Are you – along with nine million other households in Britain – the proud owner of an air fryer?Amid promises that it could cut energy bills in half, slash cooking times and turn French fries into a bona fide health food, the kitchen gadget soared in popularity last year, with sales increasing by 3,000 per cent on 2021. At one point – much to the consternation of social media chefs, TikTok-ing their every interaction with the machine – there were even fears of a national shortage (mercifully, this never came to pass).
Essentially an amped-up convection oven, blasting the food inside with hurricane-strength hot air that goes from 0°C to 240°C in under a minute, air fryers gained global acclaim, with devotees including Gordon Ramsay, Oprah Winfrey and actress Drew Barrymore – who loves air fryers so much she created her own branded model.This week it was revealed that supermarket chains including Waitrose and Aldi are planning to add air fryer cooking instructions to food packaging alongside the more familiar directions for ovens and microwaves.
But if you are among the many who now have an air fryer in the kitchen, be honest: how often do you actually use it?Sure, there was an initial burst of excitement for making ‘corn ribs’, ‘healthy chips’ and roast chicken in under an hour. But has the air fryer really replaced your oven? Do you fire it up for every meal? Or has it – much like mine – ended up being, well, a load of hot air?
I’m the first to admit I was entirely taken in by my Ninja Max 5.2-Litre Air Fryer. It cost £130, which I convinced myself we’d save in energy bills in the first month (we didn’t). For a while I planned weekly dinners around it: sausages and potato wedges for the kids; chicken schnitzel and crispy noodles for the grown-ups. I even braved whole roast dinners in there (the meat was always a squeeze).I invested in an air fryer cookbook, saved countless recipes on my phone and spent hours researching how to whip up cakes, cookies and meringues in my air fryer instead of the oven.
In the end, I found myself craving slow-cooked, saucy, big-dish comfort food, rather than the crispy, dry-as-a-bone, teeny-tiny portions that fitted inside my air fryer
My enthusiasm – and patience – lasted about three weeks. In the end, I found myself craving slow-cooked, saucy, big-dish comfort food, rather than the crispy, dry-as-a-bone, teeny-tiny portions that fitted inside my newfangled cooking contraption.
Rather than saving time and money by using the air fryer, I was slaving away for far longer than normal, taking things in and out of the basket in batches (and then, ironically, keeping them hot in a low oven) to make enough for a family meal. Clearly, whoever designed the appliance didn’t have the appetites of two growing boys and a hungry husband in mind.
I couldn’t help feeling that using the air fryer was, somehow, cheating. Cooking isn’t supposed to involve chucking everything into a sealed compartment, pressing a few buttons and hoping for the best. I like to check on my food, watching it keenly through the oven door and dipping in for a taste along the way.Using my air fryer sapped this simple joy, making me feel lazy, uninspired and restricted in my cooking.
And everything I made was, in the words of my three-year-old, ‘a bit samey’. Crispy this, crunchy that: fried food is far tastier when it’s dunked in boiling oil and frazzled to a crisp, rather than being blow-dried inside what, let’s be honest, resembles a miniature Dalek.I found myself furtively returning to the oven and using it to cook the main elements of a dish, with an air fryer ‘flourish’ – tempura veg or spicy cauliflower – on the side.
Eventually, my Ninja migrated off the kitchen island, where it had been centre stage for the best part of a month, and retreated to the back of my worktop, alongside an underused KitchenAid stand mixer, a vintage toastie maker and a bread machine that’s been gathering dust for years.
In falling out of love with the air fryer, it turns out, I’m not alone. Sales are still steady, but nothing like the astronomical levels reached last year.And according to a recent report by retailer Currys, microwaves are rising fast on the air fryer’s tail, with sales up by 50 per cent since last year. Some 93 per cent of UK households own a microwave, while just 30 per cent of us have an air fryer – rising to 51 per cent of families with three or more children. Experts don’t predict a big shift in these statistics any time soon.
Meanwhile, other energy-saving devices are starting to enter the spotlight: halogen ovens (which start at just £60), multi-cookers (a modern take on the pressure cooker) and electric mini-grills (George Foreman’s back in fashion) have all seen a boom in interest.
Air fryers suffered another blow when the Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson, dismissed them in a recent Twitter exchange. Asked whether one of her recipes might work when cooked in an air fryer instead of a conventional oven, she replied: ‘I know nothing of the world of air fryers.’
I can make no such lofty claims. I fell hook, line and sinker for my Ninja, and I’m devastated it didn’t turn out to be the culinary white knight (nor, crucially, the penny-pincher) I was promised.As with all foodie fads, it’s had its time – but the love affair has faded.
That said, I won’t be putting mine on eBay just yet. It will never replace my oven (or indeed my microwave), but it does have its uses.It makes a mean roast chicken for two, baked potatoes to die for – all golden skin and fluffy insides – and has saved my bacon on a number of occasions when I’ve left ten minutes to cook my sons’ supper. So I’ll be keeping it, for now – until the next gadget comes along and wins my heart anew.
