How to Use Your New Air Fryer

Perhaps the most important concept to understand about your new air fryer is that it is essentially a small oven and not a deep fryer despite the somewhat confusing term. Air fryers curculate hot air as the mechanism for heat instead of oil which makes them not only more eco-friendly but better for your overall general health. Foods cooked with an air fryer will be somewhat different that traditionally fried food from your corner pub because they only use hot air, rather than hot oil. In this article well cover the quick and dirty of what we believe you need to know to help you get started quickly. We had no clue when we bought our fist air fryer and just jumped right in! We don’t recommend you do this, however. Ground zero is first reading your owners manual and we’ll discuss when to do this later in the article.

Air Fryer Basic Skinny

There is a difference between Air fryers and traditional deep-fried foods. As you know, the main downside with deep frying food is that it’s high in fat. However, air fryers use hot air to cook your food at low temperatures which still ensure crispy texture! They are basically small, powerful ovens, and ovens use air as a vehicle for heat, whereas deep-frying uses fat as the vehicle for heat. Because air fryers are ovens and not fryers, foods that come out of your air fryer will not be 100% identical to the onion rings at Cone-n-Shake or the calamari rings at your favorite bar and grill. The upshot is that air fryers are much less messy and oil-intensive than deep-frying. Even better, these lil’ ovens can do much more than crank out faux fried food. Air fryers bring beautifully browned vegetables, crackly-skinned chicken wings, and even light and airy cakes, all within your reach.

Different Types of Air Fryers

The most common type of air fryer on the market is the basket-type air fryer. This air fryer has one function: to cook food using only hot, dry jet streams of heated, pressurized air. It looks like a funky coffee maker with a removable bowl and it’s also called an “air popcorn popper.” I’ll cover this kind as well in this article! You can also find boxy multi-function air fryers on the market. These look like toaster ovens, but are a lot bigger! They also hold more food than basket-type air fryers. If you have an individual countertop oven with an “air fryer” setting, this guide still has some tips that will be useful for you so don’t give up yet!

How Air Fryers Work

Air fryers don’t exactly mimic the heat distribution in a deep-frying operation – their airflow is designed to be more closely modeled after that of hot fat. For our purposes, this works well enough.od not getting cooked properly (something called “hot spots”). In a convection oven, however, fans blow hot air around so the temperature is equalized throughout the oven. Air fryers aren’t exactly like convection ovens; their airflow is designed to more closely replicate the heat distribution of deep-frying in hot fat. But for our purposes, the convection oven analogy is good enough.

Out of the Box

Some removable parts of the air fryer are dishwasher safe and may be washed in your machine. After opening, you should take apart all “removable components” before washing them. these will include a basket on top and a grate or perforated tray at the bottom. After putting it together again, place the air fryer away from any walls or heat sources so that it can sit in a location where you might typically use it. There might be a slight chemical smell in the air. If you are not comfortable with this, simply have your windows or vents open for an hour and it should dissipate.re cooking with it. There might be a slightly chemical smell (one manual referred to it as a “new appliance smell”), so you may want to have a window or two open for a few minutes. This is also a great time to read the instruction manual while you are near your new cooker so you can visually refer to the product as you read along.

Air Fryer Cooking and Cook Time Tips

Always have the grate in the basket. This allows hot air to circulate around the food, and also keeps the food from sitting in excess oil.Air fryers are loud. When it’s running, you’ll hear whirring fans.It’s hands-on. Even browning requires you to remove the basket and shuffle the food around every few minutes.It’s fine to pull out the basket for a peek. You can do this at any point into the cooking process. No need to shut off the machine, as it shuts itself off when the basket is out.Accordingly, make sure the drawer is pushed all the way in, or it won’t turn back on. You’ll know, because the air fryer will be suddenly quiet.Food cooks fast, faster than you’re used to! It’s one of the best attributes of the air fryer. Your air fryer’s manual likely has a handy table of cooking times and temperatures for common foods. The less food in the basket, the shorter the cook time will be; the more food, the longer it will be.You may need a slightly lower temperature. A lot of air fryer recipes call for lower temperature settings than their conventional counterparts. This might seem fishy, but just go with it. Once again, air fryers get hot very fast and move that hot air around, so a slightly lower temperature will help keep food from getting too dark or crispy on the outside, while still being properly cooked on the inside.

