11 False Facts You Believed About Your Air Fryer

While a lot of the buzz around air fryers has died down significantly, these nifty kitchen appliances are not going anywhere. More than just a fad, they've become America's favorite kitchen appliance. Everyone who has invested in one knows how useful they are and the convenience they offer, especially for smaller families and couples. They've changed the way people cook worldwide, and in addition to helping foods cook quicker and crispier than before, there are also plenty of creative air fryer hacks – from roasting coffee beans to making grilled cheese. As more and more people experiment with different air fryer recipes, we continue to discover just how many ways we can use air fryers.

When the air fryer hype exploded a couple of years ago, many people wondered what exactly an air fryer was. There are many misconceptions about the appliance, especially about how it's named and the theories around healthier ways of cooking. I too had a lot of confusion until I read more about air fryers and got my own. In the beginning, I was using it for limited foods, but since doing my own experimentation over the years, I've expanded the repertoire of what my air fryer can do. I've had one for years now and use it almost daily, including for the preparation of foods in my professional food business and recipe development. It's an incredibly useful device if you understand it and go beyond the myths. Here are some false facts you've probably believed about your air fryer.

One of the most common misconceptions about air fryers stems from its name, and we don't blame you if you're confused. An air fryer is not actually a fryer. While it's been marketed as an appliance that you can make all your favorite fried foods in — and in a healthier way — it doesn't "fry" your foods the way a deep fryer would. An air fryer is an oven that uses rapid convection heat transfer. The slight resemblance to an actual deep fryer lies in the way an air fryer uses quick, intense heat to cook food.

However, if the name "air fryer" is still throwing you off, it's better to ignore the name. It's more accurate to think about it as a small, high-speed oven. Hot air is rapidly blown onto your food and a fan helps circulate it so that it can transfer heat evenly. This intense, quick heat can help food to brown and crisp more effectively than a regular oven, which is much of its appeal.

A lot of the advertising around air fryers claims that you can get the same texture as fried foods without using oil. This is entirely false. You can use less oil than you'd usually need to deep fry foods, but you still need some oil to get that desired crispy exterior you're after. When I first got my air fryer, I tried making phyllo triangles and crispy samosas using no oil at all. In truth, they cooked, and if you cook them long enough, they'll get hard and crunchy in texture. However, they were really dry and not crispy in a pleasant way. Plus, they didn't have that golden brown exterior I was looking for.

Of course, if you're using frozen fries or store-bought, oven-crumbed chicken that already contains oil, you don't need to use any extra cooking oil. For everything else, a light brush of cooking oil will do the trick and help get your food nicely browned and crisp.

One of the things people find most disappointing about the air fryer is that you supposedly can't cook certain foods with liquid batters. So the promise of not needing to deep fry anything went out the window because battered onion rings (or even the liquid batter of donuts) would simply seep through the basket and not cook. In truth, there is a way that you can cook these foods in an air fryer, but you'd need to use a dish or a solid plate to lay them in. Don't put these foods directly in the basket. Instead, use a smaller vessel to carry them, or even line the basket with parchment paper so that nothing drips down.

When making onion rings, for example, you might not get the seamless shape that a deep fryer can give you. But if you thicken your onion ring batter slightly so that the rings can hold their shape a little longer — and set your air fryer at a good high heat — you can still get a decently crisp and evenly coated onion ring.

Other liquid foods that you can cook in an air fryer are custard-based desserts, or even cheesecakes that you'd normally bake in a dish or ramekin. I've even cooked a successful lasagna in an air fryer, with a perfectly set bechamel sauce layer on top that went into the air fryer in liquid form.

As air fryers work using intense and rapid heat transfer, many people assume there's no way you can bake with them. Baking can be temperamental and requires the right conditions for foods to activate, rise, and cook at the right speed and temperatures. While this is true, there are ways to bake in an air fryer, especially with managed expectations and trying more forgiving bakes. So, don't go trying to bake a soufflé on your first try, but there's no reason why some easy-to-bake cakes, muffins, and cookies won't work. 

It's especially convenient to use an air fryer to bake smaller batches, meaning you don't need to turn on the oven just for a small cake or something like brownies for two. It's also great when the weather is too hot to turn on the oven. An air fryer doesn't heat up your kitchen or take ages to pre-heat (in fact, for most things you don't need to preheat at all). It works in much less time, making it perfect during a heatwave.

When baking with an air fryer, you shouldn't expect it to work exactly like your oven. So don't use the same temperature and times. Often, you'll need to reduce the temperature and the time significantly. A rule of thumb I tend to follow is to reduce the temperature by at least 10 degrees and start with half the cooking time. I recommend checking your bake at one-third of the cooking time because the rapid heat can surprise you. With some experimentation and trial and error, you'll master baking in an air fryer.

Until you've used your air fryer regularly, you might be wary of placing food directly in the basket. Perhaps you always use a baking dish, or even line the basket with parchment paper to avoid food touching it directly, but that's really not necessary. Food can be placed directly into the basket and in fact, it may help your food cook more evenly as nothing will be obstructing the heat.

This obviously only applies to solid foods, as anything liquid will need to be in a holder of some kind or it will drip right through. For everything else,  go straight into the basket. However, this comes with one inconvenience. You do need to wash the basket in between cooking various foods. The basket will become greasy or have food residue from whatever you place into it, which is often why people use parchment paper or something else to line it. If you can't be bothered to wash the basket, then go ahead with using a lining. However, if you're okay with a little extra cleaning up, it can be worth it to cook directly in the basket for more evenly cooked and crispy food.

