Recently we found ourselves without a toaster oven so we decided to try a small air fryer (convection oven). To our surprise, we grew to love it and now we rarely use our regular oven. Not only does the air fryer cook food quickly, but you can set it and cook without watching over it. Food turns out deliciously browned, and you use less oil than pan frying and much less oil than deep frying.
The energy used is much less than heating up your oven. According to an article on cnet.com, the cost per hour of cooking in an air fryer is much lower than your regular oven, as shown in the chart below.
| Cost per hour of cooking | |
|---|---|
| Gas oven | 40 cents |
| Electric oven | 52 cents |
| Air fryer | 25 cents |
Some of our favorite air fryer items are chicken, Brussels sprouts, french “fried” potatoes, fish and open-faced grilled cheese. You can also use it for reheating leftovers. A special treat in the air fryer is onion rings, which are actually healthy since they are not deep fried.
Air fryers come in different sizes, ranging from about two to eight quarts. We wanted something that would not take up much counter space, so we went with a small one. Our two quart/liter model works well for the two of us, since we added a rack to allow us to cook two levels at once.
If you look online, you’ll also find specialized baking pans, parchment liners and other accessories to suit your particular needs. There are also many cookbooks available too. Our DREO came with several recipes to get us started.
We can’t imagine a household that would not benefit from and have fun using an air fryer.