or you can spread one side with butter or oil and bake it on a pan, so the top goes golden and the bottom stays soft. <Apparently, I am a toast afficionado!
I have the Breville and it makes great toast. There are heating elements on top and bottom and different levels of fan, so the toaster setting is exactly like any other toaster oven (no fan). With other settings you can bake like a normal oven, bake like a convection oven (turns on the fan), and bake like a turbo-charged convection oven (aka air fry, super fan level). Also dehydrate and proof!
I don't have a breville specifically, but I do have a small oven style air fryer. Mine (and probably this one too) has a toaster setting. Makes excellent toast! (I have the Gourmia multi-function air fryer)
This isn’t a recipe, but my air fryer makes any and all restaurant or takeover leftovers much easier to reheat/taste way better.
This is my kind of recipe 🤣
100% and pizza, too.
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.
This post is the best. Honestly, to me, the best thing about the air fryer is how it warms up leftover pizza. Putting in the microwave makes it mushy. Warming up an entire oven for a slice of pizza seems overkill. And on a frying pan is slow and a pain in the ass. To me, a slice of leftover pizza is the air fryer's Oscar moment.
I usually heat up leftover pizza slices in my cast iron skillet. Tastes almost better than fresh. We’ll do frozen pizza in the air fryer, tho
I do that too.
YES! Air fryers bring leftover pizza back to their former glory and in only slightly more time than the microwave. I'd say it brings back to 90% of its initial glory which is much better than the microwave
Totally agree on the 90% of the initial glory.
And I've been buying "flatbread" crusts and assembling my own pizzas.. Two crusts fit just perfectly in my air fryer.
oh that's so brilliant! what do you put on them?
One thing that isn’t discussed as often is how EXPENSIVE it is to pre-heat and run a large oven. Air fryers are much more economical - they are quicker, are heating less volume and drawing far less power. I haven’t done the math but I think there’s probably a break-even on the expense of the purchase (especially if you go budget friendly/on-sale) vs continuing to run a conventional oven.
Ok. Because I had to, I ran the numbers. I’d estimate an annual cost to run an oven of about $60/year. I assumed I cut this by 75% by using an air fryer and so my breakeven is 3 years. AND I get better food faster.
Cinnamon rolls. You're welcome.
Ohhh YES. And I forgot to mention I made crescent rolls (from the tube) last week! Which was a great move because my kids were otherwise lukewarm on dinner but loved those.
gosh, that is a great idea.
Never thought of that, ooooooo!
I’ve also resisted getting the air fryer (and the instant pot) likely for pretentious reasons. When I visit family and they show me how they use the air fryer, one step always seems to be emphasizing that the amount of oil they use is minuscule. 🙄
But I agree. I think I would use an air fryer at times that my oven is inconvenient for, like quickly roasting a bulb of garlic which I do often to make sauces or garlic butter. I microwave a lot of vegetables for myself and my kids that perhaps would be better if cooked in a tiny fast oven.
OK quick roasting a bulb of garlic is a genius use of an air fryer (or toaster oven?). Doing that tonight!
I promise I actually know the difference between a bulb and a clove of garlic, but when I first read your comment, I envisioned one tiny garlic clove in an air fryer. Tiny oven for tiny garlic.
gasp! genius
I love our air fryer and use it for all the great things mentioned here (salmon, veggies, heating up pizza or french fries) but one thing I struggle with in the toaster oven style air fryer is clean up. If you use a basket to take full advantage of the circulating hot air, there are inevitably crumbs and drips down on the bottom heating element and tray that get baked on. Anyone have easy solutions for this?
Oh! I meant to address this. Mine has a pull-out tray on the bottom that catches the crumbs and drips, so it’s pretty easy to clean if something gets super messy (mozzarella sticks). But my other move is to use a sheet of parchment paper on the basket. Seems to be thin enough that things are still crisping nicely but for sure contains the mess.
Depending on your air fryer model, there are some parchment paper options for air fryers of various sizes. Not super environmentally friendly, and not perfect, but they do take most of the mess. Our liners are not 100% fitting our air fryer, but I make do.
I use parchment paper for the inevitable grease.
We have the Breville smart etc air fryer and I use a thin sheet of tinfoil on the lowest rack to protect the bottom heating element when I use the basket.
My favorite thing about the air fryer is that my kids all know how to use it safely. So they can go ahead and make what they want without my help.
Came here to say this. I will buy almost anything that will help my tweens cook for themselves!!! (Microwave popcorn maker I heart you)
Yes! Came here to say the same thing!
Oooh this is a good point.
My absolute favorite thing about the “air fryer” is that unlike an oven, it SHUTS ITSELF OFF WHEN IT’S DONE. The freedom this buys me – I can throw something in and then go do chores or start bedtime routines etc and not feel like I need to keep an ear perked for the timer alarm. I routinely make the box-mix brownies in the air fryer the night before our ski days, and I just start them while I head into bedtime routines and then I pack all the ski gear into the car after that, which is like 8 billion trips to and from the car, and the brownies just finish whenever they finish without me needing to worry or think about it. I get them out when I'm done, not when they're done. The ability to work around MY schedule, instead of working my schedule around whatever's in the oven, is a major feature for me.
I also use it to keep dishes warm if I’m doing a big meal like a holiday thing – a serving bowl or a small casserole dish fits inside and I just set it to Keep Warm while the other things still cooking finish up in the actual oven. Takes a lot of the pressure off trying to have a variety of dishes ready at exactly the same time.
This is not related to the air fryer but I want to acknowledge the work that goes into being a ski parent. The 8 billion trips to the car. See also camping parent. Keep up the good work. I salute you.
