Air Fryer Virgin Here, 🥸 Have Some Questions…..

[jfmorris]

I am late to the game, but have an air fryer of some off brand I picked up at Target on Black Friday for $30-40 one year. We use it a LOT. It just heats up so much quicker than the regular oven, and the air flow makes for crispier quicker results. I store it on a shelf in the laundry room, but it comes out at least once or twice a week.

While I tend to use it more for heating frozen stuff, versus the regular oven, a couple of nights ago I used it for "pan fried" potatoes, tossing chopped up potatoes in olive oil, and into the air fryer basket they went. I tossed 2 or 3 times during a 20 minute cook, and they came out great. I may have hit with some spray olive oil once or twice during the cook.

You will find cleanup pretty easy even without the liners. The liners would block air flow through the grate at the bottom of the basket, and affect cooking.

Have fun with your new cooking toy!

[Santamarina]

We’ve got a couple air fryers we picked up at Costco for about $40. They work like champs.

We don’t add oil, but I recently stumbled on a great fry hack. Born of laziness…I made bacon one morning and left the grease in the bottom. Made fries for lunch that afternoon and as I tossed the fries mid-cook they got coated in bacon grease. Delicious surprise!

When I do potato’s O’Brien I’ll lay a slice or two of bacon on top for flavor. Once the potatoes are done cooking I’ll remove the grate and mix up the potatoes in the bacon grease.

Speaking of bacon, the air fryer really is my favorite way to cook it. Easy, consistent, hands off.

Wings, chicken nuggets/strips, fries, onion rings…basically anything frozen when you don’t need the full capacity of the oven. Taquitos, egg rolls…

The main trick is to not overfill it. When cooking for one that shouldn’t be an issue.

Its also one of the best tools for reheating leftovers! You’ll think twice about throwing out those leftover fries after you find out they have a real second life in the air fryer!

I don’t use any liners. It’s such an easy cleanup they’re unnecessary.

[jayjordan]

Leftover fries? What's that? Seriously though air fryers do a great job on reheating fries.

[Skinsfan1311]

In my opinion liners on the bottom of the air fryer are a no go. My air fryer has a grate that the food sits on that allows air through it. Allowing the air though the bottom helps crisp up the food from below. Any liner in my opinion would block the air flow.

Agreed.
I lay a out a flat sheet of aluminum foil that just covers the bottom, without affecting the airflow. It makes clean-up easier when I cook brats, bone-in breasts or chops.

[Panhead John]

Has anyone done a frozen pot pie in their air fryer? Asking for my girl Marie.

[gboss]

yeah, sweet calendar girl.

[WI Bubba]

I haven't but I think the crust would burn before the inside was done. I could be wrong, so try it and report back.

[Panhead John]

Will, after googling I found that you can in the air fryer, but should cover the top with foil for the first 3/4 or so of the cook to prevent burning.

[58limited]

I thought an 'air fryer' was someone outside in the open air deep frying over a camp fire.

[SheilaAnn]

Or what it really is….. convection.

[Sid P]

Thought you might like this, John. I haven’t made nachos in mine, but the LW has a two week business trip coming up, so I’ll be giving them a try. Also, note that he uses parchment paper because it makes it easier to get all the ingredients onto a plate. Without it I can envision half the cheese melting and falling through the cracks…

[SheilaAnn]

klflowers here is the “pizza oven set-up”. Sausage mushroom and onion.

about halfway through cooking before I rotated:



Final final:

[klflowers]

Wow!

[SheilaAnn]

klflowers what you can’t see is the way the cheese was bubbling gently.

[realdocBBQ]

I agree the Breville is a great oven. We have used ours quite a lot - unfortunately I need to buy another one, as the fan is going/gone out on ours (makes a horrendous noise) so it is just a plain oven now. If I remember right, I bought this for my wife for Christmas, it would have been 2020 or 2021, I think. So as much as we've used it, 4-5 years isn't a terrible thing, but I hate to throw it out just because of a fan.

For those who are going to suggest replacement, I've researched it and it sounds like this thing is a MAJOR PITA to get apart and back together. It is NOT designed to be serviceable and I think I would even have to drill out rivets and such... I don't think I wanna go to that much trouble and then chance it not working again, or going out soon again if I got the wrong fan or whatever.

Is there another closely similar model from another manufacturer you guys like? Something that's not $400?

I like this size (or larger), we have a little room in the spot we use it most - it sits between the fridge and cooktop. I really like it for loooooong holds of things coming off the smoker. I can hold a large pork butt or one medium-to-large brisket. Holding it at 145 or so for 15 hours or more is a really nice capability.

We've not made whole pizza with it, but it does work well for reheating leftover pizza, for airfrying, etc., without having a separate dedicated airfryer, which The Wife has resisted for many years.

<edit> Once replaced, I might keep this unit in the garage to use as an occasional or 2nd holding oven only.

[SheilaAnn]

realdocBBQ kinda similar in that we are on our 2nd one too. Door hinge thingy messed up really bad (came out of alignment?j. BF tried to fix and shattered the lower heating element. Picked up a 2nd one for around $350. We kept the racks and other accessories and retired the rest of the machine.