- Air fryers are miniature convection ovens that don’t toast and are difficult to clean.
- Simply said, they’re a shoddy toaster and yet another unneeded kitchen item.
- Here’s why you should use a regular convection toaster oven instead.
Air “fryers” are a disadvantage. They are called fryers, although they are not fryers in any way. In reality, they’re just dumbed-down convection ovens constructed of low-cost plastic. For a similar footprint on your countertop, they offer less cooking surface area and fewer functionalities, and they end up being simply another bulky gadget neither you nor your kitchen ever needed.
Here’s why you should avoid air fryers and instead invest in a toaster oven:
Even our air fryer testers aren’t very fond of them.
Our goal is to tell you what to buy, and we’re sometimes given things to review that we wouldn’t buy ourselves. We still think about, test, and review these things with the same care and attention we give to all other products and services. At the end of the day, you’ll buy what you’ll buy and that’ll be the end of it. Your decision is respected.
“The results are more like oven roasting at a high heat — still a nice final product, but you won’t fool anyone into thinking you just pulled those chicken wings out of a deep fryer,” our reporters Jen Gushue and James Brains, who have tried dozens of the things, said about air fryers.
In my opinion, an air fryer is essentially a convection toaster that does not toast.
The phrase “air fryer” is nothing more than a marketing trick for a technology that has been around for decades.
This is an appeal for the sake of all things honest and decent in the global network of consumption, not in condescension, mockery, or scorn. Avoid marketing gimmicks that clutter your kitchen.
Convection cooking (the technology behind air fryers) has been around since the early 1900s, and has been in residential kitchens since 1945 in the shape of your trusty old toaster oven.
Any quality convection toaster oven can do everything an air “fryer” can do and more with the addition of a wire tray and a metal sheet pan. It can bake, roast, broil, and toast, among other things. Oh, the excitement! A convection toaster oven also performs better than a standard oven because of the internal fan that prevents hot and cold areas.
The majority of air fryers are oddly shaped and proportioned.
Consider how many batches it would take to cook for just two people in an air fryer, let alone four. Even though it has a smaller footprint, it won’t fit as neatly into a corner or beneath a cabinet as a boxier, nicer, and usually stainless-steel convection toaster oven.
Bottom line: buy a toaster oven instead of an air fryer.
But please Stick with the conventional toaster oven you presumably already have, and if you want to air fry, all you need is a roasting pan and wire rack.
Convection toasters are recommended by James Brains, our professional home appliance tester and reviewer, who agrees that they will serve you significantly better. If you’re still interested in an air fryer after all of this, I recommend looking into a multicooker like this one from Instant Pot, which not only features an air fryer but also can pressure cook and slow cook.
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