Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaceman_2020 | Hacker News Reader

spaceman_2020

An air fryer.

It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids.

It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop.

The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes. Never have to check on the chicken (unlike a pan) or wait too long (unlike an oven). Mix them together and dinner is ready.

View on HN

> It’s really a badly marketed product.

I think the marketing is really smart.

It's positioned as a new category of product. Oven on steroids won't sell because people already own ovens. It has to be a distinct appliance otherwise it's competing against a full sized oven. That's not the comparison you want a consumer to make.

I think you and the op are wrong (or maybe right?) for different reasons. Positioning it as a new category with less oil was right initially to get the thing off the ground but now it's maturing into a broader market with an installed base and that installed base has produced a ton of content, most of which is not for use as a less oil fryer, it's for use as a quick oven for when you aren't making enough of a dish for a family bigger than 4 people/aren't making something that will have leftovers for days.

The next wave of people buying these things are not going to be fryer junkies looking to cut oil, it's going to be people like me that looked at it and realized instead of waiting 20-40 minutes for my oven to heat up I could throw enough food in the air fryer to finish a dish in 7-12 minutes, which changes the dynamic of how I live my life culinarily for the better by a large margin. With the airfryer I can plan meal timing way less, have less pressure to be in the kitchen earlier, have flexibility to cook something like a roast in the oven on lower heat while polishing off fancy veg or multiple fancy veg (because the run time to cook is so low) in the air fryer, plus I save a lot on cleaning at the end because there aren't multiple big dishes to wash.

I agree but the next wave as you’ve described has already happened a year or so ago.

The majority of people I know have an air fryer at this point and that includes, of all things, a lot of senior citizens which is a disproportionate amount of my social circle due to my profession.

These things are out there in a big way. Lots of frozen products already have air fryer directions on them specifically.

I think it’s already the open secret that all they really are is a small convection oven.

The only issue is that people may get misled into buying an oven sized air fryer which defeats the whole point since their advantage is that they are a much smaller oven.

If they were called 'tiny oven' people probably catch on a bit better.

I have an air fryer which is literally a double walled cooking pot with a fan forced heater bolted on top. It's amazingly fast to cook and trivial to clean since it is small and fits in the sink but i fear many people hearing how good 'air fryers' are might do something dumb and buy an full size fan forced oven that's badged as an 'air fryer' which defeats the whole point.

> If they were called 'tiny oven' people probably catch on a bit better.

Tiny countertop (often convection) ovens (including, but not limited to, ones marketed as "toaster ovens") are very common, but a lot of them are under powered for their size compared to those markets as "air fryers", as well as having other design differences. And they existed long before air fryers, which needed to differentiate themselves from them.

> The only issue is that people may get misled into buying an oven sized air fryer which defeats the whole point since their advantage is that they are a much smaller oven.

Actually, I think it’s probably going to be pretty common for people to have multiple convection ovens / air fryers and use them for different purposes. The “whole point” of an air fryer is not the size: the convection oven + cooking basket setup has fairly great utility at all sizes. Yes, an oven with a powerful heating element relative to size is going to have the added advantage of coming up to speed faster, which has some additional utility. Yes, the particular design of the cooking pot + top fan you describe (or the InstantPot models with air-fryer lids that interchangeable with the pressure cooker lids) have some unique utility (“pressure cook & crisp” for certain recipes). But ones the size of a typical microwave (or combined with a microwave, as some are now) or a typical full-size range oven also have unique uses that smaller ones lack.

The whole point of them is that they cook quickly, and without oil. Small units are good for 1-2 people, but it won't prepare enough for a family of more than 3, thus the existence of larger units.

I think there's a point where you need to accept that you should use a fan forced oven. Air Fryers are literally a small fan forced oven in terms of tech.

The fast heating is due to the size. A fan forced oven is the same tech but slower due to being larger. Nothing more.

So if you are buying a large air fryer that's essentially a fan forced oven i have to ask "why not use the oven?".

I don't know that is true. I have always presumed the air circulation in the air fryer is far higher than that in my convection oven, since when they are both preheated, the cooking times are certainly much lower in the air fryer. Not only that, but some ovens have a specific air fryer mode now, indicating it is not just a typical convection oven. Should every oven maker add an air fryer mode to their convection oven, as some have started doing? Of course!

The tech is pretty hard to argue against. I mean you can literally look at what it contains and it's a heating element and a fan. Nothing more. You can Google this for yourself if you don't believe me but you'll find a lot of people patiently explaining this exact same point.

There may be a case that there's better circulation in most air fryers vs most fan forced ovens. In fact that's true in my case as my large oven and my air fryer have fans the same size (so more relative circulation in the smaller air fryer).

But they are the same tech. The difference in relative fan size probably has some effect but it's not a rule, it's really just a case of how big the fan in the device is and you may have air fryers with smaller or larger relative fan sizes and ovens with smaller or larger relative fan sizes.

If you're wondering why ovens now have 'air fryer' mode that's because marketing. I suspect it spins the fan a little faster.

> If you’re wondering why ovens now have ‘air fryer’ mode that’s because marketing. I suspect it spins the fan a little faster.

From what I can tell (and the detail provided on this is sketchy) differences include some or all of (varying between models):

1. Different fan position vs. ovens without air fry mode,

2. Faster fan speed in air fry mode,

3. Using “true” or “European” convection (heating unit behind the fan) in air fry mode, rather than “American” convection (bottom heating unit plus forced circulation fan), which may or may not be used in “convection” mode in a convection oven with an air fry setting.

I haven’t looked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more peak output from the heating element was part of air fry settings, especially the ones where that is specifically marketed as, or has an additional mode for, “no preheat” air frying.

