Honestly, makes sense. For a while when they were at peak popularity, they were hard to get (backordered in some cases) and comparatively expensive. By buying after the peak, you can get some very nice discounts.
Much the same as when the Instapot became the must have gadget.
I will say, that an electric pressure cooker and air fryer, unlike a lot of faddy food devices (juicers, I’m looking at you…) both do things that are hard (but by no means impossible) to do via other means, and almost always with far less time. I do have both. But I use the air fryer more than the pressure cooker, if only because I still like a number of dishes cooked in my slow cookers more than the pressure cooker.
I’m still learning to use mine, so I can hardly pretend to be an expert, but there’s one cool trick I’ve already leaned: when making small amounts of something, a small loosely-fitting scrap of parchment paper over the crisper plate can entirely eliminate the need for cleanup and still produce good results provided there’s a couple of big air gaps around the sides to allow air to circulate.
For instance, feeling like a little snack, I just now fried five chicken wings on some parchment paper. 17 minutes with no preheating, turning once after 8 minutes. They turned out perfect, just like wings served in a pub. The scrap of parchment had collected a bunch of drippings and it went straight in the garbage. No cleanup. For larger quantities I’d put them straight in the basket and shake or rearrange more often.
I plan on doing the same, at least to the basket itself; the crisper plate may or may not need washing. This is the strategy I use with my most frequently used non-stick fry pan – after use, I rinse it in hot water and wipe it down with a paper towel. I never use soap and heaven forbid I should ever put it in the dishwasher! After something like 15 years it’s still in perfect condition, perfectly non-stick, and the germs haven’t killed me yet!
On the subject of chicken wings and air fryer timing. The regular fries I bought recently have specific air fryer directions, from which I extrapolated the chicken wing temperature and timings. The wings say 25-30 minutes at 425F in a regular oven, so with a conversion factor of 0.6 for time that extrapolates to 15 to 18 minutes in the air fryer at 360F. That turns out to be just about spot-on.
I have a friend who owns a local brewery. During COVID it was a strong possibility his business would fail, as some did (RIP Spigot). He ramped up his kitchen and began making weekend dinners and offering curbside service. One of the offerings were smoked chicken wings. He also had full dinners for two; stuffed green peppers, salad, bread, sides, baked zitti, etc. We always got his weekend dinners. One would feed us for two meals. I posted pictures on Facebook and really praised his food. Soon he was selling out each weekend.
His chicken wings and smoking process are so good that I would not consider making my own. Anytime we stop in he sends us home with a wing in a bag for Rocco, our bird who was in several pictures eating his wings.
There are two types of air fryers. Baskets and large toaster ovens. The toaster oven ones are easy to clean, but after years of use internal parts will not look new.
The wings I buy are frozen and pre-cooked – I’d never consider making them from scratch. This particular store brand comes in a variety of types. My current fave (just finished the first box) is medium Buffalo-style, which are actually pretty hot. Among other varieties are smoked wings, which your post reminded me of. Haven’t had those yet.
I had the last six wings for lunch from the first box, done once again on a bit of parchment paper to save on cleanup. Set the timer for 17 minutes at 360F and turned at 8:30. Then just for fun, turned again at about 2:00. They turned out so gorgeous and tasty that I was going to take a picture!
These are the ones I currently use, and the smoked ones that I haven’t tried. (My Buffalo wings turned out more browned and better looking than the picture on that box!) There are about three or four other kinds that I haven’t tried yet, either.
Chicken wings are very easy to make from scratch and if you just use starch to coat before cooking (then saucing) are both cheaper and tastier and healthier than frozen (since you could use a low sugar sauce). But it uses lots of oil, so is not trouble free; you’d have to want a better tasting and healthier thing.
But air frying is definitely the way to go for good taste with less hassle.
Another air fryer triumph – sausage rolls! I’m discovering, as expected, that just like a microwave, an air fryer isn’t ideal for everything, but 5-minute fries, chicken wings, mozzarella cheese sticks, and now sausage rolls are great!
