What are the air fryer’s pros and cons? Have you ever heard about them? The air fryer is a fantastic invention because it brings many advantages to cooking. Besides, it still has some disadvantages. Let’s explore them in this post immediately.
An air fryer can help reduce cooking time and make your food healthier. It also burns and dries your food if you don’t check frequently. Aside from the pros and cons, are there any other ideas? Read this post and find the answer to this question now!
A Short Brief About Air Frying
Have you ever heard about air frying? Do you know how air fryers work? If you have no idea about these topics, this part will help you boost your knowledge with some interesting facts about the air fryer.
What Is An Air Fryer?
One theory suggests that the air fryer was invented in the early 2000s by Fred van der Weij, a General Manager, Product Development and Inventor of APDS Development. The device was born thanks to the mix of hot air technology and Maxson’s fan.
In general, an air fryer is a small convection oven that can cook and fry food without using much oil, making it a healthy option for consumers. It also creates food that tastes similar to deep-fried dishes with better tastes.
Aside from frying, you can try many cooking techniques with an air fryer, such as roasting, broiling, baking, reheating, and dehydrating. This device can make onion rings, chicken wings, brownies, cookies, or kebab skewers.
Discover exciting information about the history of air fryers.
How Does An Air Fryer Cook Food?
In short, an air fryer works as a countertop convection oven. Food is cooked with hot air instead of hot oil like deep frying. You’ll find an electric coil in this appliance that operates as a heating element.
Moreover, there is a small fan above this coil, and this element is in charge of blowing the hot air into veggies, meats, fish, and poultries, making them golden, crispy, and cooked evenly.
Let’s explore how an air fryer works for cooking your food.
Take A Look At The Summary Table Of Air Fryer’s Pros And Cons
Before boosting your knowledge with fantastic information about the pros and cons of air fryers, it’s better to look at the table below to have overview information related to this topic.
Advantages Of Using An Air Fryer For Cooking
From my point of view, an air fryer is a great invention for humankind because it makes cooking more effective and easier. To understand more about the good points of an air fryer, let’s read this part carefully.
1. Reduce Grease Odors
The first advantage of using an air fryer is the low grease odors because the oil will not be a part of the cooking process and fill your kitchen with a grease smell. Otherwise, this is the situation you often encounter when using oil.
Furthermore, people often reuse the oil when they use a traditional deep fryer to save oil and money. This habit can make your food smell bad and adversely affect your health.
Using an air fryer can help eliminate this problem because this device does not require oil, so your food will have an authentic smell. Plus, it’s harder to smell remaining food odors when you clean your air fryer regularly.
2. Compatible To Many Kinds Of Food
Another pro of an air fryer is its versatility. This appliance is suitable for various ingredients, like veggies, seafood, or meats. That’s not at all! You can have a full meal with tasty finger foods, entrees, sides, and desserts made with an air fryer.
To make different recipes and food with an air fryer, you must purchase compatible accessories, such as pizza pans, cake pans, racks, or silicone mats. Of course, you can commonly find them at many stores selling household goods.
3. Good For Reheating Food
If you do not want to consume rubbery and dried-out leftover foods after reheating with microwaves and ovens, an air fryer is another great option you should try for a more crunchy and tastier dish.
Whether French fries, pizza slices, fried chicken, or even steak, this appliance can help them regain their crispness without burning. To get a good result, you should not reheat food too long and remember to check your food regularly.
4. Safe From Burning Oil
Heated cooking oil, when making deep-fried food, may splash and damage your skin and clothes during cooking. You can avoid this situation using an air fryer since it only utilizes a small amount of oil.
Plus, the cooking environment of the air fryer is enclosed (happening inside the device), so you don’t have to worry about splashing grease everywhere in the kitchen. In addition, you should wear heat-safe gloves if you want to open the air fryer and check the food condition.
5. Simple To Use
It’s easy to operate an air fryer, as all you need is a power source to run it. Typically, you will find products with modern designs that have digital displays and manual dials for temperature control.
Each recipe will have different cooking times and temperatures, so you need to know these parameters to get it right. However, the parameters you find online may be wrong, so it’s better to experiment to determine the accurate time and temperature.
Furthermore, to make it more convenient and simpler, the manufacturers will provide guidebooks for each model you purchase, and your task is to refer to the specific instructions in the book.
You should apply the tips below while using an air fryer to get the best performance:
- You need to keep your device clean, so make sure to clean it after each use.
- Do not forget to flip the food to ensure your food is cooked evenly and perfectly.
- You should put a single layer of food on the basket and create space between slices, pieces, and portions to prevent them from sticking together and help them cook evenly.
- Before filling the air fryer with food, it’s necessary to preheat the device for about 5 minutes.
- To disperse the oil evenly on the surface of pans or baskets, I highly recommend using a spray bottle instead of pouring oil directly into the air fryer.
- Let your appliance stay away from water, sinks, or humid areas in your house to avoid electrocution.
6. Easy To Clean
Because of using little to no oil, you don’t need to spend a lot of time cleaning the platter on the basket’s surface. Plus, it’s faster and simpler to clean thanks to the PTFE non-stick coating, a synthetic fluorocarbon solid (2), or ceramic non-stick coating layer on the basket.
Do you know how to clean an airy fryer properly? Below are some essential steps you should know to keep your device clean.
- Step 1: Prepare a mix of hot water and dish soap.
- Step 2: Unassemble the basket and the pan insert and soak them in the prepared mixture for about 10 minutes to remove residue, food sticks, and platter.
- Step 3: Wash the accessories with a cloth or non-abrasive sponge.
- Step 4: Let them dry in an airy place.
- Step 5: Wipe down an air fryer’s inside and outer surface with a damp cloth.
- Step 6: Clean the heating element with a dry cloth.
