Have a Breville toaster oven/ air fryer, couldn’t live without it, mostly air fry veggies,
but chicken wings find there way in there weekly.
We recently purchased a Breville counter top oven which has about 11 different functions. Air frying is one of them and it works great. We use the Breville oven all the time, might be one of our best purchases ever. Heats up quickly, and the temp is pretty accurate.
I haven’t cooked bacon in anything but an oven for years. Regular oven works fine for it.
Almost ditto. 1 or 2 slices I’ll pan fry, 3+ go in the oven. I’ll cook at anything from 325 to 375 depending on how much of a hurry I’m in and whether I think I’ll be able to keep a close eye on it. 375 is fastest and can make good bacon but can go from not quite there to overdone in the time it takes to walk to another room and back again.
My sister-in-law raves about her air fryer so my wife picked one up cheap. We have been thoroughly unimpressed. The only thing that it seems to do well is to heat frozen food, which we almost never eat. If your household eats a lot of frozen food your experience might be better. We found that the only difference to a convection oven is that because the airflow is directed down onto the food from above (rather than across from behind) that more of the surface area of the food is exposed to direct airflow, tending to create a crispy exterior more quickly. I think that this works on frozen food because the exterior of the food is already dry, allowing it to crisp more easily. Also, do not underestimate the size of these things. It is much larger than even a good size convection toaster oven despite have a smaller usable cooking surface. While we are still testing to see if there is a real use case for the beast, I don’t think ours will be in the house much longer.
We use it all the time. The genius was calling it a “fryer” but it’s really just a little convection oven. I don’t like fried foods anyhow so that’s good for me.
You can use it without turning on the oven and waiting for it to pre-heat and then heating up the whole kitchen. We use it a few times a month.
It’s great for chicken legs, potatoes, and anything you’d normally roast. We’ve cooked scones in it too and when it’s too hot to make pizza with the oven, I’ve made a pan pizza in the air fryer.
I haven’t made bacon in years and don’t eat frozen food, so I have no idea how it works for those. And it’s not good for large quantities. But if you want something like a potato galette or something similar, it’s great.
Ours has a large glass bowl. When I make chicken, I usually coat the chicken with a few herbs and spices and I put a little bit of water in the bottom of the cooking bowl. That makes it easy to clean but I found out it also makes a great broth after you’ve used it a few times. And that in turn, can be used to make a great mushroom soup.
So I was skeptical initially, but now I quite like having it.
I have the Cosori Air Fryer Toaster Oven and I love it. It’s insanely convenient. I use it pretty much daily as a toaster, air fryer, and replacement oven. The key here is to look at it as an oven with air fryer capabilities. I find traditional basket air fryers and pressure cooker air fryer lid attachments far too limiting in terms of size and capability and am much happier with the toaster oven.
And yes, as pointed out above they are in fact just miniature convection ovens. However, they move a larger amount of hot air within a smaller volume than a standard kitchen convection oven does and gives much better results in comparison. This is because the fan is on the side and not the above the food and the heating elements heat from top, bottom and the side whereas standard air fryers only blow and heat from the top making them essentially convection roasters. This is why you always have to turn food over and shake the basket in them.
I would recommend anyone considering one to get a toaster oven with convection capabilities, whether or not it is marketed as an air fryer, over a standalone air fryer. Funny enough, I was over at a friend’s apartment recently and saw that he he a Breville BOV800 series Smart Oven and explained to him that it had air frying capabilties simply by using the convection button and turning the internal fan on.
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I would recommend Gotham Steel Air Fryer https://blades.guru/gotham-steel-air-fryer-review. You can easily fry with little or no oil.
We have a Phillips which is great for chips(fries?) and wedges, but I haven’t explored other options with it.
We have the Cuisinart only because it was on sale from Macy’s on Black Friday for $150 delivered. Cuisinart makes three maybe four, and ours is the second one from the bottom.
It’s a piece of crap.
It does work on wings, but I think mine on the Weber or BGE are much better.
French fries are not good.
I for some reason tried beer battered shrimp this weekend. Total disaster.
There is likely technique involved but I have read the various tricks and implemented them. French fries were parboiled for 7 minutes, cooled, dried, and lightly oiled. Tried various batter consistencies on the shrimp.
My son just bought a new house. It is going to him and his bride.
Funny thing-the shrimp were very high quality and large, and I had a lot left for the next day, which was yesterday.
So last night I took out a hundred year old copper and tin-lined pan my parents found in Nice. As in France.
I butterflied them (as done for the air fryer), rubbed them with Ivar (Macedonian canned roasted peppers) and sauteed them in EVOO, garlic, and birdseed (red pepper flakes) over very low heat and then tossed them in al dente angel hair.
Gimme the hundred year old pan any day of the week and Sunday too.
We needed a new toaster oven so we got the small Cuisinart oven/air fryer. From the little I’ve used it so far the air fryer setting seems to work pretty much the same way as the oven setting which is convection.
Yes, we love it.
I have not found it to be a huge advantageous appliance in my kitchen, it’s going to my oldest daughter. I have a convection oven and convection microwave with dual grill and microwave feature. I have an older B&D toaster oven which works fine, when it dies I may look into something more versatile.
My most used piece of equipment in my kitchen is my cast iron skillet that belonged to my grandmother (she would have been 113 if still alive).
My most used piece of equipment in my kitchen is my cast iron skillet that belonged to my grandmother (she would have been 113 if still alive).
Ours too Nola, it is always on top of our six burner waiting for it’s next use. After thirty years, ours developed a thick crust of crud along the wall that would not come off with conventional methods. This summer I took it outside with an angle grinder and it was amazing to see a completely nude, unseasoned cast iron skillet. It took about a month to resume it’s normal look, minus the crud.
Anybody have the microwave/air fryer combo?
Darn it, I thought Mitch was back
We’ve been using an Instant Vortex Plus for about a year now and love it. I can’t stand frying things in a pan of oil, it’s messy, wasteful and no exactly healthy, and haven’t cooked that way in years. Yes you can cook anything this can in a convection oven or even in a very hot conventional oven but this is small and can be used in the summertime heat without heating up the kitchen. It’s is easy to use and super easy to clean up (getting the kind with a drawer that can be easily removed and washed is a key consideration). One of my favorite appliances.
Once you accept that it is not and will not replace an actual fryer, the air fryer can be a pretty nifty tool and it does get a lot of usage in my kitchen. What it does excel at is reheating fried food and pastries - for instance, if you microwave cold soggy fries, you’ll end up with warm soggy fries but stick them in an air fryer for a couple of minutes and they’ll come out almost as good as freshly cooked. I’ve also been tinkering with duck confit recipes lately and found that finishing in an air fryer gives it a crispiness superior to anything done in an oven.
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Temperature and time recommendation for finishing duck confit, please?
Mostly followed the WaPo recipe: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/02/23/duck-confit-recipe/
And then at step 4, I did 15 minutes at 385 in the air fryer. It’s shorter time and lower temperature than what the recipe calls for in the oven but the air fryer is more efficient at blasting hot air onto the meat so this was sufficient for me. Could probably do a few minutes longer if you want it extra crispy.
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