The interesting thing about these sausage rolls (President’s Choice frozen uncooked pork sausage rolls) is that (a) the box has directions specifically for air fryers, and (b) the cook time is less than half of what they suggest for a regular oven – the biggest discrepancy I’ve yet seen. It says 400F for 27 to 29 minutes in a regular oven, 360F for just 12 minutes in an air fryer. Considering that a regular range oven takes around 15 to 20 minutes just to preheat, you’re looking at somewhere around three-quarters of an hour to prepare them in an oven, and just 12 minutes in the air fryer. For this particular product, it’s almost like the difference between oven-baking and microwaving!
It was also one of the few times that I didn’t use any protective parchment paper to contain grease drippings because I wanted to do it exactly according to the instructions. They left grease on the crisper tray and drippings down in the basket, but both could be rinsed off in seconds in hot water. I didn’t even bother with detergent. It’s the same way I clean my prized T-Fal non-stick frying pan – a spritz of Dawn detergent in the sink to blend with grease so it doesn’t coagulate in the drains, a quick rinse in hot water, and then drying off with a paper towel.
I’m on my 3rd airfryer (we air fry daily, so I’m not complaining). This time I went with a different design: it opens from the top, with a glass lid, allowing viewing of the food as it cooks. This is a great feature as it allows you see what’s cooking and prevent burning without opening the unit. So far, it’s a fine machine and I’m glad I bought it.
Thin, light items like slices of cheese would always fly off the food in my previous air-fryers, ending up melted some place I didn’t want it, like the roof of the basket area. This has not been a problem with my new fryer—it appears to direct the air-flow downward, better.
I make all the typical air-fryer dishes (wings, fries, frozen heat & serve items, etc.). But I also use it to “touch up” dishes made on the stove-top, like browning breadcrumbs on top of mac & cheese, or the mashed potatoes on top of my world famous shepherd’s pie. It imparts that satisfying maillard reaction.
I also use it to bake canned Grands biscuits (330f x 12 minutes) for my bacon, mushroom & egg breakfast biscuits, so I don’t have to fire up the big oven. It’s also great for reheating pizza. Instead of nuking it, I fry a slice or two for 2 minutes in the air fryer, for a semi-crunchy crust, instead of a floppy, soggy nuked mess.
Pro Tip: I place a pie tin in the fryer and put the food inside that when frying. This keeps the inside of the fryer looking pristine, and cleaning the pie tin is easier than cleaning the basket. I place a round metal rack with 1” elevated legs inside the pie tin when I want better air circulation from the bottom, or to add a second layer of food.
And yet another air fryer triumph, just to mention it for those who may not have been following the “what’s for dinner tonight” thread. As useful as an air fryer may be for preparing frozen french fries quickly, that’s nothing compared to what it can do to make real french fries from raw potatoes! My first experiment produced just about the best fries I’ve ever had!
Cut up little potatoes tossed with spices and a bit of olive oil - heaven! Little canned potatoes are even quicker…I made these last night with air fried chicken thighs (cooked separately), rubbed with the same spices and a touch of sugar (the secret to getting a good caramelization). Cost me about $10 for the two of us and it was all just scrumptious.
Our new oven has an air fryer mode, in addition to convection bake and convection roast modes. So far all I can tell about ‘air fry’ is that uses the broiler element to heat above the food with the temperature controlled instead of on all the time like conventional broiler settings. The convection fan may be running also but it doesn’t make any noise so I can’ tell for sure. There is no preheat in the air fryer mode, just push the button and set the temp. Works great on frozen french fries, haven’t tried anything else.
Home fries come out great and are ridiculously easy in the air fryer. Used to make them in a skillet and it took a really long time and you had to stand there and watch it and stir. Adding onions and peppers made it take even longer.
Now I just wash and cut up the potatoes, toss them in oil and seasoning, and dump it all into the air fryer. Give it a shake every few minutes, add in the chopped onions and peppers once the potatoes are mostly done, and give it a few more minutes for everything to cook and crisp up a little. Comes out perfect every time.
