I switched to cooking in the Airfryer for a month: 6 things I learned

I have tested many air fryers. I always have two or three air fryers on my counter, which gives the room the warm, welcoming feel of an appliance showroom.

As I used them more for work, I broke the habit of turning my oven on automatically when it was time to cook – at least for simple tasks.

I started to wonder if I even needed my oven. So I decided to trade in all my oven dishes for an air fryer for a month to find out. After all, an air fryer doesn’t actually fry food. It is a mini convection oven that can cook almost anything a regular oven can do.

The rules of the experiment were that I had to cook everything in the air fryer that I would normally cook in the oven, and that I couldn’t eat beige frozen food for every meal.

Here’s what I learned that month.

Warming up means thinking again

My first act of food violence was slightly overheating a few pizza slices at the recommended reheating temperature of 170°C, quickly and efficiently turning them into olive-speckled bits of cardboard.

If you have a high-powered air fryer and cook almost anything except frozen, breaded chicken or chips, the best cooking advice is to reduce the heat by 10°C/50°F.

There is a learning curve when switching to air fryer cooking, and while you’re figuring out the perfect cooking temperatures, you can always add a few minutes of extra time. You can’t turn cardboard back into pizza.

Microwave + air fryer is still faster than an oven

I made individual shepherd’s pies in earthenware dishes, because I felt like it, and reheated them the next day. Normally I would put them in the oven for at least 45 minutes (and they would probably still be cold in the middle), but since the oven was banned, I used the air fryer instead.

They came out perfect – and were ready quickly – with a light, crispy crust on the potato. But it was still a bit annoying to keep testing the center of the cake to see if it was done.

The best option, as it turned out, was to first microwave the shepherd’s pies to warm them up and then put them in the air fryer for 7 minutes for a golden glow. The microwave + air fryer combination also works well with jacket potatoes.

Don’t try to prepare cakes in the microwave: the results will make you sad.

Baking is easier than you expect

Baking a cake in an air fryer has the feel of a novelty, like playing Clair de Lune on the kazoo. But it is not possible alone, it is faster and cheaper. Crucially – and perhaps surprisingly – the cake will taste exactly the same.

The main limitation is the amount of cooking space in your air fryer. To bake in a 5-6 liter single drawer model you will need a small 15cm/6inch round cake tin (buy one from Amazon UK/Amazon US).

However, the air fryer I used, the FlexDrawer, offers enough space to bake a full-size cake.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Follow the recipe exactly as you would for an oven, but lower the temperature by about 20°C.

If the air fryer is too hot, the outside of the cake will cook so much faster than the inside, preventing it from rising properly. The cake will be compact and yurt-shaped, which is probably not what you intended.

Experimenting is worth it

Drunk on the success of the air fryer cake, I started using the air fryer for everything: even things I wouldn’t normally cook in the oven. I fried up gnocchi, made toasted sandwiches, roasted vegetables and defrosted peas.

Where I normally steamed vegetables, I fried them in the air, with a little oil and garlic. It may not be as healthy as steaming, but this concern was significantly outweighed by the benefits of deliciousness.

Forget 10-inch pizzas

Yet there is one thing that a traditional air fryer simply cannot do. You can’t cook supermarket pizza in it. It just doesn’t fit.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

To follow the letter of the challenge I set for myself, I once cut a pizza in half and fried the pieces one at a time in the air fryer. They turned out great, but honestly it’s a weird thing to do.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Unless you want to invest in an air fryer oven or a special pizza oven, you will have to use your regular oven for pizza.

There are a few other things you shouldn’t cook in an air fryer: leafy vegetables, including spinach, that can blow around, and anything with a wet batter. I also wouldn’t cook a steak in anything other than a pan.

My oven now looks medieval

Why is it so huge? Why does it all take so long to cook? Why is it almost impossible to clean?

When I open my oven now, it’s like traveling back in time to a dirty medieval forge, a place where I definitely don’t want to have lunch.

After a month of using an air fryer exclusively, I now rarely use my oven. I’m not quite at the point where I can store vintage denim in it yet, like Carmy does in The Bear, but unless I’m making a full roast dinner or cooking a pizza, it won’t turn on.

It’s hard to judge how great the energy savings were from this experiment (although air cooking will certainly save you money in the long run), but the amount of time and effort I saved myself in cooking and cleaning up was enormous.

Which air fryer did I use?

I chose the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer because, as the name suggests, it is a flexible cooktop. You can use the two 5.2 liter cooking zones separately, or just one, or remove the dividing wall between them to create a huge 10.4 liter “mega zone”. This gives you the space to prepare whole roasts or bake large cakes.

You can read my FlexDrawer review for more information, or check out our most recommended dual-zone air fryers to see how it stacks up against the competition. The FlexDrawer isn’t available in the US, but the very similar Ninja Foodi FlexBasket is. Keep in mind that it is slightly smaller, with a capacity of 7QT split between the two cooking spaces.

To get a similar amount of cooking space as the FlexDrawer, you can also use an air fryer oven. We’ve tested and reviewed some of the best, which you can check out in our air fryer oven review. We also have recommendations for the best Ninja air fryer and the best air fryer overall.