Oh yes - skiing in the winter, camping in the summer! My kids wiggled and cajoled our family up to three days of skiing a week this year ("the season is so short!") and man, have I come to loathe the flight of stairs from my front door to my car. I do all of this in a Prius, so the tetris-ing of all the gear is borderline comic in its precision. And of course, skiing 3x/week means I am firmly in the realm of needing to pack all our lunches, including hot lunches in thermoses which obviously need to be prepared the morning of, because no way am I affording lodge meals that many times over. (hence the brownies - a ski day is not finished until everybody is eating brownies on the drive home!)
The most absurd part is Wednesdays, when we do a couple hours of night skiing at a tiny local slope less than an hour from home. I'm sure I don't need to tell you just how cold ski boots can get when left in a car for a full day in winter, and how firmly they hold that cold inside themselves forever after, so instead I find myself lugging our three pairs of boots in from the car to my desk at work each Wednesday morning, and then very very noisily lugging them back out to the car as if to announce my weekly early departure to make it to the slope on time.
(but - to bring it all full circle - on Wednesdays I have grandma pick the kids up at school and meet me at the slope with all their gear, and they get McDonald's on the drive to fortify everyone. There is inevitably a good amount of fries leftover, which after being in a car for 30 minutes of driving and then 2-3 hours of skiing are cold and soggy and congealed - but which heat up WONDERFULLY in the air fryer. Shaking those fries out into the basket and crisping them back up, to enjoy them in blissful silence, is my ski-night celebration once the kids are all in bed and the car is unpacked again. AIR FRYER FOR THE WIN)
I love mine but I insist on calling it what it is, a high temp convection oven.
I call mine The Toaster Oven.
My passive aggressive mom sent me an air fryer attachment for my instant pot with a bunch of low-fat recipe cookbooks. Needless to say, those got donated.
Air fryers are absolutely NOT diet culture any more than my oven is diet culture. It’s a device that makes cooking easier. (My oven has an ‘air fry’ setting that I use all the time, too.) Being able to make your own food should be a source of pleasure, because it means you can adjust things to your taste instead of being subjected to what the takeout place wants. (Nothing wrong with takeout, but it’s always nice to customize things.) In conclusion, an air fryer is an object with no moral valence. Enjoy it!
Sheet pan dinners!! If you're only cooking for 1-2, all of those magical "put the chicken and the vegetables on one pan" dinners fit in the toaster oven/air fryer, which means less clean up and less time. I basically don't use my oven anymore.
I do not have an air fryer (but do have two instant pots, weird) but I am told they excel at re-crisping delivery French fries that got soggy on the trip.
Yep! Great for leftovers.
Our air fryer has been a game changer--we have four kids with different feeding needs. Being able to heat something up for one member of the family quickly while we are cooking other stuff has been so helpful. Also it works well with reheating leftovers which my kids were previously resistant to since everything would be somewhat soggy reheated in the microwave and who wants to take all the time to heat up the oven to reheat something for 5 minutes. This is our air fryer era and I will continue to sing it's praises to anyone who will listen.
The is like the story of the Instant Pot-- making cooking faster/easier is *important*.
But the Instant Pot does not make it faster. All the cooking times are... exaggerations, if not outright lies. The time it takes to come up to pressure is never counted. It's like saying making pasta only takes 8 minutes. Sure, after waiting 20 for the water to boil.
I used to own a regular pressure cooker before the IP was invented. The only thing I ever used it for was cooking beans from dry and making chicken stock because it took forever to come to pressure. I think a slow cooker is far better at making things easy and fast, but you do have to plan ahead.
I think it depends on what you're making. I love the Instant Pot pot for stews / soups with the cuts of meat (chuck roast, pork shoulder) that do best with a long, slow braise. So an hour in the Instant Pot (even when you add coming to pressure and natural release times) is preferable to having the oven on for four hours or babysitting it on the stovetop for the same amount of time.
I think I didn't quite get it right. The big deal with the InstaPot isn't speed, it's being able to preschedule cooking time so that it needs less attention.
I live and die by my InstaPot and Ninja air fryer.
Do people use the breville to make toast? Does it get all dried out?
Maybe if I ditch my toaster I can fit one?
Eating a toasted bagel from it right now! I think it makes excellent toast but it is a little slower than my old toaster, ironically. (But I did ditch my toaster and have no regrets!)
Very promising! Now I have to find a place to put my stand mixer (and I use it a lot so I can’t tuck it away 😏)
We only use it for toast...as in, do not have a toaster. We use it for heating and baking and toasting all sorts of bread products. Plus, as I mentioned in another comment in this thread, we cook virtually anything else you can think of in three, and reheat most leftovers there, too. I'd say ours is in use 2 or 3 of 3 meals daily.
Excellent intel thank you!!
You can get the not-marketed-as-an-air-fryer convection toaster oven (Breville BOV845BSS Smart Pro Countertop Oven). It's a bit smaller. I finally bought one on Black Friday, although I mostly plan to use it in the summer when I want to cook food but don't want to sweat.
It makes great toast and you can set the darkness level just like a regular toaster. Or you can switch to bake mode and make "toasts" that are more like crostini. Or you can spread one side with butter or oil and bake it on a pan, so the top goes golden and the bottom stays soft. <Apparently, I am a toast afficionado!
oh wow! thank you!
I have the Breville and it makes great toast. There are heating elements on top and bottom and different levels of fan, so the toaster setting is exactly like any other toaster oven (no fan). With other settings you can bake like a normal oven, bake like a convection oven (turns on the fan), and bake like a turbo-charged convection oven (aka air fry, super fan level). Also dehydrate and proof!
oooh proofing too!!
I don't have a breville specifically, but I do have a small oven style air fryer. Mine (and probably this one too) has a toaster setting. Makes excellent toast! (I have the Gourmia multi-function air fryer)
Oooh looking this one up thanks!