A little oil dripping into the bottom under the basket is no big deal. I remove the basket and pour any grease into the trash can, or blot it with a paper towel before washing… The basket itself, I spray with Dawn Power Wash. Wait a few minutes, wipe it off, and then wash… I also use perforated parchment paper sheets underneath anything greasy (like raw chicken) so it doesn’t stick and burn on the basket…You can buy a huge package on Amazon…There are cleaning tips on various models on youtube, involving Q-tips to clean the fan and heating coil.
Depending on what you cooked in it, an air fryer may need very little or no cleaning at all. In most cases I’ll usually run the crisper tray under hot water with a touch of dish detergent, rinse, and set out to dry, then wipe out the main basket with paper towel if necessary, as per @kayaker’s method.
Air fryers with non-stick coated components are really easy to keep clean, and there’s no real need to be fastidious about it. The most demanding cleaning I’ve had to do yet was when I made french fries from scratch, and even that was really simple. I might have used more oil than necessary, so the crisper was pretty oily and lots had dripped down into the basket. No problem. Since they turned out so well I decided to make another batch the next day and didn’t clean anything out at all. After the second batch, I had a dishwasher load to do anyway so put the crisper tray in the dishwasher and just rinsed out the basket in hot water with a couple of drops of dish detergent, rinsed, and dried off with a paper towel. Took just seconds.
I don’t have any special liners or gadgets for it, but when I’m doing frozen chicken wings and there aren’t very many of them, I’ll put a loose-fitting roughly circular piece of parchment paper over the crisper tray. Halfway through cooking, I turn them over with tongs. At most there might be a small amount of sauce that spills over onto the crisper tray, but usually there’s nothing to clean at all. I just throw out the piece of parchment.
When doing sausage rolls I put them directly on the ventilated crisper tray, resulting in them being perfectly browned due to airflow from top and bottom. The small amount of grease can just be rinsed off the crisper tray in hot water and the main basket needs nothing more than wiping with a paper towel.
Sadly, you really do have to clean AFs after every single use if you want to keep them nice. I had a model of air fryer that always had a layer of crud on it, then I lived temporarily with roommates in a house with that exact same model of air fryer and carefully cleaned it after every use and it stayed immaculate. I then inherited that same air fryer except living alone and it rapidly accumulated the same layer of crud.
I realized that the real no-no with air fryers is leaving grease in there to oxidize, then heating it up again. That grease formed a gummy, hard to remove layer that just grows over time.
The key is you can never let grease accumulate. Just rinse it out with detergent and a sponge and it will be fine but if you forget even once, then it will take a lot of effort to return it back to its formerly pristine state. Of course, if you’re fine with the crud, then you do you but eventually, it starts flaking off into the food and getting gross.
I generally place a metal pie pan (from the Dollar Store) in the basket to catch grease. For larger items, I place a circular metal grate with legs in the pie pan, to allow better air circulation from below. This combo keeps the basket pristine. When the pie pan gets grungy after many uses/cleanings, I just buy another one at the dollar store, for $1.25 (the buggers raised their prices last year ).
I’m sure that’s true, but no one is suggesting that. The question is whether it’s only necessary to wipe down the oil or greasy residue or whether it needs to be thoroughly washed away with detergent.
My view is that it depends. If there’s actual food residue, whether solid or liquid, then probably yes. If, as in the case of making fries, the “grease” is just olive oil, then wiping it down is probably sufficient. The only reason I sometimes put the crisper plate in the dishwasher is that all the ridges and holes make it harder to wipe down if it’s very greasy. The big basket it sits in never goes in the dishwasher.
I’ve had one non-stick frying pan that I’ve treated that way for a great many years – just wiping down with a paper towel after frying eggs in butter and bacon and stuff like that in it. I usually give it a quick rinse first in hot water, with a bit of dish detergent in the sink to go down the drain. In fact I’m convinced that never putting it through the rough detergent scrubbing of a dishwasher is probably why the non-stick surface is still as good as new. The concept is not much different than seasoning cast iron.
I have another non-stick covered frying pan that I use for other things like frying and then steaming dumplings and doing stir-fries that tend to leave more crud behind. That one I do usually wash out gently with hot water and a bit of dish detergent. As I said, it depends.
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