Since air fryers have been marketed as a cooking appliance that helps you eat healthier, it's important to know that this isn't necessarily the case. As with anything you cook, it depends on the ingredients you're using. If what you're cooking is "healthy" (whatever that means to you, as everyone's body has different needs), then your air fryer will not have any effect on it, good or bad. There are plenty of ways to use your air fryer to cook fresh vegetables and other nutritious foods.

However, these claims of healthy cooking often refer to the fact that you can make "fried foods" without deep frying them. You're indeed able to brown and crisp food while not using copious amounts of oil, so in that case, it may be a better option for people looking to reduce their oil intake. Otherwise, oil isn't always a bad thing for health, depending on what type and how you use it. Healthy eating is always an ever-evolving and complex subject, and it's always best to seek professional advice from a health expert, rather than rely on a kitchen tool, regardless of what it is. Ultimately, there's nothing about an air fryer that makes it inherently a healthier way to cook, and it all depends on what you cook in it and how you use it.

If you're thinking about getting an air fryer but are confused by the large range in price from the cheaper models to larger brands, you'll be relieved to find out that price isn't necessarily the indicator of a good air fryer. In short, all air fryers use a simple electric mechanism to work, and a higher price doesn't necessarily mean that this mechanism will be better. In my experience, more expensive air fryers usually have more to do with the look, finish, additional functions, and extra accessories.

Some of the pricier air fryers might be multi-purpose appliances that do more than one thing, which can offer value if you're looking for more than one action. Some air fryers offer a completely digital interface and even wifi-powered settings that work automatically with your phone. I don't know about you, but those things are hardly ever helpful to a regular home cook.

The look, style, functionality, and accessories are all up to your preference, but if you only care about how an air fryer cooks your food, what you should be looking for is the power (a higher wattage can make your air fryer heat more quickly, but also means a higher electric bill) and the right size for you. Some can be deceptively small and not meet your expectations, which can deter you from using them. So, if it means forking a little extra for a larger air fryer, it may be worth it.

Certain appliances have self-cleaning capabilities, but an air fryer isn't one of them. Sadly, you do have to clean your air fryer, usually after every single use. This doesn't apply when using parchment paper underneath your food or placing a baking dish or container into the basket, because food isn't actually touching your appliance. However, if you're cooking fries, veggies, or any other type of food and placing it straight into the air fryer with no dish or lining separating it, you have to wash your air fryer afterward.

If you've never owned one before, you might be wondering what washing an air fryer entails, and while it may look complicated, it's really easy to do. Usually, there are two parts that you can remove and wash: the basket (which is where you're placing your food) and the bottom compartment that holds it. This is where oil, crumbs, juice, spices, and more often fall into. It's not a good idea to leave all that stuff in there when cooking your next meal, or it will smoke and create an unpleasant smell. Many air fryers are dishwasher safe, but if you're hand washing, you'll find warm water and a light scrub with a sponge and dish soap will do the trick in no time.

While we may love how air fryers help us cook and brown things quickly, they have another nifty use. One of the many amazing things about an air fryer is that it can reheat foods you usually wouldn't want to. Anything with a crispy batter is likely to be soft and soggy when warmed up in a microwave, and let's not even talk about how unappetizing the texture of fries are when you reheat them. We often let these leftovers go to waste because nobody wants to eat them the next day, but an air fryer breathes new life into them. You can effectively reheat these foods back to the desired texture, and the benefit is that it doesn't take ages like when using an oven. Next day chicken nuggets, crumbed fish, or even tator tots can be warm and crisp again, and just as tasty as the day you cooked them. 

I love reheating different baked goods in my air fryer, too. Instead of bread getting chewy and stale, I give it a few minutes in the air fryer and it's close to fresh again. While foods like muffins, naan, and flatbread might change texture if you reheat them in a microwave, they have a just-baked texture when reheated in an air fryer.

Many air fryers have timed settings that will beep and turn off when the cooking time has ended, just like a microwave would. This is convenient because if you forget you are cooking something, it won't burn or overcook (which would more likely happen in a regular oven). While this is positive, it doesn't mean you should leave your food completely unsupervised. Because of the rapid heat technology that an air fryer uses, food usually cooks much faster than other cooking methods, and it's always good to give it a check halfway through or sometime before your timer ends to make sure it's going how you want it to go.

If you're not used to the speed or intensity of how your air fryer cooks, you can end up with burnt or overcooked food if you leave it unsupervised. So, especially in the beginning, keep an eye on your air fryer while cooking. Another good rule of thumb is to set your timer for less time so that if you do forget to check it, it will go off earlier and remind you to have a look.

There's some debate about whether you need to preheat an air fryer, but in all my years of using them (almost daily), I've never preheated mine. In fact, this is the main reason I prefer using my air fryer over my oven, because the long wait for your oven to preheat is not a factor at all for an air fryer. You can think of making something and immediately get it cooking. Part of what makes air fryers so effective is how quickly they can heat up to the desired temperature.

The only exception is if you're baking something complicated and you need a very specific heat from the first second of cooking — that might be a reason to preheat your air fryer. Even so, it will likely take far less time to heat up than an oven would. Perhaps even just a minute or two would do the trick.