- Step 7: Return parts to the original position after they are completely dry.
7. Cook Faster And Save Cooking Time
Compared to other appliances, such as ovens or microwaves, an air fryer’s preheat time will be shorter. You can preheat it to 400 °F in about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, gas and electric ovens need 13 to 19 minutes to achieve this temperature.
Not only that, the cooking time with an air fryer will be shorter because of its small size. The size advantage of an air fryer helps the heat from being dispersed elsewhere and remains focused mainly on food.
8. Good For Health
Today, people prioritize a low-grease diet to protect their health, so air fryers have become a reliable assistant to them. Thanks to the air fryer, you can create healthy and tasty meals with little or no cooking oil.
You can reduce the risk of cancer when eating fried food made with an air fryer because of the low carcinogens (acrylamide). Acrylamide is a dangerous compound made from high-carbohydrate foods, such as French fries, crackers, potato chips, and bread (1).
9. Make Food Crispier
Air fryer is an indispensable item in the kitchen of crispy food fans because it is good at creating dishes with perfect crunchiness, such as onion rings, French fries, Chicken wings, or fish sticks. This results from the air fryer’s convection-style heating.
Thanks to this feature, the foods will come into contact with super-hot air evenly, which makes them crunchier. Furthermore, its great crispiness comes from low fat and oil because the grease will drip onto the pan through the baskets.
10. Energy Efficient
If you are looking for a cooking appliance that helps save energy, an air fryer is a great suggestion because it consumes little energy during cooking. This results from its small size and high-cooking speed.
Compared to an electric oven and an average gas oven, an air fryer can help save about 50 percent and 35 percent of energy when you cook with this appliance.
11. Great Choice For Small Batches
Air fryer is perfect for small groups of 1 to 4 people because its basket has a capacity of about 3.8 to 4.7 liters. Although there are larger air fryer models, most air fryers are designed to make food enough for a few people.
12. Keep Your Kitchen Cool
Another dominant feature of this great appliance is the reduction in heat output. Many people prioritize this device for frying, baking, or roasting food in the summertime. So, let’s bring an air fryer to your house if you want a versatile device for cooking.
What are the advantages of an air fryer? If you have no idea, let’s find the answer right now.
Disadvantages Of Cooking With Air Fryer
Aside from the advantages, you can encounter some problems and disadvantages when cooking food with an air fryer. Let’s discover what they are in this section.
1. High Prices
In fact, you don’t need to spend too much money when using traditional frying, but it can cost a lot of money to buy an air fryer if you want to have a healthier meal. Most air fryer products cost about $50 to $1000, depending on the function and quality.
2. Waste More Time For Cleaning Than An Oven
Cleaning an air fryer may take longer than an oven because you must handle stains on many elements, like the pan, basket, heating element, and exterior. Meanwhile, you just need to wash the oven’s baking pan after using it with a towel.
3. Wasted Food By Trialing
As I mentioned, to ensure the accuracy of time and temperature, it’s better to perform a few experiments, which can cause food waste. Your test dishes may come out burnt, overcooked, or dry a few times before you find the sweet spot for your recipes.
4. Incompatibility With Some Recipes
Due to the small size, you can’t cook large dishes with this appliance because its volume is insufficient, and the food will not be cooked evenly. Here are some examples that don’t go well in an air fryer and reasons:
5. Not Suitable For Large Party Due To The Limited Volume
Perhaps, an air fryer is not an ideal choice for a big party because of its limited cooking capacity. You can’t cook a lot of food at the same time. In addition, you need to clean an air fryer regularly after each cooking, which is quite time-consuming.
6. Storing Issue
Another disadvantage of an air fryer is the bulky design that can cause many difficulties in moving and maintaining. If your kitchen is too tight or you don’t have a pantry in the cabinets, you should set up this device on the counter.
Furthermore, the bulky design of some air fryer models can take up space in the kitchen, cabinet, and counter. The air fryer will be relatively hot, so remember not to place it under the cabinets or in tight spaces.
Do not forget to leave the air fryer away from the walls because it will interfere with the air circulation system in the back of the air fryer. Plus, hot air radiating from an air fryer during operation can adversely affect the electrical outlet and wall.
7. Not 100% Guarantee
Although cooking food with an air fryer will be healthier than traditional deep frying, it is not always foolproof. To keep them moist, you need to use oil for air-fried chicken, fish, or veggies. Meanwhile, steaming, broiling, or grilling with this device will be safer for your body.
8. Easy To Burn And Dry Food
The fast cooking speed can be a disadvantage of air fryers in some cases, especially for newbies. If you don’t time everything correctly, the hot temperatures of the air fryer can burn your chicken wings or fried fish quickly.
Besides burning, drying is another problem that can happen to your food when cooking with an air fryer. If you don’t check the device regularly and turn it off promptly, you’ll receive a dried meal right away since you don’t put much oil on the air fryer.
9. Waste Time Adjusting Food
To ensure the food achieves crispiness and eye-catching colors, an important thing you have to do is to check and stir food regularly. This will help the sides of chicken or fish cook evenly, but it’ll take a lot of your time, and busy people may not like it.
10. Noise
The air fryer has a fan to blow the hot air, so you will often face noise when turning this appliance on. Although the sound is not too loud, it can break the quiet atmosphere in your home.
FAQs
Before turning off your electric devices, you should stop at this frequently asked questions section to learn more about this topic.
Share Your Other Ideas About The Pros And Cons Of An Air Fryer!
Is it important to know the pros and cons of an air fryer before purchasing it? Of course, yes, because you must understand it and determine whether this device suits you. I hope you found the answer after reading this post.
If you find this article valuable to others, do not forget to share it with people around you. Do you know the other good and bad points of an air fryer? If yes, please leave them in the comment part. Thanks a lot!