My usb fan and the blower on my central furnace are the same - both just move air. And yet my furnace with much more fire and a much bigger fan is not a convection oven, or an air fryer. The amount of air blowing around my air fryer is likely at least 10x the amount in my convection oven per interior volume (ACH or whatever they use for ovens), and 20x what my convection toaster oven moves. And the results are nothing alike. The differences are so stark, I can only see someone who has not used a good air fryer claim they are basically the same.

But of course, up the fan speed and the element size in relation to the interior volume, and make sure you place everything to get optimal air circulation and turbulence (my air fryer has several aero-vanes in its base to create turbulence in the air cyclone, and push it up through the bottom of the food), and you can make an oven that does what an air fryer does.

I don't know, I have heard that a lot of the newer ovens with an air fryer mode don't work very well at all. I wonder what is different.

Are you sure that "air fryer mode" isn't just marketing for clueless people who don't know it's the same as convection?

Air fryer is called "fryer" because of the basket comparison to an oil fryer.

Thanks for the great contribution of snide condescension, mixed with more than a bit of confidently incorrect.

Oven is still a LOT slower than a large air fryer.

Our new oven has an air fryer setting. Haven't messed with it yet, but this is encouraging me to.

Technically accurate doesn't mean good marketing, and in fact oftentimes quite the opposite

> it's for use as a quick oven for when you aren't making enough of a dish for a family bigger than 4 people/aren't making something that will have leftovers for days.

How's this different from a classic toaster oven? Serious question, I've never used or even seen an air fryer, but I have been using toaster ovens to bake single servings of salmon for over 2 decades.

A lot (most?) classic toaster ovens don't have a circulating fan built in. The fan makes a big difference in cook time and crispyness.

20 to 40 minutes for your oven to heat up? The hell? Mine is heated to 180 degrees in 5 minutes.

Americans have giant ovens. It's one of the things I miss after moving to Europe. The downside to a large oven is the time/space commitment, but it is super convenient.

Convection is also not common in the US. At least where I am in the Netherlands, shopping for a new "oven" almost guarantees it will be some sort of combo microwave/convection thing. Then it's also common to have a countertop airfryer as well.

From Japanese people, I have the impression that they've largely given up on microwaves and toaster ovens, as inconvenient and space-wasting. Having an oven in a Japanese home is extremely rare, being regarded as professional bakery equipment.

Instead, they have a "deshi rehhhn-ji", which literally translates to "electric range". This will confuse people for whom "the range" is the thing you can place multiple pots and pans on to cook simultaneousely.

But a denshi rehhhn-ji actually is more like a combination toaster oven plus microwave with a single shared compartment, designed to use infrared and microwave power simultaneously. Attempts to market these in USA over 14 years ago failed, seemingly due to high prices and consumers' preconception that ovens, toasters, and microwaves are fundamentally separate devices. However, I've recently seen at a Target store in USA three different combination devices that may be similar, from different companies. Their marketing at that store was like "combination air fryer and microwave!" and "combination microwave and broiler!".

deshi reenji …but that the double 'e' is not an English "long e" but rather more like an English "short e" of double length.

That sounds like what I have here in the Netherlands. It can be used as a microwave, a small oven/toaster, or both simultaneously. It came with a special tray that is metal but also microwave safe for use with the dual mode.

The only way that it differs from a normal convection oven, is the lack of preheat options. If you want to "preheat", then you turn it on, wait 5 minutes for the compartment to come up to temperature, then add your tray of food.

Meta: I now see that primarily accessing HN from an Android client[1] has obscured from me that doing (cons thing asterisk) in a comment, and then at the end of the comment doing (cons asterisk description-or-explanation) doesn't do what I thought it does, because the actual site suppresses the asterisks and uses them as delimiters for italics.

[1] Materialistic, on F-Droid.

bosch 800 series wall oven, takes forever to heat up, especially if you are looking for 400+, as does pretty much every oven I have ever owned over here in North America, with the exception of the purely mechanical 1970's era electric oven I had in a rental at one point. That one was 10-20 minutes depending on temperature target. I suspect the newer stuff is afraid to throw maximum power at the situation because of all the stupid electronics we have put in ovens. The cleaning cycle on that 1970's oven would turn everything to ash. The cleaning cycle on the bosch is a joke in comparison.

This is exactly right. An "air fryer" is nothing but a small convection oven. Most people already own ovens that can do convection cooking. So this very cleverly creates a new category of appliances.

That's a great description of them, a small convection oven. I already bought an air fryer before I realized/discovered that, and it's a wonderful thing. I know convection ovens exist, but I don't know if anyone I know has one, so air fryers (as tiny convection ovens) are a new capability. And a pretty awesome one too!

> Most people already own ovens that can do convection cooking.

[Citation needed]

I can’t find any data about penetrations, but IME it is very common for people not to have a convection oven.

I don't know of a single home in the UK that doesn't have a convection oven.

Where do you live?

It's rare for households in the US to have convection ovens.

Do you have gas ovens or none at all? Seems crazy to imagine a giant McMansion that doesn't even have an oven in it!

I don't know actual numbers, but a lot of people have them and don't know anything about them, or even that they have one.

I only have 3 data points, but every time I have used the convection feature at someone else's house, they had no idea it was a feature, or what a convection oven even does.

Edit to add: These were all in newer homes, so could be a more recent trend?

> Do you have gas ovens or none at all?

Both gas and electric ovens without convection are common in the US; in 12 homes I can remember, as a child and adult, in almost 50 years, only in the most recent have I had a convection (gas) oven. (All have had ovens.)

> Seems crazy to imagine a giant McMansion

Are you under the impression that most Americans live in giant McMansions?

