A key piece of missing information has left us all dupedThe humble air fryer has become a staple in households across the UK over the past few years after being dubbed a ‘healthier’ option than an oven or grill, using hot air instead of oil to cook your food.
And, with them also saving us time, money and a whole lot of faff, investing in the kitchen gadget is a bit of a no-brainer.
But experts from Which? have recently revealed that millions of us are being duped by ‘misleading’ labelling.
Air fryers are now a kitchen staple in the UK (Getty Stock Image)
They say that we are being mislead as to how much food our air fryers can hold because most brands advertise the gadget’s internal volume in litres.
However, not all the internal space is usable, so the quoted capacity doesn’t always match how much food you can actually fit inside it.
Which? explains: “The consumer champion’s reviews give a realistic representation of air fryer capacity. Most models advertise their capacity in litres, which can sometimes be misleading as not all the internal space is usable.
“Which?’s lab test measures the capacity of food in grams and has found that the true capacity is usually between 60% and 80% of what’s claimed by brands,” revealing that most airfryers hold about 400g of food – approximately two portions of chips.
And don’t be fooled into thinking bigger is always better, with Which? warning that ‘an air fryer with large external dimensions [can] have less space available inside for cooking than a smaller one’.
They say that shoppers cooking for the whole family might want to consider a dual air fryer – which can hold between 600g and 2.3kg of food – if they’re worried about space.
Which? warns that brands marking an air fryer’s capacity in litres is misleading as not all internal space is usable (Getty Stock Images)
One occasion an extra-large air fryer comes in handy is Christmas, where the combination of having more mouths to feed and more bits and pieces to cook makes being in the kitchen an absolute nightmare.
Prior to the big day, Michelin-trained chef Poppy O’Toole shared her advice to getting the most out of the gadget, and her tips will serve you well year-round.
First, put a timer on.
O’Toole said: “I’ve done that a few times, where I’ve gone, it comes out in 20 minutes or whatever and you go, ‘Yeah, I’ll come back in a few minutes, it’ll be fine’. And I’ve left it in there the whole time and it’s burned to a crisp.”
The chef also urged us to not ‘overcrowd’ the gadget in order to allow proper air circulation around your food.
And, keep it clean. While O’Toole admits she doesn’t clean hers enough, she recommends giving your air fryer a wipe down every time you use it.
A professional chef, that’s Michelin-trained nonetheless, has issued a warning to Brits looking to cook their Christmas dinners up in their air fryers.
British culinary master Poppy O’Toole is, like many of us, a fan of the air fryer – it might be one of the best pieces of technology to come out of the 21st century (not to be dramatic or anything).
But, despite loving all the delicious meals it can cook up and one of her cookbooks being dedicated to making ‘delicious’ air fryer recipes that are easy to do, she wants everyone to be wary of one thing.
The Celeb Cooking School star is aware that people might rely on their kitchen appliances in general over the Christmas period, even admitting that she will be using hers on 25 December.
Poppy O’Toole has given some advice to Brits over using their air fryers on Christmas Day (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
It’s tough to fit a turkey and all the trimmings in the oven as it is, especially if you have more mouths than most to feed.
Speaking last year, O’Toole said that she would be feeding ‘a lot of people’ on Christmas, so the air fryer can play a part.
“There’s not enough space to do everything, but what it’s really good at is giving you the capability to do more stuff at the same time,” she said, as per The Independent.
“So you’re not just relying on the oven and the hob – you’ve also got this other piece of equipment, which is amazing at cooking things and it can be done quicker and more energy efficiently.”
But O’Toole warned that it is all too easy to ruin Christmas dinner if you take your eye off the ball.
The social media star has shared her top tips to securing a slap-up festive feast while using your air fryer.
Put a timer on
Firstly, even though it may seem obvious, make sure you put a timer on. When your knee deep in wrapping paper and still in your pjs, you’d be surprised how easily it slips your mind.
O’Toole said: “I’ve done that a few times, where I’ve gone, it comes out in 20 minutes or whatever and you go, ‘Yeah, I’ll come back in a few minutes, it’ll be fine’.
“And I’ve left it in there the whole time and it’s burned to a crisp.”
