I’m finally getting my first air fryer tomorrow. I have one of those toaster ovens with a convection cook function and a basket and it’s complete shit at doing something equivalent to air frying so I only use it to make toast and I almost never make toast. That thing is just taking up space. It’s going on the Craigslist free section shortly.
I decided on the Instant Pot brand Vortex Plus 6 Quart. There happens to be a great sale on Amazon for $99. I can’t wait to play with it.
Glad to see another future fan come on board! Enjoy!
I keep finding new uses for mine, besides obvious things like chicken wings, frozen fries, and sausage rolls. Just yesterday I was reheating some leftover spaghettini, for example. No, the air fryer doesn’t help with that – that’s what microwaves are for – but I fancied some mushrooms with it.
The way I normally do cremini mushrooms is to rinse and dry them with paper towel then let them sit for a few hours to thoroughly dry. Then sautee them in a frying pan in garlic butter.
I wanted them in a hurry so I first used the air fryer in “dehydrate” mode for a few minutes just to dry the mushrooms. Then I melted garlic butter in the microwave in an oven proof soup bowl, tossed the mushrooms in it, and put the entire bowl in the air fryer because I wanted the 'shrooms to absorb the garlic butter.
The above is not a technique I’ve seen endorsed anywhere, but it worked great! Six minutes in the air fryer, tossing once with a spoon after three minutes, and they turned out as well as my regular method in a fraction of the time and with no mess – the bowl just went in the dishwasher, no spatter all over the stove, cleanup done!
I and other posters have lots of other examples in this thread of how great these things are. Just remember the three Ts: Timing, Temperature, and Technique. All three are different in an air fryer than a regular oven – cook time is faster, temperature generally lower, and techniques may differ. Many frozen or prepared items have instructions specific to air fryers, but many don’t. You have to adapt your own. It varies with the food, but this is the preamble to my personalized list of air fryer timings:
My rule of thumb for conversion from oven instructions to air-fry instructions: 425F in a regular oven means 360F in air fryer; for something that says 450F I’ll assume 375F in air fryer.
The chicken wings I have say 25-30 minutes at 425F, so that extrapolates to 15 to 18 minutes in the air fryer at 360F. [I’ve settled on 17 minutes, turning them over at 8:30.]
Homemade fries from scratch, tossed in olive oil with some garlic salt, are great in an air fryer! For mine, these are my customized directions:
Basic recipe for homemade fries in an air fryer:
- Scrub and clean the potatoes. Cut the potatoes into even ¼-inch thick strips.
- Soak the fries in cold water for at least an hour.
- Put fries in plastic bag, add several tablespoons of olive oil and a few dashes of garlic salt, toss, add a bit more garlic salt, and toss thoroughly.
- Transfer the fries into the air fryer basket. Set temp to 375 and timer for 20 minutes, but they will usually be golden brown and ready in 16 minutes (4 minutes left on the timer).
Thanks. Those two quoted items were exactly what I was looking to find out first. Also potato chips.
Tonight’s Airfryer Dessert Delight: Frozen Pillsbury Raspberry Turnover
Cooking Instructions:
Result: Perfection every time!
To effortlessly convert oven recipes to airfryer settings, I just use a handy free phone app. No-brainer!
And the name of that app is?
Air Fryer Calculator. Android.
I forgot to mention the obvious fact that in addition to the temperature adjustment rule of thumb from oven to air fryers, there’s obviously also a time adjustment – my rule of thumb is 2/3 of oven time for the air fryer, but it varies a lot depending on what you’re cooking.
I trust that the calculator takes into account what you’re cooking, since the timing varies.with the food type.
Examples of two extremes:
Biggest difference I’ve seen yet is frozen sausage rolls (which come with air fryer instructions) – 27-29 minutes in 400F regular oven, 12 minutes at 360F in air fryer.
Least difference: frozen 5-minute shoestring fries. About 7-9 minutes in a 450F regular oven, 5 minutes (without preheating) at 375F in air fryer.
