Air Fryers….honest opinions!

I have a basic one and it's used daily. It's great for warming up one or two of something such as sausage rolls, when it'd be waste to turn on the oven. It crisps up rolls in just a couple of minutes.
I treat it as a small oven.
A lot of foods now have airfryer instructions on the packet.

Mine goes in the dishwasher.

kittylester

*LucyAnna*, I find cooking quite a calming experience. It's down time for me .

Ah, ok, thanks. So, not really a ‘fault’ with the airfryers

I’m mainly interested in how much money it can save?

LucyAnna, I find cooking quite a calming experience. It's down time for me .

I have a Cosori Air Fryer TurboBlaze, 6L which i love.
I didn't want 2 small drawers, this has one large one which fits most things and goes up to 230°.
It takes up very little space which surprised me, very well designed machine.
I gets fantastic reviews and is worth its weight in gold to me. It is so quick. Roast pots are 20 mins, fluffy inside and beautifully crisp on the outside.
Even when i reheated them the next day just to try it, they were lovely and crispy again. I've not even thought about switching my oven on. Although I've been using a remoska for more than 2 years now which replaced the oven mostly. It felt very disloyal but I'm happy with the cosori and going by what I've read sofar feel no need to swap it ever for a ninja!

I have a Ninja, and a small kitchen. I use mine nearly every day and think of it like a mini oven. It has saved me a fortune!

I have a Ninja double and it's great. Really quick, air fries potatoes in 20 mins, bakes frozen croissants and roasts mixed veg. Easy to clean too.

I don’t know Chardy. I did need to buy dishes that would fit the 2drawer Ninja when I was making dishes for freezing, because I didn’t have the right size containers, but using the Tower with shelves I just used what I had.

kittylester

I've had, and got rid of, 2.

Why’s that, kittylester?

I’ve compared fuel usage between oven and air fryer and the air fryer uses a fraction. It cooks baked potatoes, burgers, chips, bacon beautifully.

I'm in the same position as OP (but with limited worktop space), but I'm veggie so wouldn't cook joints or chops, or other things that need lots of cooking. (A nut roast or Quorn roast us just for special occasions) I like veggie pies, sausages, samosas, bhajis, and batch cooked cottage pies/veg stews from freezer.
Is it worth the outlay for me?

Had mine for 18 months now. Rarely use the main oven. Last time was for the Turkey last Christmas!

Good for those without small ovens but small ovens are better.

I have a range with two ovens. I barely use them now.
My Ninja is out permanently. It is so versatile.

Complementary to a full oven. Good for some meals for the two of us but useless for a turkey or large joint.

No cooking smells when I use my air fryer. The fat and spluttering of sausages are contained inside it.

You should not switch it on if under a cupboard and the worktop surface base should be protected from heat.

I am fortunate I have a big kitchen and have space between cooker and sink so I can easily move something very hot onto the cooker.

Mine is normal in size, I have not used the oven for 4 years + so it has paid for itself several times.

I do use bought paper liners especially if liquids are in the machine.

I love mine.

I have a ninja double drawer which has a separator so can use as one big or two smaller drawers. It air fries, bakes, roasts, dehydrates, maximum crisp, reheat and proves. I got this as I found the double drawer was also great but I was restricted by the size of each drawer when baking cakes and using a dish say for lasagne or a crumble etc. So I do have two ninja’s now. The bigger one is treat I gave myself as I managed most things for two of us in first one. However, nice to bake cakes of a normal size without putting the oven on.

I have a small one, ideal for chips, wedges and crisping baked potatoes which have first been in the microwave for 6 minutes.

Croissants and rolls can also be warmed successfully and sausages brown beautifully.

However I could never do without my main electric oven for a proper roast dinner. Three shelves fully utilised with meat, four veggies and roast potatoes, stuffing and plates warmed alongside a fruit pie or crumble. Gravy on the hob of course.

All the above ready in 90 minutes, at the same time and, as importantly to me, served piping hot.

I’ve been using my two draw air fryer now for four months, I haven’t used the oven more than three times.I compared my electricity use for the same time last year and it has gone down by 21%.My daughter was also telling me how much I would like an airfryer and I resisted for ages, finally giving in, so happy I did. At first I kept it in the bottom of a cupboard but found I was using it so much it finally got its own place on the counter.

We first had a Tower with shelves, a rotisserie and a drip tray. Great for biscuits, chips, pizza, salmon, small joints of meat on the spit, oven roast vegetables- cheese on toast, macaroni cheese etc.
Really, whatever I used the oven for.
You can roast chicken on the spit, but that was a lot of faff!
Only downside is it’s not that easy to keep the inside clean, but Orange Magique does the job and the shelves/drip tray go in the dishwasher.

I bought a Ninja 2Drawer at Christmas when it was on offer and that made life so easy. Hot buffet stuff done in such a short time, bread crisped up, roast potatoes, roast veg etc. I love the synchronise function so that everything’s ready at the same time.

I did need my main oven for the turkey, but the beef cooked perfectly.
Chicken does better in the Ninja, moussaka, banana bread, cakes and even scones come out well.
Jacket potatoes -lovely crispy skins, but I do cook them in the microwave first to save on time and fuel.
I’ve never used it to dehydrate anything, but I never did that before.

My favourite use is bacon for sandwiches.
Cooked, even slightly crispy in less than 10 minutes and no spitting. I put it in a liner as mentioned below for even less mess.
The drawers are easy to clean, but
I bought some silicon coated paper liners £1 for 12 which are great for anything greasy or that drips-the bacon, meat, chips etc.

I still use the oven top for stir fry veg, which we like, and custard and gravy if I’m making it from scratch.

Biggest benefit-no waiting 10-15 minutes for the oven to heat up.
My gas bill dropped straight away.

glammagran

Can anyone recommend a good cookbook that isn’t American?

Join some of the Ninja groups on Facebook - there are plenty of UK-based ones with great recipes on there. Pinch of Nom have just brought out a new air fryer cookbook too.

not worth it for me. I have two small ones but they really are small, will go into an undercounter cupboard. I also have a small oven as well as the big oven and quite honestly prefer the small oven.

Good for those without small ovens but small ovens are better

I just google recipes. I know that is boring
pinch of nom have bought out an air fryer one i noticed

Can anyone recommend a good cookbook that isn’t American?

I have a Ninja 14 in 1 air fryer. If it stops working, I will be replacing it immediately! That is all I will say.

We have just had minestrone soup made in it for lunch. It was delicious.
No chance of burning it, which I usually do if it is in a saucepan!

roast potatoes are nicer in the oven as you cook them in more oil!