Gas ovens are common and so are electric, but I didn't have a convection oven until I owned my own home. It's not really worth it for most landlords to make this upgrade.

Gas and electric, but often the convection fans are missing.

It seems so ludicrous that I want to ask if you’re sure you don’t have them, based on my experience of never having lived in an expensive home or actually buying appliances.

But then again, I’m sure you are right. Perhaps this is an easy tell - check to see if the oven has convection features. If so, the house was built for living, if not it was intended for flipping.

> It seems so ludicrous that I want to ask if you’re sure you don’t have them, based on my experience of never having lived in an expensive home or actually buying appliances.

I get how it would seem that way. I think few enough people make home buying or renting decisions based on it, that most developers building (major appliances are often preinstalled) or landlords renting homes don’t bothers with the small added expense, and most renters don’t have the choice of replacements, and most homebuyers won’t swap out unless the old one becomes unserviceable. As a result, American recipes don’t focus on them, people don’t tend to know how to take advantage of them, and the cycle continues. Maybe the Air Fryer craze will chip away at it.

I checked mine (electric) Definitely not. My mom does on both of hers (electric).

I don't recall my last house having it (gas oven).

> Where do you live?

The USA.

Interesting! I assumed all modern ovens are pretty much convection these days but I guess the tech doesn't make sense across the pond (for whatever reason?)

From what I mean before, it's basically unheard of to buy a single oven without it being a convection oven: https://www.johnlewis.com/browse/electricals/cooking/built-i... -- If you buy a double oven then the top one will likely be a "traditional" oven (mine is like this).

Downside with convection ovens is the heating element can shit the bed if you manufacturer skimps out on the thermal cycling. Had to replace mine yesterday after only 5 years of daily use, but was a quick 5 min job and £15.

In Germany it is. Everyone I know has one.

If you can figure out which symbol it is. (My mom in the US bought a german oven, and each nob is a symbol, which means something fan, line, squigly line...). Once you know it makes sense, and this is a case where the internet helps.

(symbols like:) https://www.ebay.com/itm/173568522355

but in the US convections ovens are not that common.

I had in the 90s the faberware "turbo oven". It was too big for me but it was a convection oven and quite fast. Caterers that did functions at the museum I worked hauled them in to heat food.

Smaller is an important feature. It preheats and reheats more quickly.

simply because it is a smaller convection oven

Its not even a new product. Convection ovens have been a thing for years. But because standard toaster ovens and convection ovens look so similar people thought they were the same.

It’s much faster than most convection ovens as they existed, and so I think still smart to differentiate.

Only due to the small size though. That's literally it.

You know what a larger air fryer is called? It's called an oven.

The fan is much stronger too, so not literally it. Changing two of the most significant parameters gives it entirely new utility that ovens didn’t and don’t capture.

In effect it’s closer to a microwave meets an air sous vice. Much quicker heat up, much more even heat dispersal.

I have a convection oven too that’s the same size, we use the air fryer 5x more often and it’s almost entirely due to the fan not the size. Cuts cooking time in half comparatively.

> Only due to the small size though.

I think its not technically size at all, but:

(1) Heating output relative to size, and

(2) Fan capacity relative to size, and a less contribution from

(3) Arrangement of heating element and fan.

>I think its not technically size at all, but:

"It's not due to the size because they didn't shrink /all/ the components equally."

I suspect shrinking all the components equally would preserve some of the effect, because my intuition without spending too much time is that there are scaling effects that would work that way.

But, I’m mostly saying that its not inherently the case that a small convection oven would have the advantages of an air fryer, and, a major reason for the name “air fryer” for the product categoriy is because countertop convection ovens without those advantages already existed, because they were optimized for other goals, so just calling them “countertop convection ovens” would have sent the wrong message to buyers familiar with the existing category.

That's why marketing works. If they called it a micro-oven, it would be too similar in consumers' minds to appliances they already own.

Also, AirFryer.

Fryers have oil, right? Oh, this one doesn't. Air??? Air Fryer??

Not an oven. Not a fryer?

I don't own a fryer anyway, they are gross with all that oil.

This fryer uses no oil?????!!!!

My oven doesn't use oil either. But it's not a fryer!

And then it gets bought.

And then you try it, still confused how this can fry. And after the first couple of cooks, you don’t care anymore and wouldn’t give up this gadget!

For me the USP is the slide in and out basket, ability to do a little shake. The convenience of that over a tray in the oven and the washing up and the turning and the burning one side of the items… is priceless

By definition you can't fry something without oil. The food would need to have some oils inside of it already or you would have to use at least a little bit of oil to fry the food. But you could fry something in an oven by putting oil on it too. Otherwise you are just baking it.

Exactly. If you ever have opened up an "air fryer", it's literally just a circular electric stove element with a metal fan above it blowing down.

Any way you look at this device, is substandard, not frying, and best saving your money elsewhere.

Haha. Funny, but doesn’t match widespread opinion. Personally it is the best money I have ever spent in my kitchen. Fantastic results. Food often even better than fried, oven baked, pan fried or grilled. I explicitly choose my air fryer for certain cooking even though all those other options available to me. So the opposite of substandard to be honest… there must be a word for that?

Strongly disagree. Maybe it's not "frying" in the sense of a big bucket of boiling oil, but there is a huge array of cooking that is vastly faster with my air fryer.

Roasting veggies, roasted potatoes, frozen foods like fries, things like that. I can be done with a batch of fries before my oven has even gotten to temperature. Massive time savings.

If it works and is capable of cooking your food better and faster than a standard oven, who cares what’s inside?

You can use oil - that works too!

> otherwise it's competing against a full sized oven

Even worse: a full sized oven that I already own.

The problem with the marketing is that every ad I've seen for it makes it seem only good for making healthier, less tasty versions of food I like.