You might want to remember these points when using your air fryer this Christmas (Getty Stock Image)
Don’t overcrowd
And although you might be feeding the five thousand or in a bit of a rush, the chef urged Brits to not ‘overcrowd’ their air fryers.
O’Toole added: “It can be very easy to throw it all in, ‘it’ll be fine’. But it doesn’t work that way – the whole point is that the air circulation gets around everything, so it needs a gap where that can happen.”
Keep it clean
She also encouraged people to prepare their air fryers for a cooking marathon on Christmas Day with a spring clean.
“I don’t wash it enough, I don’t clean it enough,” O’Toole confessed.
“I end up getting these little dark bits on the rest of my food, which is fine when you’re cooking for yourself – that doesn’t matter.
“But when you’re cooking for other people, if you’ve got family coming over, you want to make sure it’s the best. So make sure in between each thing you cook, you give it a little wipe down.”
You might be an absolute air fryer whizz by now or somehow still put off getting one out of stubbornness – perhaps your mate banged on about theirs so much it put you off altogether.
Or, maybe you’ve only recently got one and still in the process of using it for everything and anything.
Except, despite Brits relying on the handy kitchen gadgets for their nightly meals and midday hot snacks, not everyone is using them correctly.
That’s because while air fryers might be capable of cooking a long list of foods, there are plenty of things chefs warn against cooking in them.
Buzzfeed collated opinions from a handful of globally-renowned chefs and best-selling cookbook authors.
Burgers are a no-no apparently. (Getty Stock Image)
Burgers
“Unless you like your burgers well done, leave them out of the air fryer,” declared Anna Vocino, the author and recipe developer of Eat Happy Kitchen.
Vocino continued: “Air fryers are not ideal for grilling red meat. You’d be able to get the inside of a burger to medium rare, but the outside wouldn’t get that ‘char’ that you want on a burger. Plus, it’s really messy.”
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Wet batters
Despite hundreds of TikTokers showing off their delicious-looking baked eggs juicy frittata recipes on social media, one cook says that home cooks should not mistake air fryers with having the same use as deep fryers.
“Foods that have wet batters, like onion rings”, said Trisha Pérez Kennealy, a culinary educator and owner of the Inn at Hastings Park in Lexington, Massachusetts.
She added that air frying batter makes it trickier ‘to set and become crispy’, being that the result is often a texturally unsatisfying bite and a sticky mess of batter all over your cooker.
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There’s many things you should cooking in one. (Getty Stock Image)
Cheese
The same warning against wet batters applies to cheese.
“An air fryer is actually NOT a deep fryer. When you make something like a mozzarella stick in a deep fryer, an instant outer crust is formed,” said Yankel Polak, the head chef and culinary director of ButcherBox.
“In an air fryer, this does not happen, and you’ll instead end up with a gooey, cheesy mess.”
Fresh greens
It may sound like an obvious statement, but chefs also advise that no fresh greens should ever be used in an air fryer.
And no, they don’t just mean lettuce and cucumber.
Despite the surge in healthy food vloggers promoting things like kale chips, Polak also told the publication that the convection oven-style air circulation in air fryers will cause ‘greens like kale or spinach to fly all over the place and cook unevenly’.
It is for that reason, that he recommends users ‘stick with a normal oven’.
This might be a popular one. (Getty Stock Image)
Bacon strips
The last dish that experts say should be avoided at all costs when using an air fryer is bacon strips, due to their fattiness and size.
“Bacon is a fatty food,” said Brenda Peralta, a recipe developer for FeastGood.com. “When it is cooked in an air fryer, the fat can drip down and cause smoke or splatter.
“This can make the bacon difficult to cook evenly, and it can also produce a lot of smoke and odours.”
Peralta also explained that because a bacon strip is a ‘small and delicate food’, it can sometimes be difficult to ‘flip or remove from the air fryer basket without breaking it’.
She added: “The air fryer basket may not be large enough to accommodate a large quantity of bacon. This can make it difficult to cook a lot of bacon at once, which can be inconvenient if you are cooking for a group.”
How can you tell someone has an air fryer? Don’t worry, they’ll let you know right after saying ‘hello’.
Once it’s brought up in conversation, it feels like they’re getting a commission for hyping up how useful their little cooking machine is.
