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Air fryer meal suggestions please .

(102 Posts)
Sandytoes Tue 21-Mar-23 08:49:36

I have just bought an air fryer . When I say just I have had it over a month and it's still shiny and new and just sits in kitchen watching me use the oven . Please help it to earn its keep . I am cooking for two of us . Thanks

cc Thu 23-Mar-23 13:09:10

Jay21

Petit pan straight from the freezer. Brush with a little melted butter and airfry 5 -6 mins at 200° so they're golden brown. Crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. Buy a digital thermometer so you can check meat and poultry.

Ninja Foodi MAX [AG551UK] already has a food temperature probe attachment which works really well. It switches the machine off once the meat reaches a given internal temperature.

cc Thu 23-Mar-23 13:17:52

DeeDe

annboleyn

I succumbed to the air fryer hype and bought one which was highly recommended from Robert Dyas. Anytime now it will be going to landfill a huge waste of money, can't find any decent helpful books, the recipes I have used haven't produced the food they promised. Will stick to my oven

REALLY ! Wow you surprised me
I’d be lost without my air fryer now and only had it a couple of weeks, we love it, and can see will be using the main oven less and less already
Best kitchen item I’ve ever bought …100% love it

I'm surprised too as I love my air fryer.

I've had it for almost two years now and am so pleased with it. It's used more than the oven in our house, and I am someone who cooks from scratch at almost every meal. I've replaced our big combi microwave with a small simple microwave as the air fryer does everything so much better.

My daughter has an air fryer with a menu function for particular foods rather than settings that you choose - I can see that it you had one like that it might not be so adaptable or useful.

twiglet77 Thu 23-Mar-23 13:20:17

annboleyn

I succumbed to the air fryer hype and bought one which was highly recommended from Robert Dyas. Anytime now it will be going to landfill a huge waste of money, can't find any decent helpful books, the recipes I have used haven't produced the food they promised. Will stick to my oven

What a terrible shame to throw it away. Could you offer it to someone else, either free or for sale, on a selling site or with a card in the local shop window? Olio is a great app for offering free unwanted items, and keeping them out of landfill.

Someone short of cash to buy a new one would be very grateful.

Visgir1 Thu 23-Mar-23 13:31:24

Cc.. This is a British book.
This author is also on Instagram where I first found her.
Waterstones have it, if you want to have a look before you buy.

Dancinggran Thu 23-Mar-23 13:36:05

Love my air fryer and definitely use it more than the oven. I've used it for fresh and frozen, chicken/pork/fish as well as cakes and scones. Now considering purchasing a larger one.

posset Thu 23-Mar-23 13:37:25

I have only used my oven twice since buying a basket type air fryer. I wished I had bought a slightly larger one, but this does a good job most of the time. I have since acquired a trivet which will provide a second layer, so can do veg in the bottom and the meat or whatever on the trivet above, works really well.

HannahLoisLuke Thu 23-Mar-23 13:37:34

annboleyn

I succumbed to the air fryer hype and bought one which was highly recommended from Robert Dyas. Anytime now it will be going to landfill a huge waste of money, can't find any decent helpful books, the recipes I have used haven't produced the food they promised. Will stick to my oven

Please dont bin it. If you don’t want the bother of selling it, at least donate it to a charity shop or put it on the Freecycle site.

Blondiescot Thu 23-Mar-23 13:43:10

Try looking up recipes on YouTube. The Salted Pepper is a good channel - she is American, but has some good recipes for various models of air fryers/multi cookers. Easily adapted for UK. Or, available via Amazon, there's A Handbook for Ninjaholics - Recipes to Feed An Obsession, which has recipes compiled and tested by UK cooks. I know it's aimed at the Ninja market, but I'd imagine many of the recipes could easily be made in other air fryers too.

Lottie53 Thu 23-Mar-23 13:44:49

Amazingly soft boiled eggs. 8 minutes at 180 degrees. Absolutely perfect.

Polremy Thu 23-Mar-23 13:55:51

I bought my Cosori 5.5 in August. Since then I’ve used my oven precisely once. Just experiment. Anything you cook in an oven can be done in an air fryer. As a rule of thumb, reduce both temperature and timings by about a third.

LizIlkeston Thu 23-Mar-23 14:09:29

I decided on Ninja 9 in 1...airfry, bake, steam, pressure cook, saute
grill, slowcook, yoghurt and dehydrate. The first thing I cooked was a roast chicken but had to adjust the temperature down as it was overcooked. A meat thermometer and keeping a close eye on cooking is what's needed.
I love the pressure cooker particularly. It is quite big on the counter but the oven is now storage for cooking trays etc.
It is trial and error but doesn't take long to get used to it. So much cheaper and faster than the oven.

semperfidelis Thu 23-Mar-23 14:12:18

I'm going to give a shout out for the microwave/convection oven combo. I've used them since the year 2000. Very easy to use; cooks and browns lasagnes, pies, chicken fillets etc. Dishes suitable for four fit in. It's also fine for baking potatoes and roasting veggies, as grill/oven combination works well too.

macey Thu 23-Mar-23 14:15:39

I,m still getting used to mine, but I have done potato wedges chicken different ways, pies,apparently you can do cakes. I just look on pinterest when I want to try anything different,It just getting used to that way of cooking.Mine isnt big enough to do a whole meal .

hallgreenmiss Thu 23-Mar-23 14:18:15

MawtheMerrier

I could not live with that cover-

It’s “Bored with Lunch” 😮😮😮😮

Fowler’s Modern English Usage (rev. 3rd ed.), in its entry for “bored,” says: “The normal constructions are with with or with by.” However, Fowler’s notes the usage that has caught your attention
^“A regrettable tendency has emerged in recent years, esp. in non-standard English in Britain and abroad, to construe the verb with of.”^

I agree, it’s wrong and very disappointing that it appears now in supposedly respectable print.