What it's actually good for is cooking some things faster than a conventional oven, reheating fried foods.

I have had success making good homemade french fries with my air fryer, but I still thoroughly toss them in oil before cooking them. The end result is not really much healthier than if I deep fry them, but it is a lot easier and less messy.

Are you sure? Feels like totally less oil than deep fried to me, even tossed in oil, it isn’t sitting in that oil… put too much and that all drips off into the bottom of the pan the basket sits over. I agree to makes fantastic chips (UK), even with oven chips without adding further oil, much better than those oven chips when cooked in an oven.

I would absolutely buy a better, faster, crispier oven for $100-$200.

I honestly didn't understand what they were at first and didn't bother to find out.

Convection ovens have been around a long time too. Some have even started labeling certain cook modes as "air fry".

Also competing against many microwaves which function has a convection oven

Totally correct. The marketing category theory is sound

or just, people love fries

The real driver is the globally increasing number of single-person households tho

It's a small convection over marketed as an "Air fryer". It's genius marketing!

Air fryers blow significantly more air than a convection oven. Even my Breville toaster oven which is touted as an air fryer clearly isn’t - I find I need to cook foods somewhere between the convect instructions and air fryer instructions.

This I did not know. But besides the time, is there anything the air fryer does better than a convection toaster oven? Does the food taste noticably better? Otherwise, an air fryer strikes me as a unitasker that just takes up counter space. We get a lot of use out of our Cuisinart toaster oven because it can do a lot: bake a loaf of bread, roast a tray of vegetables, or broil a piece of meat. And, oh yeah, it makes great toast!

They usually have bins, which means you can pull the food out and shake it without worrying about burning your hands; or, plate it without touching it.

That's the big difference that I've noticed now that I'm reading about them.

It's got to be more than that, perhaps the bin shape creates a better air-frying environment? Why is there a difference in cooking results between the toaster oven "air fryer" and the bin type?

This. The pull out draw/basket is the true game changer.

We got a Breville at home recently and I couldn't understand what the hype was all about, it did exactly what my last countertop oven did even in Airfryer mode.... this is making sense now. We were already heavy users of the old convection only model, so this didn't seem like much of an upgrade. I think the marketing hype is just pushing people to realize a countertop oven of any sort is very useful. (That said, the Breville is very well made and we'll keep it around. It works well, just didn't quite taste much of a difference from what we had before - an older Cuisinart FWIW).

Be sure to use the basket and don’t overfill it. But yeah - I don’t have an air fryer but if I put some frozen French fries or the like in there the air fryer instructions absolutely do not get the food done.

Clearly it’s working for them but it also I think loses them sales from people who would absolutely buy an oven that evenly cooks (if you’re an apartment dwelling baker you know the pain) and preheats in seconds where “air fryer” sounds like it does something totally different.

It’s the same thing with instant pot where they probably lose out a bit by not marketing themselves as a serious electric pressure cooker that can also do other stuff.

They just need to say "it's an air fryer with OVEN FUNCTION"

I wouldn’t lose too much sleep for them, I think they are doing ok :)

Well, I fry food, using heat and air, without soaking it in oil, so why shouldn't it be called an air fryer? I also have a convection toaster oven that cannot do that.

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...

"to cook something in hot fat or oil; to be cooked in hot fat or oil"

Because of what the word means?

Not everyone has a convection oven.

> Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. > The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.

Normal sized boneless chicken breasts should cook in a pan in about 10 minutes or less, and you really don't need to do anything other than flip them once. If air fryers are convincing people to cook their own fresh food I would say that's a good thing, but I'm still struggling to see how they're actually better than "traditional" cooking.

After a lot of research I've come to the conclusion people who swear by these often eat a lot of ready-made food from the freezer. The air fryer cooks it faster and makes them think it contains fewer calories (even though most frozen ready-made food already contains all the oil it needs to cook well).

Or they're individuals without the need to make large portions. For example I make lots of stuff in the air fryer, none of which are frozen. It's simply that I don't want to wait 30 minutes to heat up my oven when I'm not going to be using all of that space and heat.

Does your over really take 30 minutes to heat up? Mine gets to 350 in about 7-10 minutes. It's a mid-range GE model. Nothing fancy. Preheat. Do your chopping, sauce prep or whatever. Oven is ready by the time you are really ready to put anything in it.

No doubt, an air fryer made my son's college dorm experience so much better but I don't see the appeal for anyone who isn't single or who has a proper kitchen already.

because of new laws in Vancouver about power (building is <3yo), our stove and oven take FOREVER to warm up. the building electrician said they had to buy purposefully underpowered ones that were slow or it would blow the breaker. it's faster to boil water in an electric kettle for example.

I think Salmon comes out just as good if not better in the air fryer than by cooking it in a pan, although you need to cut the filets to a very specific size.

It's a miniature convention oven. There are foods you can cook in a pan but also foods you can't and must cook in an oven, like pies. It's best useful for individuals that don't want to waste the time nor energy heating up their large oven just to make an individual portion, at least in my case.

I wish this was mentioned more often. Air fryers are tiny compared to ovens. In my case where I typically cook a meal for two days for a family of four an air fryer is utterly useless.

Air fryers definitely are very different than ovens or pan frying, it's hard to explain, but it's definitely more comparable to frying in that it crisps up food by removing the water from the outside of stuff quickly.

By this logic it's particularly good at cooking food that otherwise would be better fried, but outside of that it does vegetables like brussel sprouts or small filets of fish particularly well leaving the inside soft and the outside cooked.