As you can tell, I am still yet to buy one (but I am thinking about it).
Who hasn’t got an air fryer in 2024? (Getty Stock Image)
Amid the surge in popularity in recent years, however, viewers have been left stunned after a woman has revealed what cooking inside an air fryer can actually look like.
Taking to TikTok, Ali from NYC has shared a video (@aligroholski) of her air fryer and it’s gone viral.
She appears to be using a ‘Ninja CRISPi 4-in-1 Portable Glass Air Fryer Cooking System’, described as having ‘the power of a full-size air fryer in the palm of your hand.’
It offers four functions: air fry, bake, max crisp, and re-crisp, including two glass containers—a 6-cup and a 4-quart.
Ali tests out the Ninja glass air fryer (TikTok/@aligroholski)
The air fryer is designed for cooking, serving, and storing food, and the way it works is the PowerPod heats the contents by circulating hot air, ensuring even cooking.
“Simply snap the lightweight, handheld 1700-watt PowerPod onto one of the glass cooking containers to create family-size meals and personal portions with 4 cooking functions,” the Ninja website reads.
Now, in her caption for the short clip, which has nearly five million views in a day, Ali said: “That was super invasive @Ninja Kitchen.”
During the video, she puts in a tortilla wrap and the Ninja starts spinning it around like a Beyblade while cooking.
“Do you think that’s supposed to turn like that?” a woman is heard saying as viewers were left in stitches.
“No way my food is just in the break dancing,” one person commented, while another joked: “That means it’s at 360 degrees.”
“That’s why my damn cheese never stays on,” a third penned, as a fourth admitted: “Yea I caught my taco shells spinning one day lol”
Meanwhile, others were quick to point out that ‘it’s a convection oven the heat moves around’, and also that heavier items are less likely to spin around like that.
“Somehow I’m pretty sure my 1.5kg pork roast ain’t spinning like a ballerina in mine,” someone else said.
At the time of writing, the Ninja CRISPi 4-in-1 Portable Glass Air Fryer Cooking System is sold out on the Ninja UK website.
In the past couple of years air fryers seem to have become the thing everyone is buying for their kitchens.
For those of you who watch Channel 5 it’s pretty much all it ever seems to talk about these days, so we can only guess how frustrated they were when Channel 4 scooped Jamie Oliver for an air fryer series.
Anyhow, people seem to be enjoying them and cooking all manner of things in them, though you ought to be a little bit careful about what exactly you’re cramming in there.
According to the BBC’s Good Food section you should definitely not stick anything with wet batter in your air fryer, and there’s a few other foods which are best avoided.
Among them is that extremely popular thing known as bacon, with dietitian Brenda Peralta warning that it being very fatty could spell trouble.
That right there is what we call a recipe for disaster. (Getty Stock Image)
She explained that since bacon is extremely fatty and often comes in an awkward size this can be a recipe for disaster for amateur chefs.
Brenda told Huffington Post: “It is a fatty food, and when it is cooked in an air fryer, the fat can drip down and cause smoke or splatter.
“This can make the bacon difficult to cook evenly, and it can also produce a lot of smoke and odours.”
This means that you run the risk of some delectable rashers of pig flesh being uncooked – which could cause food poisoning and you would feel like quite the silly sausage if that were to happen.
As well as this, the air fryer a bit of a hazard due to the build-up of bacon grease which can suddenly begin to smoke.
The bacon fat splatters out across the air fryer’s heating element, causing the gadget to start smoking before a smell of burnt food fills the air. Lovely.
I suddenly feel the need to go and get some bacon. (Getty Stock Image)
Aside from the impromptu pyrotechnic display, bacon can also be difficult to deal with if you want your plate arrangement to look pretty, according to Brenda.
She continued: “A bacon strip is a small and delicate food, and it can be difficult to flip or remove from the air fryer basket without breaking it.”
And although it’s small, that doesn’t mean you can fit loads in.
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“The air fryer basket may not be large enough to accommodate a large quantity of bacon,” the dietitian added.
“This can make it difficult to cook a lot of bacon at once, which can be inconvenient if you are cooking for a group.”
So there you go, if you’re cooking bacon then it might be best to crack out the old frying pan or fire up the grill.