The sausage rolls are a great example of the convenience of air fryers. Since it takes a regular oven around 15 minutes to preheat, it would take a total of around 43 minutes to prepare them. With the air fryer, which I don’t bother preheating at all, they’re ready in 12 minutes, and it uses far less electricity and doesn’t dump heat into the house.
The 5-minute fries are great if you need fries quickly for a snack or whatever. Since it’s impractical to do wings and fries together, I’ll do the wings first, cover them in foil to let them rest, and the fries are ready five minutes later.
The 5-minute fries are not nearly as good as homemade, but they come out of the air fryer pretty much identical to McDonald’s fries, for better or worse.
Q:
don’t you get “chicken / french fry / whatever you air-fry a lot” aroma or smell into your dessert? … I have refrained from doing anything sweet for this very reason …
I assume a complete cleaning of the hardware is a starting point …
is there a drying / padding dry somewhere in between? …
short (mundane and pointless) story:
I just acquired an IKEA mandoline slicer from hell
works extremely well and is as sharp as my 25 y.o. me in math …
I’d like a good workflow for potato-chips … one of the problems I found that even in the thickest setting those came out pretty thin and clung together … and padding each individual dry was not an option either …
(if I don’t get any good anwers, I will channel my inner Dora-the Exploradora and muck around and report back)
Anybody any hints or pointers (well mostly a process/workflow) for potato chips?
I shake off the water and pat the fries a bit with a paper towel, but I don’t obsess about it. They’re still pretty moist when I shake them up with olive oil and garlic salt, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They get well coated with oil and crisp up to a golden brown.
We had some apple pie spring rolls that were pretty amazing. Like this:
Those look tasty! I just checked the Walmart site and it’s as if an urgent directive had gone out to all stores: “Apple Pie Rolls to be removed immediately from all stores in the vicinity of Wolfpup. All other stores may maintain their stock.”
It’s uncanny!
I think the apple pie rolls we got were from Costco.
I would love to cook chicken “chunks” (not quite fingers or tenders) in our air fryer but they don’t seem to come out well.
I really like my chicken well cooked but instead they come out too chewy. The line between “too raw in the center” and “overcooked” seems impossible to reach.
I’d appreciate any advice on temperature and what not. Not really looking for recipes. I’m just cooking chicken with olive oil or BBQ sauce on it.
.I slice my chips by hand with a very sharp knife. Soak in a big bowl of water for a bit. Drain, rinse, drain, lay out individual chips on a towel. Then put the chips in a bowl and refrigerate to drive off even more water.
Toss in a bowl with oil and seasonings. DO SEVERAL SMALL BATCHES so as not to crowd. High heat, pausing and tossing every few minutes. Adjust times to your specific machine. I like to cook until “nearly too long”.
When almost done I sometimes add diced peppers or onions.
Funny, I’m thawing out some chicken breast that I plan to marinate in yogurt, garlic, lemon, and spices for a few hours to cook in the air fryer tonight. Maybe on skewers if I can find any. I usually make panko-coated chicken tenders with breast and cook thighs once a week in various ways. It’s very important not to overcook white meat chicken.
I do most of my grocery shopping with Kroger Delivery (they have no stores here, just a warehouse). I’m a fan of the Kroger Brand appetizers & starters. I’ve gotten most of the items on this page and they all cook fast, crisp, and delicious in the airfryer. I always get them on digital coupon, so the price is right too.
Sounds delicious, but personally, I’d want to put those breasts in a covered dish in my oven with most of the marinade present. Air frying might work, but you’d have to remove the delicious marinade.
I have a toaster oven air fryer. I often find that things take half the listed time even when using a recipe designed for air fryers. Since it is easy to overlook, I often check on things at half the listed time or use half time and rely on further ambient cooking from retained heat. For frozen items, it can sometimes take a third of the listed time.
thx - competent writeup …
and looking at your avatar, I assume your chips are served with banana-milk 