Air fryer isn’t the best choice for Chicken breasts, so your point is valid for that cut. It will of course still cook ok. But chicken thighs on the other hand, probably better than a frying pan as you can get the crispyness all over and juicy still in the middle, just like deep frying. The fattier the raw product, the more the cooking choice swings to the air fryer.

I poach mine in the microwave with a bit of water, drain, then shred with forks and add salsa/tomato sauce/etc.

Dead simple. Super tasty. 10 minutes, easy cleanup.

Anyone with an electric oven can be done cooking that chicken in the air fryer before the oven is even up to temp. That is much better.

We got one in 2020 and we use it daily. Chicken, french fries, sausages, fish and bread is what we use it for most of the time. Some things like spring rolls are better fried with oil but overall we love it and it is a real time saver and of course less oil is used.

My partner is vegetarian and I’ve found that tofu and soy curls are near life changing good in the air fryer.

Cube the tofu, cook for 75% of the total time, pull out and dress in liquid seasoning, return for the last bit and the outside gets crisp while the inside remains juicy!

Thank you this is a killer tip I have to try it

Curious -- what do you use as a dressing?

Have a full recipe? This is interesting.

Press-dry tofu, cube, toss in a teaspoon-ish of tasteless oil (enough to make the cornstarch stick), cornstarch and spices.

Put in airfryer so that they're not clumped together. 180C for 10-ish minutes and you should have some tasty crispy cubes of goodness.

If you want to be extra fancy, you can toss them in a sticky sauce of your choosing at this point.

Serve on rice and enjoy.

How do you make bread with it?

We don't make bread. We just make bread from the previous day hot and crunchy again. It just takes a few minutes. We used to do this with the oven but that takes quite some time more.

Ah yes, croutons are another fantastic thing to use it for.

Interestingly, the Wirecutter recommends people just get a really good high end toaster oven[0] over an air fryer, since its just a convection mode cook.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-fryer-to...

That style of "air fryer" is just a convection toaster oven with an air fryer rack. Shameful marketing, if you ask me. A real air fryer (the ubiquitous basket style) cannot be replaced with another appliance, but replaces many, while doing a better, faster job.

I disagree. I bought an air fryer for my mom about five years ago, had an older breville toaster oven without the air fry capability I used for the better part of a decade, and moved to a new breville toaster oven with air fry capability about a year ago. The basket-design air fryers are a pain to store, don't have much space for food (we had to do fries in annoyingly small batches), and felt very one-note.

By comparison, the new breville I have does everything the old one did plus air frying, and the difference is distinct - I tried making fries in the convection baking mode on the old one and the result was noticeably worse than what I get from the new one in air fry mode. Noise and heat output approaches annoying levels with either air fryer, so I'm pretty confident the experience I get is close or the same as the purpose-build one. And the ability to space things out more gives better results, at least for my purposes. (I'll note that 95% of my air fryer use is for fries.)

For example, George Foreman decommissioned. Sausages never cooked any other way. Chicken nuggets, love them or hate them they cook great in the air fryer. Main convection oven only really used in our house to bake bread.

Why is the basket useful?

Baskets are useful because they allow the items to cook from all sides, and not require turning in the same way.

Personally, I use a separate metal basket in my convection oven. But it's entirely possible that more convection would be better.

If you like baking bread and you have the space, I would suggest getting a steam-convection oven, like the one from Anova.

You can also steam-slow-cook meat and get juicy tender chicken.

Same here I got one at the beginning of 2022, I cook steak, chicken, pork and more in mine. It has made it significantly easier to cook lunch and dinner instead of what used to be the much easier choice of just ordering out.

I wanted an air fryer, so I got the same one my friend has last year, one made by PowerXL. Mine produced this horrific chemical smell that filled up the whole house and soaked into the food. Reddit told me that it just needed to be variously washed or run a few times and it would go away, but it never did. I had to return it.

I suspect the plastics used were changed, or some preconditioning process was skipped to get more units out for a Black Friday sale or something. I haven't revisited the product category since.

It's a shame how you and your friend received very different products. An additional hypothesis: Could it have been a counterfeit?

I had multiple air fryer models over the years. The stirring functions (a rotating paddle that stirs the food) is an ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER and a must for me.

Unfortunately those equipped with a stirring function come up as expensive. I would love to see a < $100 air fryer equipped with it.

What exactly does the stirring function allow you to do that you couldn't do before?

And which model of stirring air fryer did you end up going for?

I had both a De'Longhi FH1363 MultiFry Extra and a T-fal ActiFry.

You can throw in frozen vegetables, meat and seasoning, turn the machine on, come back in 25 minutes and your food will be cooked uniformly to perfection. E.g., frozen brussels sprouts, chopped chicken sausages, a bit of olive oil and sambal sauce.

Prep time under 30 seconds.

Bonus points: Both fryers come with dishwasher-safe paddle and bowl. You can detach and wash the lid too of the De'Longhi one.

But the basket shaking is half the fun of air fryer cooking! Sooo satisfying.

Agree, and actually less necessary than you think. Sometimes you forget and it’s usually still fine.

Wait till you cook some salmon or pick up an inexpensive slow cooker (Walmart had a 2 quart one for like $11 over the holidays)

What's a "basic Asian sauce"?

I'm not trying to be critical, but am genuinely curious as someone who's lived more than half the years since 1997 in Taiwan without hearing that term before.

Not OP, but I am half Asian and worked in various Asian restaurants growing up in the US. When I read the term "basic Asian (brown) sauce" I'd assume some combination of soy sauce, brown sugar, oyster sauce, and chicken/beef broth. With options for garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and rice wine, plus whatever else to tailor towards the dish.

I'd wager that having spent so long in Taiwan you've probably never heard the term because there it would just be "sauce" :P (or less tongue-in-cheek, it's just something that is implicitly and silently understood and recognized rather than having some kind of formal name).

