The Air Fryer is revolutionizing our kitchens, our diets and our recipes. This small, convenient kitchen appliance is easy to use, easy to clean and often gives perfect results. But what exactly is an Air Fryer? How does an Air Fryer work? What are the best kinds of Air Fryer? These questions (and more!) will be answered below.
About one year ago, I started to see a whole bunch of tasty recipes on Pinterest. All of these recipes stated that they were made in an Air Fryer. I wondered, what is an Air Fryer? The name of the device sounded pretty simple to me, it is obviously an appliance that uses air to “fry” food. But how does an Air Fryer work? How exactly does it cook food? What can you make in an Air Fryer? Where can you buy an Air Fryer? These were things that I set to find out.
What Is An Air Fryer?
An Air Fryer is a small electrical kitchen appliance. They do come in various sizes but most (if not all) of them can fit comfortably on any kitchen counter. How does an air fryer work? The key part to an Air Fryer is that it uses “rapid air technology” to cook your food. This is quickly moving hot air that, paired with the metal basket that most of them use, gives your food a crispy outside and an evenly cooked inside. So, you can get that “fried food” result without using any oil at all!
How Is An Air Fryer Oven Different From Other Ovens?
The one question that I still had was that don’t all “ovens” use hot air to cook food? How is this different than a regular oven or using the broiler? How is an Air Fryer different than a Convection Oven? Well, there ARE a lot of similarities and there are many recipes that you could cook in any oven. But you may get different results with different ovens and some recipes may be better in a particular oven.
Convection Ovens and Air Fryers are very similar. The big difference here is that convection ovens are usually considerably larger and would be able to cook more food in them. They don’t use that Rapid Air Technology and probably won’t get your chicken wings, etc as crispy as an air fryer could. But most convection ovens have a toasting function that would work much better than an Air Fryer. Generally, an Air Fryer would cook the food much quicker than a convection oven, but, as mentioned above, convection ovens can cook more food at one time.
How Do You Clean An Air Fryer?
Most models are remarkably easy to clean. My Black + Decker Air Fryer has a metal basket that can be released from the cooking dish with the press of a button. Both parts are dishwasher safe or easily cleaned in the sink with soap and water
How To Use an Air Fryer? How Does an Air Fryer Work?
There are a TON of recipes for Air Fryers on the internet. Most of them give great cooking guides along with the ingredient list. My Air Fryer came with a cooking guide and even has common meal cooking times on the Air Fryer itself. But generally, you will simply need to Preheat your Air Fryer to the desired temperature, stick your food in an set the timer. Many recipes call for you to flip the food periodically throughout the cooking.
Benefits of Owning an Air Fryer
I hope by now I’ve already sold you on all the great things that an Air Fryer can do. I hope I’ve also answered the question of how does an air fryer work? If you are still unsure, let me sum why I leave these wonderful contraptions Air Fryers are small and easy to store in your cabinet or pantry or you can just leave them out on your kitchen counter. There are so many wonderful foods that you can make in them. A lot of these food are traditionally very “fatty and oily” because you would have to make them in a traditional deep fryer. But by simply circulating hot air around the food, the Air Fryer will give you the same result but be considerably healthier. Air Fryers are extremely easy to clean, and have dishwasher safe parts. Air Fryers also do just fine when cooking frozen foods. We love to put frozen french fries and tater tots into ours!
Air Fryers also aren’t terribly expensive. Our Air Fryer is currently on sale at Amazon for $82.99. But you can certainly find less expensive and more expensive options as well. I hope this guide has helped you learn exactly how does an air fryer work along with all of the benefits of owning one. Below is a collection of my favorite Air Fryer Recipes. My Favorite is the Sweet n Spicy Chicken Wings!
Air Fryer Recipes
Air Fryer Dry Rub Chicken Wings
Air Fryer Homemade Mozzarella Sticks
Panko Crusted Air Fryer Chicken Tenders
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