In this chat with Rachelle, we’re diving into:
How an air fryer works
Why I’m obsessed with my air fryer
Some of the downsides
The best foods to cook in your air fryer
Tips and tricks for getting the most out of air fryer cooking!
Introduction
Welcome to episode five of The Beyond Nourished Podcast - the place to learn to become a better, more efficient health focus cook in just 10 minutes or less.
I'm your host Rachelle Girardin. I'm a Holistic Private Chef, founder of Beyond Nourished, and honestly - I am a complete air fryer addict.
If you have talked to me in the last year or so - I would say that's when my addiction started - you have heard me talk about my air fryer.
If you have already heard all about how I feel about air fryers, I apologize in advance, but I am not lying to you when I say that these small pieces of equipment are completely life-changing!
In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about how an air fryer can change your life, too.
As a quick side note, I'm laughing so hard because I record this podcast in Vancouver, Canada, and the quietest place in my apartment is our spare bathroom. Sometimes I forget that I am recording the podcast throughout the week and we’ll have guests over and they’ll walk into the bathroom - and it looks completely insane - like a silent room, there is padding all over the walls, it is stocked with odd pillows and blankets and weird things to help cut down on the noise. I just had to give you guys a visual about where I am filming this podcast and remind you that things aren't always what they seem.
How Do They Work?
Okay, so let's get into this week's episode. First of all, let's talk about how an air fryer works.
An air fryer is a small spaceship-looking thing that sits on your countertop and has a heating mechanism and fan on the top of it. It circulates air in a convection oven style - just in a smaller format than what you would find in your traditional oven.
Air fryers are great for people who want to avoid using a lot of oil or maybe want to reduce their grocery budget or calories by using less oil because when food is cooked over 320 degrees Fahrenheit it crisps and it will brown. Air fryers just use really hot air as a way to do this - essentially you get a really crisp item without having to dry it out.
Air fryers are also very simple to use. All you have to do is put the food in the basket, decide on the amount of time you're going to cook it and what temperature you're going to cook it at! Most air fryers that I've seen range in temperature from about 180 degrees Fahrenheit, all the way to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (I haven’t seen anything over 400 yet), and you just let the food cook.
My advice for when you're first starting to use your air fryer is that you check the food often. One of the most magical things about an air fryer is that it cooks food in a fraction of the time that your oven would. I'm going to get into some of the pros and cons, but this is just a general piece of advice and something that you want to consider when you're first starting to use it. Don't rely on your typical cook times because it is super speedy, so check it often to start.
Another great thing to remember is if you're cooking meat in it, one of the best ways rather than just using the time to monitor if it's done is to make sure that you're using a thermometer. I've got a lot more tips on this in the next episode where I'm talking about how to cook meat perfectly each time, but for now, I want to talk about the pros of having an air fryer. Honestly, I feel like I could talk for the whole 10 minutes about the pros of having one.
You guys already know that I'm an addict, but these are some of the reasons why I’m obsessed.
My apartment gets incredibly hot in the summer, and so one of the best things was having an air fryer for the summer season because I didn't have to pre-heat or heat my oven - aka my entire apartment - when it was already 30 or 40 degrees outside.
They are such a time-saver when it comes to pre-heating and cooking things! You are reducing your pre-heating time by literally 100% - you don't have to pre-heat the air fryer (even though it does adjust your cooking times a little bit better). Using an air fryer saves so much time in the actual cooking, too.
Another thing that I love is that they are quite inexpensive. A good air fryer is typically less than $100 to invest in and it saves a ton of energy in terms of your hydro or power bill.
You get to use minimal oil, meaning you’re saving calories and saving dollars, you don’t have to buy oil as frequently, and you're also not ingesting a bunch of harmful oils that have been denatured at high temperatures.
Reheating food in the air fryer is the best to make things crispy! For example, if you have leftover french fries and you put them into the fridge, baking them the next day never gives them that same texture or flavour. But reheating them in an air fryer? They get that just out of the deep fryer or just out of the oven kind of taste - almost like they’re freshly cooked!
Those are just some of the reasons why I love my air fryer!
The Downsides
I will also talk about some of the downsides because I feel like this has to be a fair ball game - no matter how much I do love my air fryer.
One of the downsides is the fact that the portion sizes that you can cook in an air fryer are limited. I say that they typically work best for side dishes or for singles and couples. They don’t really work great for doing more than 4-6 portions of something at a time.
You can't put wet items in it because it has a basket inside. But let's say that you battered some fish and you want to put it in the air fryer - you can always put a piece of parchment paper underneath and remove it halfway through to get a little bit of that crispiness still in there. There's a little hack for you!
They do take up a considerable amount of counter space. An air fryer is about a foot and a half wide and round, so if you don't have any counter space available I would consider that when you’re purchasing.
Not all of them are that well made, unfortunately. I've had a couple of them die on me, and this could also have to do with the price point to some degree. I'm not sure what we really expect from a longevity standpoint these days, but most of the air fryers that I've had lasted about a year or two years. I definitely have some suggestions on brands that are better than others, which will be included in the show notes below.
What Can You Cook?
Let’s talk about the best things that you can cook in your air fryer! As I mentioned, there's a basket inside of it and that allows for air to go down beneath it so that it doesn't get soggy and stays crispy in all the areas.
Some of my favourite items are literally anything that's frozen - so anything that you have out of the freezer can go straight into the air fryer and works like a gem. I'm talking things like pre-made potatoes, chicken fingers, or sweet potatoes (which I absolutely love as french fries!). Roasted veggies cooked in the air fryer are probably my favourite - whether it be cauliflower or broccoli or brussels sprouts. Any roasted vegetable in the air fryer has been a home run in my books!
Another thing that I love to cook in the air fryer is protein because a lot of the fat drips off and down into the bowl of the air fryer, so that’s a lot of calories that you're not having to ingest.
I love cooking all types of protein in my air fryer, whether that be a piece of fish or a chicken breast or chicken thighs. And then I also love cooking tofu - so a little bit of corn starch, and once you have it all chopped up, fry it with a little bit of seasoning and then put a delicious sauce over it afterwards... oh my gosh. It's just so good. So crispy. And it works every single time.
Sometimes I even take slices of bread out of the freezer and just use it as a toaster! This thing is just so versatile and that is one of many reasons why I love my air fryer so much!
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Thank you so much for listening to this episode, I will see you next week!