Ah okay, so definitely more Chinese than Indian (or even Japanese or elsewhere).

Yeah, I’d tend to think in more specifically, in terms of which of those ingredients you listed are in it but all of those are familiar.

No reply from OP, but I know or know of a few people who do something along these lines. There are a set of ingredients relatively common though clearly not universal across East Asia and I suspect OP is making a pastiche of those. If it were a language you'd call it a pidgin. But it's food so I dunno what you call it.

Though the phrase "White Man's Teriyaki sauce" is running around in my head and yes I get the irony of that.

As someone else living in taiwan a long time, You wouldnt hear asian sauce in asia its just sauce haha 東亞醬 doesn't exist. We dont say american ketchup. But in usa numerous friends say make a quick asian sauce to dip the protein which as comments below explain is a concoction of personal tastes.

Ha, yes. 東亞醬 sounds hilarious! Then again, so does "dip the protein". It sounds like some crazy bodybuilder trying to make supplements taste good.

These do nice job with tofu. Cut into cubes, toss in some oil, salt and pepper, and air fry for 15 mins. Tofu comes out like that deep fried take out tofu!

Yeah this is it, right? People throw fries in airfyrers that just soaked up fat before put in their packaging thinking it's healthy, and it just takes 3x the amount of time to "deep fry" some french fries.

But that is really not it's strong point indeed! It's not an alternative to a deep fryer (but that is primarily the way I see it used), it a faster oven.

I just put fresh cut potatoes in mine, and they're done to a crisp in less than 10 minutes. So, it actually takes about half the time, when compared to deep frying them. And there's no mess or used oil to worry about. And I don't have to air out my house afterwards. So many benefits, including health!

> it just takes 3x the amount of time to "deep fry" some french fries

Perhaps if you have a deep fryer with oil that is already at temperature. But if you have to heat the oil it's definitely not 3x faster than using an air fryer. Also, no need to clean up splatter afterward, or monitor hot oil while it's cooking. Or figure out what to do with several cups of oil after you've deep fried some french fries.

And it certainly smells lot less than your heated vat of oil...

No need to pretend it’s healthier. Some things will be, some things won’t be. Definitely doesn’t take 3x in a home setting. If anything 3x faster start to finish in my experience.

How does an air fryer compare to a speed oven? I want to remodel my kitchen someday with a speed oven (convection microwave) over top a steam convection oven (for cooking things with steam without pressure). I'm not sure what I would be missing without an air fryer (and none of those are less than $2-3k, so the price ranges are completely different).

If you're looking to do speed oven stuff (use the heating elements and the microwave to cook the same dish), don't get a Bosch. I have the Bosch 800 speed oven and while it's convenient to have a single appliance that acts as an oven and microwave, you can only use the speed oven for pre-programmed dishes, of which I think there are eight seemingly random ones.

It's the exact opposite. The "air fryer" marketing lets companies present it as a healthy alternative to deep frying, and people eat that up (heh). If they sold it as what it really was – a toaster oven – there would be a lot less enthusiasm and demand, and people would definitely not spend multiple hundred dollars on one.

You obviously have not owned an air fryer, if you think it's a mere toaster oven. Or you got one of those convection toaster ovens with an air fryer rack, which really isn't an air fryer, like the basket ones are. I haven't used my stove, oven, or microwave since I got one.

I’ve had one before and I don’t really get the hype. It’s an oven that heats up faster. I see the value in that but it doesn’t seem useful enough to take up counter space when I could just wait a few minutes for the oven.

It's cut my cooking time down by magnitudes, but even more so, my cleaning time. But I suppose it all does depend on the use cases. I, for one, plan on never having to wait for anything to preheat in my kitchen ever again!

We got a Panasonic combination microwave/broiler/oven/air fryer/etc. I kind of assumed it would be pretty mediocre at everything, but during this past summer where temperatures were unseasonably warm and our kitchen has no ventilation or access to fresh air/windows/aircon.

The device itself was more expensive than $200, obviously, but the "small oven" aspect of it saved us from having to run our regular-sized oven at all. I'd been wanting a small (not quite toaster-oven style) oven for a while, but without the counter space we could only justify it by sharing space with the microwave.

Not a literal lifesaver, but definitely a figurative one.

The "air fryer" marketing is actually quite good. It justified a whole new class of countertop appliance, even though many already have convection ovens.

And if you've had frozen fried foods like mozz sticks, chicken nuggets or eggrolls in an air fryer, it really does live up to the name

Does the fan get all oily & grimy? Is it hard to keep clean? I like being able to wash greasy kitchen items in lots of hot water and detergent. I can't imagine it is possible to immerse the business end of an air fryer in water?

A good air fryer should have a pan/grill that's detachable from the fan/heater section. The pan/grill should fit entirely in a sink.

If you get an air fryer that's the size of an oven it will be as hard to clean as an oven and will take just as long to heat and cook as an oven since internally the tech is 100% identical to a fan forced oven (a heating element with a fan). Don't make the mistake of bigger is better for an air fryer.

Air fryers are meant to be small pots that have a fan forced oven element bolted to the top that can easily be detached for washing in the sink. That's the whole appeal of it. It's a teeny tiny oven that heats up extremely quickly for little power due to its size. It's easy to clean because the non-electronic part fits entirely in the sink. It's only the size that gives air fryers an advantage. If you buy an air fryer the size of a fan forced oven you have literally just bought a less good fan forced oven.

Not as bad as you might think. Splatter happens when moisture comes in contact with hot oil/shortening. In an air fryer you don't have much oil and it doesn't as easily splatter. It's relatively contained. AFAIK, there's no mist of oil droplets like with a frying pan or a fryer.

