this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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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 literall just a small convection oven, and 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.