DeeJaysMum Thu 23-Mar-23 15:03:39

Basically, pretty much anything you can do in the oven can be done in the air fryer.

DeeJaysMum Thu 23-Mar-23 15:07:28

I've had an air fryer (oven style, not drawers) for almost 2 years. I have an electric pressure cooker (8yrs) and a combination microwave.
I've not used the main oven AT ALL since I bought the air fryer, and even before that, since I bought the pressure cooker I probably only used the oven 2 or 3 times a year.

parker Thu 23-Mar-23 15:16:05

I have done bread and butter puddings and potato au gratin, gammon and anything that will fit, We have the larger tower one. You can do anthing that needs to be browned such as cottage pie, much faster than by oven. It is possible to put a liquid dish such as sauces, in a small casserole or in a pyrex dish. Crumbles also work well.

cc Thu 23-Mar-23 15:30:14

Visgir1

Cc.. This is a British book.
This author is also on Instagram where I first found her.
Waterstones have it, if you want to have a look before you buy.

Thanks, I'll go and look tomorrow!

madeleine45 Thu 23-Mar-23 16:18:46

I have much to learn on mine as havent had it very long but the one thing I really like if i decide to get a steak pie from our local butcher (very good quality) I can bake it in the airfryer, so that you have decent slightly crispy pastry with well cooked ingredients . If I tried it in a microwave it would have been soggy and putting it in the ordinary oven would have cost a lot of time and electricity. So if I havent got a lot of time and am going out put the pie in the fryer and the veg in the microwave and voila! I shall read your answers with interest and learn some short cuts from others too

Whitbygal Thu 23-Mar-23 17:10:24

I have this Tower digital air fryer and use it every day. Just use it like an oven only quicker and cheaper to run. Trial and error but most things I’ve done have turned out well, chips, sausages, fish fingers, quiches, cakes etc. especially useful for heating up a couple of croissants for breakfast in 3 or 4 minutes.

jerseygirl Thu 23-Mar-23 17:30:15

I love my air fryer and use it a lot. Mine has shelves which i find are better than one with drawers but its personal choice. I haven't used my oven since christmas day and my electric bill has reduced a lot.

Grannynannywanny Thu 23-Mar-23 18:15:10

Most of you with air fryers who enjoy grilled bacon will already have discovered how tasty it cooks in the AF. If you enjoy gammon steaks I recommend trying this..

I had a 750g smoked gammon joint in the fridge and I cut it while raw into about 6 gammon steaks and froze them individually to defrost and cook as required. Cut them as thick or thin as you like. It’s delicious cooked in the AF. Tender with a crispy edge. I’ve stopped buying packets of bacon and use the same method to slice and portion up the gammon joint into bacon slices cut slightly thicker than a conventional pack. Much tastier and more economical . The gammon joint is £6 in M&S and goes a long way if carved up raw for cooking in the AF.

rowyn Thu 23-Mar-23 19:28:45

Blondiescot

rowyn

MawtheMerrier

I could not live with that cover-

It’s “Bored with Lunch” 😮😮😮😮

Fowler’s Modern English Usage (rev. 3rd ed.), in its entry for “bored,” says: “The normal constructions are with with or with by.” However, Fowler’s notes the usage that has caught your attention
^“A regrettable tendency has emerged in recent years, esp. in non-standard English in Britain and abroad, to construe the verb with of.”^

OH MAW - a woman after my own heart!
I've just been writing a rant for my local paper about OXFAM's new 92 page Inclusive Language Guide , which is a whole heap of rubbish, so it was so refreshing to read someone who reacts like me when they see ungrammatical language !

I spent most of my working life correcting other people's grammar, so things like that drive me mad too! That and the aberrant apostrophe...

Ditto ( re apostrophe) - it winds me up to see Educational institutions misusing them as well . I suppose I'm a bit of a pedant, but it really does make the prose clearer!

sarahcyn Thu 23-Mar-23 19:39:32

A year or so before the airfryer craze started our Actifry fell apart. We had used it at least weekly for years. It’s so annoying, as my husband THINKS, WRONGLY, that he’s replaced it by buying me a little Salter number last Christmas. It’s awful. It’s slow and you have to shake it every few minutes. I so miss my Actifry but the price seems to have shot up since I got my old one and even if I did buy one he would sulk for years.

Mogsmaw Thu 23-Mar-23 19:58:11

MawtheMerrier

I could not live with that cover-

It’s “Bored with Lunch” 😮😮😮😮

Fowler’s Modern English Usage (rev. 3rd ed.), in its entry for “bored,” says: “The normal constructions are with with or with by.” However, Fowler’s notes the usage that has caught your attention
^“A regrettable tendency has emerged in recent years, esp. in non-standard English in Britain and abroad, to construe the verb with of.”^

Oh, I love you!
We sell that book and I had a fabulous discussion with a retired teacher who pointed out the misplaced commas on the walls.
We had fun discussing pedantry, it’s a pity we missed this.