The fan, not that much. Out of sight out of mind :)

> oven on steroids

Aka convection oven.

Which is a fancy marketing term for having a fan inside your oven

Also small enough to make preheating near instant.

Exactly! Convection ovens are devices for roasting, not for frying.

The marketing for air fryers is fantastic.

It's a small convection oven, which a lot (definitely not all) ovens come with standard today. I bought 2 of the cheapest whole kitchen "packages" from HD and both came with a convection setting. The electric even called it "Convection/Air Fryer."

A friend saw that setting and busted with excitement "Your oven has an air fryer!?" Yes my oven has an oven.

Really good marketing.

Never underestimate the power of the oven.

I use mine daily.

It makes tofu better than any other method and is a staple in our household.

My only wish is that the basket style models had more robust options. We go through one every ~6 months.

I was thinking if buying an air fryer however cleaning seems like a nightmare. Can you please share some insights on how easy (or hard) it is?

They're all a little different, but this works for me. When it beeps to say it's done, in a single arm motion I pull out the tray, dump the cooked food onto a platter, and then rinse the tray in the sink. The key is to get the tap water on there while the oils are still hot.

But temper your expectations. If you need your cooking implements to be squeaky clean, an air fryer will be a lot of work. If you're satisfied with your regular oven having a few bits of carbonized food bits here and there, then you'll also be satisfied with a "camp clean" level of air fryer cleanliness.

Exactly this. It is kind of always a little bit greasy, a little bit crispy burnt crumbs inside. Really fatty foods like sausages, you dump the waste oil after taking the food out, and rinse it a bit. It’s hard to describe without sounding gross, but strangely seems not that gross when you have one.

Buy a small one. Smallest you can for your situation.

That might seem like a weird suggestion but remember the entire advantage of an air fryer is that it's a smaller form of an oven so it has less to heat and is thus faster for less power. Buying a big one makes it all pointless, just use the oven.

The small ones fit in a sink. Not much different than cleaning pots&pans.

I recommend a basket type and getting the biggest in area and power you can find. The surface area is important. More even and better you can spread the food better the result.

It works by forcing air from the top to the food, not slowly from the back like regular oven. So you get better result if food isn't piled up over itself.

The tray is usually two piece that separate. They're not hard to clean. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P_nUcqzNi00

Airfryer doesn't get hot enough like pan over direct flame so food doesn't seem to get burned / stuck.

I put aluminum foil in between the grate and the tray. Makes cleaning much easier since you only need to clean the grate, which is dishwasher-safe.

Some think it affects the air fryer cooking but I haven't noticed a difference.

I just empty the tray and rinse with hot water. Since it doesn’t touch the food I figure it doesn’t have to be too sterile.

I have a Ninja Air Fryer and the baskets are dishwasher safe. They are also very easy to wash clean clean with a soft brush, warm water and soap. Easy cleaning is one of the major benefits of an air fryer versus deep/shallow frying via a dedicated or appliance or the stovetop.

Easiest thing ever. Just rinse the basket with hot water and a little dish soap, then rinse it again and dry. Nothing sticks to the non-stick coating once dish soap hits it. I don't even scrub, just rinse. So fast, that I don't even use the dishwasher for it.

I have one: all I do is take the basket out and clean it. Both parts of it are non-stick.

Cleaning mine is extremely easy. It's just a basket with a detachable grate.

Have a power xl and cleaning is just tossing away the parchment paper after

I have a small house/kitchen. I got rid of the entire oven. Replaced it with a two burner counter top and an instant pot that does 7 things (including air fryer). Certainly it limits cooking a bit and requires some creativity, but at the end of the day, couldn't be happier with all the extra space.

I googled air fryer and found out that is a second generation of kitchen tech. First generation was known as Air Grill and was good, but quite bulky, with big glass cover and not easy to wash after using, to be honest. Does anyone have used both and can share an experience?

The reason I love my air fryer is that meat and fish both taste great cooked in it and there's no need to stir it or even turn it over since it cooks all over at the same time. About the only thing it isn't good for is eggs.

When getting an air fryer, I'd highly recommend getting a rack-style one, not basket-style. It cooks better when not stacked together.

Fast is absolutely it. Quality cooking that's fast and requires pretty much no effort. Using my right now as I type this.

It's also fantastic at reheating most things that aren't soup.

I have the instant pot vortex, which is really cool. The weird thing is all the oil and grease that materializes on the bottom rack thing. Does anyone else use instant pot vortex?

We just got that as a backup to our (older, Polish-made model) Philips air fryer. The Philips is much better, although the instant pot is as serviceable as other brands of air fryers we have used. All air fryers get grease build up below. If it's the same recipe, you were likely eating that before, so I am happy to see it.

I like air fryers but my food doesn't stay warm for as long as when I cook it in the microwave, for whatever reason

Maybe it removes more moisture thus the cooked food is dryer with less mass.

Haven't noticed that myself. Then again I mostly only cook pre-fried or that kind of stuff in my air fryer.

Spent $150CAD on a combo Ninja air-fryer / pressure cooker. You pressure cook the food then air fry it. Crazy!

I have the same thing, makes the greatest roast potatoes.

Wash and cut the potatoes into whatever's the appropriate size, put in the frying basket, pressure cook on high with the timer set to 2 mins (timer only starts once pressures built), release pressure, remove basket and drain + shake roughly.

Leave to sit for ~15 minutes on the counter while doing other shit, empty and dry the main vessel.

Bit of olive oil (or other fat) and seasoning onto the potatoes with shaking to make more surface area by fucking up the surface, pop it back in and air fry for 20-25m on 200*C, shaking halfway through.

