Air fryers - what do you cook in it ?

I have two Ninja air fryers. The reason being that I could do anything in the Ninja that I would normally do in an oven but I needed the room to bake cakes other than in loaf tins and things like bread pudding in a casserole type dish . I therefore was told about the larger one that has a middle section that slides out so you can set it for use as two or as one whole cooking space. This gives me a chance to do so much more.

I was given an air fryer for my birthday in September, but only got around to using it last week because my d.i.l. kindly gave me a lesson on how to use it. It's great!. I've done chips, roast potatoes, chicken, stuffing, so far and am now confident enough to experiment a bit with cakes etc...
It's a single drawer one. Hopefully it cooks fish ok as I eat a lot of fish.

I also have the Lakeland with two drawers and I really wish I'd have bought the one where you can change the size of the drawers. I can't even get a small round pyrex dish in and the drawers are not big enough to cook anything substantial.

Most things stick to the "non stick" racks and so far nothing has come out particularly crispy.

I ditched my old but well loved and well used halogen oven because I fell for all the hype - big mistake. It was way more flexible and I could cook far more in it. However I had one with a fixed lid which holds the halogen element and while the bowl was easy to clean, the lid wasn't. Still prefer it though.

Mine has paid for itself in energy savings. It has to heat up for 5 minutes whereas my oven was 20-25 minutes and then the cost of cooking the food. I rarely cook sausages but when I do, the fat is contained in the machine and there are no food smells afterwards. I love mine and have not used my electric oven for nearly 5 years.

If I buy food which says oven cook for 30 minutes, I half the time but keep an eye on it before that.

I live on my own so at Christmas it will be duck legs in sauce, dauphinoise potatoes but the veg will be cooked on the hob because I like all of my food cooked and served together.

Something that can be difficult is cleaning the lid of the air fryer where the element is - not true of all air fryers. I've seen some air fryers I wouldn't want to eat food out of - around the element is caked in grease which can drip down onto the food being cooked. Yuk. No thank you.

Every time I about cleaning people talk about the food basket/trays but it's the frier lid that is difficult to clean on my Ninja.

CanadianGran

I use mine more and more. I store it down in the basement, so every day I'm up and down with it! There isn't much storage space on my countertop, so not much choice. But I do like it enough to make the trip almost daily!

Like others have said, just about everything you do in the oven can be done in the airfryer. I often do chicken thighs in one drawer, and partmentier (diced) potatoes in the other.
I start the chicken skin side down, and flip about half way through to get the skin browned when finished.

Have you thought about storing it in your oven?

I use mine most days. I rarely use the oven these days, unless I'm cooking for more people. When it's the two of us, the AF does the job.

I have a Ninja, but only really use the AF function, as I have purpose-made gadgets (eg a slow cooker and a pressure cooker) for the others. I use it to roast, bake, heat and fry, which are all the same thing really - frying is heating with the addition of oil.

I sometimes cook a chicken in it, and AF chicken is lovely and saves a lot of time. I don't often cook meat, as my husband is vegetarian, so more usually cook vegetarian. Air roast veg are delicious, too.

I find with my Lakeland the big drawer does not take anything but a minute dish, I do have the basket type containers to put things in but still for me one big drawer woukd be so much more use.