How to Know What Size Air Fryer You Need

Air fryers are best suited for cooking one or two servings at a time. Expecting leftovers from an air fryer just isn’t likely if your family size is an average of four members. However, let’s say you’d like to cook some chicken thighs. You can easily place four to six medium to large size thighs in a medium size in your fryer. If your family is only two or three members then you’d definitely have a few left over unless you’re all starving to death and decide to eat all of them! Air fryer sizes range from as small as two quarts up to as large as twelve quarts.

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Do You Need to Pre-Heat AIr Fryer?

If you are ready to cook your food and your air fryer is not preheated, how long should your cook time be? Preheat the unit for a few minutes before starting food in order to save yourself some cooking time. If you want less cooking time, you can try skipping preheating altogether but might depend on what kind of recipe you’re making. see if it works better for or worse for your dish based on which way gives more heat (or longer cook times). We’ve tried it both ways and the outcome is rarely of any significance. We simply get all our settings to where we want them, place the food in the basket and slide it in place. The unit will automatically raise the temperature to the selected temperature and will “beep” when it reaches the set level so you’re essentially skipping the step of adding the food.

Not so Obvious Air Fryer Tips & Things to Avoid (In No Particular Order)

Below are a few things we’ve learned using our air fryer(s) that may not necessarily be pointed out in your owners manual. We’re certainly not expert air fryer cooks but we’ve learned a lot!

Very warm air exits out of the back of an air fryer so you want to make sure there is at least a foot of space all the way around the unit.

Be sure to not overload the basket drawer. Your food will cook better and much more evenly by allowing the air to circulate more freely.

Make sure you don’t forget to pull the basket out and give it a little shake. You do this when the unit beeps about half way through the cooking time and the unit will display “turn food.” Keep in mind you’d only be doing this with foods such as vegetables, frozen chicken tenders, homemade potato chips, etc. With large or heavier food such as chicken breasts you’d use a fork to turn them over vs. shaking the basket!

You can use a light brush of oil prior to cooking. You typically only need to do this with vegetables but we’ve tried it with chicken, fish, beef and turkey. We use our hands to rub it on meat and with vegetables we place them in a large bowl, toss, add a generous amount of oil and toss again using our hands to ensure it covers them evenly. Lastly, you don’t need to coat the cooking basket sides or the cooking tray (which is the area where the food sits). Instead, focus on putting the oil on the food. We typically use olive or avocado oil.

It’s always recommended to use an oil that has a high “smoke point.” We have mixed feelings about all this as every recipe or dish we just do from scratch requires a lower heat and cook time setting vs. what the recipe book says. This is often the same parallel as with a conventional range oven. In other words, recipe cook and heat times rarely base these numbers upon the size of your air fryer.

For all the space they hog on a countertop, air fryers don’t have a big capacity. For the best results, don’t load the drawer up with food (the image used in marketing air fryers is quite misleading). It’s so tempting to add another handful of potato sticks or shaved beets, but you’ll learn from experience that food comes out crisper and cooks up faster if you work in small batches.

Be careful not to put the basket on a countertop as it will be hot at the end of the cook time. Place it on a potholder or something similar. And always, hold it by the handle or you can badly burn your hand. We’ve stupidly done this but fortunately, the burn was nothing sever.

Don’t dump the food directly onto a plate or large serving bowl. We’ve done this too! If you do this it will all come tumbling out and the tray’s cooking grate comes flying out at the same time. We like to use a large wooden cooking spoon to remove roasted vegetables and usually use a fork or tongs for things like chicken or beef.

Don’t rely entirely on the temperature level or the timer level. It’s going to take a few times cooking your favorite things and determining how the size and weight affects the cook time and temperature.

Be careful where you touch the air fryer after you’ve cooked something. The interior will remain very hot until it cools down so be careful until it does.

During the first half dozen times using your air fryer, pay attention. In other words, it takes a little practice to do the “set it and forget it” cooking method but you’ll get there. We recommend not talking on the phone, listening to music, leaving the room, etc. until you get the hang of things.

Once your food is done, turn off your airfryer if it doesn’t have an auto shut off (entry level models may not) and unplug it from the wall socket.

Don’t get startled the first time you turn on your air fryer! The fan is relatively loud but not annoyingly so and once you’ve used it a few times it will be a familiar sound.