End result? Absolutely perfect roast potatoes. Glassy crunchy outsides, fluffy insides, every time.

Also functions as a dehydrator and is super good enough to turn harvested mushrooms dry enough to powderise to make seasonings.

so it is not a meme?

100% not a meme

I cube tofu, cover in corn starch, throw in air fryer for 8 minutes. (chicken wings can be made the same in 20 minutes -- way better than anything from a restaurant)

when tofu is done, i add a little water, toss in some broccoli, close for 3 minutes, done

nuke pre-made rice and i have lunch in no time

i still use oven for longer-cook items like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and brussel sprouts, but only if I have a main cooking in the air fryer. but the oven gets used a lot less these days.

Chopped brussel sprouts are really good in the air fryer if you like some of the leaves to crisp up.

It's mostly a meme. They are good at cooking some things, but frying is not one of them. They're basically an expensive toaster oven.

*Edit: 'are'

I disagree. I cook with a fairly wide range of techniques (e.g., sous vide, convection oven, slow cooker, smoker, pressure cooker), and my recently acquired air fryer has been a pleasant surprise. I was skeptical, but happy to be proven wrong. It is fast, versatile, and the results are often outstanding. It is great for things like fries, reheating frozen food, and fish. It is easily the best pizza reheating device I have yet encountered.

> It is great for things like fries, reheating frozen food, and fish. It is easily the best pizza reheating device I have yet encountered.

So the thing toaster oven/convection oven is good at ? Aside from big oven heating slowly of course

Yes, it's essentially a miniature convection oven. It cuts down a lot on preheating time. Life is short. It is also quite easy to clean.

edit: Also, I should point out that the "basket" form factor of the air fryer is helpful. In the convection oven things tend to lie flay on a sheet, and cooking is less even. Granted, I could put a basket-like container in the convection oven, but it would still be much slower to heat.

None of this changes the fact they more or less cook the same things as toaster ovens.

I hate to call it convection oven. In my mind convection oven is just bit better regular oven. Pretty much the same, only difference is that it is bit faster and you can put more stuff in if needed.

I have owned an oven, toaster, toaster oven, air fryer, dehydrator, deep fryer, microwave oven. Air fryers use a fan to circulate the heat. While a toaster/convection oven typically use radiant heat. Upside to air fryer is the speed. Downside is it will tend to cause fats to render out quickly making the food more on the dry side. Some foods/diets are suited to that style of cooking.

Growing up my parents almost exclusively used a pot shaped one with the fan/heater in the lid, to make roast chickens. The skin usually came out nice and crunchy and spicy. It would be tougher to get that same effect in a toaster oven or oven. They also tend to heat more evenly so for reheating they cook better than a microwave. But can not beat a microwave on speed.

Think of each of these as tool to get things done. Each one can mostly do what the others can. But some tools are better suited to cooking styles than others.

They're like... plus ultra superior toaster ovens, because they circulate the air.

It circulates air a bit harder than a convection oven in my experience.

It cooks things way faster.

It's definitely not a toaster oven. The fan is important - there's a reason CPU radiators have fans on them, and it's not because they don't do anything.

You can argue it's just a convection oven with a faster fan, but that doesn't make it a "meme".

They're also, like, very much not expensive at this point. It's a very commoditized, competitive market, and you can pick them up for <$50.

Exactly that. 100% correct

It's an oven with a big fan.

An airplane is a car with a big fan.

Any recommendations for one from OP or anyone else with one they’re pleased by?

You'll get some proper recommendations, but I'll mention that I have a very cheap no brand thing that cost under $50 at a grocery store. A skeptical, low investment purchase. It's amazing.

No fancy features, the design could clearly be improved, but chuck anything in this small chamber, crank up the timer and delicious food comes out 10mins later. I've gifted nice models to others, without feeling any need to upgrade my own. Maybe when it breaks.

I would suggest sticking with a small one though. Quicker to heat, better circulation etc

I recently got a "Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro". I love it. It gets a little dirty inside, but it cooks so much better than a traditional over, is great for reheating food over the microwave, and the air fryer works really well. And it is a great example of user interfaces because it has no touch screens with dedicated knobs for everything. It is a breeze to use and a nice breath of fresh air when it comes to having physical knobs, which are additional quite nice knobs.

https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/ovens/bov900.html

I'm going to argue the above largely misses the point of what makes a good air fryer and what you have linked about is actually just a fancy toaster oven.

You did mention it yourself - "It gets a little dirty inside".

Compare it to the $30 air fryers that are essentially an insulated cooking pot with a detachable heating element. They do the same thing but are so trivial to clean since they are a cooking pot that fits in the sink.

It's one of those things in life where cheaper is better in my opinion and i do not recommend the above product at all.

I.e., pros and cons exist for products that do different things. I can't reheat items, such as pizza, in just an air fryer.

You can if you slice it

I got this one on sale for BF, and it's been absolutely amazing. I cook fish to perfect temp using the probe, without having to check it at all. And I cook my side dish at the same time, and this thing finishes them together with smart cook!

https://www.ninjakitchen.com/exclusive-offer/DZ550WBKT/Ninja...

If I were buying now and where to splurge I would probably go with Phillips XXL. Not necessarily the smart model, but bigger size.

Is it any better than a normal electric oven + ventilation?

The reason is that it's much smaller in terms of internal volume.

... and put them over rice that you made in your $130 rice cooker

We bought a nice one and it smelt terrible, like awful melted plastic. We didn't even use the thing, we returned it. From what I can tell, the insides are covered in some kind of PFAS and I do not want to eat something from it. My oven does convection just fine.

We had this issue at first also. The company told us to run it on the steam setting with a bit of water and some vinegar. Did that a couple times and hasn't made a smell since then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com