Air fryers are great for preparing food quickly, safely, and with a lot less fat than a deep fryer. However, all kitchen appliances have their advantages and disadvantages, so we decided to list the air fryer pros and cons to help you make an informed decision before you buy one.
Air fryers are great for preparing food quickly, safely, and with a lot less fat than a deep fryer. However, all kitchen appliances have their advantages and disadvantages, so we decided to list the air fryer pros and cons to help you make an informed decision before you buy one.
==> Which air fryer is the best? Find out here!
Air Fryer Pros and Cons
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Pros
What are the advantages of buying an air fryer?
✔️Convenient to use
The air fryer is ready for use when you are. Some do require heating up (less than 5 minutes), but you can start cooking almost immediately with an air fryer.
You can use an air fryer to prepare a lot of different foods in a lot of different ways. Most air fryers can bake, fry, grill, and roast food.
Some air fryers come with a metal rack (or you can buy it as an accessory) to double-layer food, so you can prepare fries and burgers (or nuggets..) in one go.
An air fryer is set it and forget it: add the food and turn it on. Your food will be cooked leaving you to do something else or finally take that well-deserved break after a long day at work!
✔️Low-Fat Cooking
With an air fryer, you do not need to use a lot of fat for cooking. Some foods can be prepared without any oil and some foods require just a tablespoon of oil.
This is great news for your health and your wallet!
✔️Safe To Use
Deep frying causes around 1,000 fires a year with a hefty price tag of $15,000,000. Every year, around 5 people get killed and 60 people injured in deep fryer-related incidents.
An air fryer is much safer to use with only a fraction of the oil you need for deep frying. It’s also a lot cheaper than a deep fryer.
✔️Easy Cleaning
Unlike a deep fryer, an air fryer does not get greasy since it does not require a lot of oil.
Most air fryers have removable parts that can be popped in the dishwasher, while the base unit can be wiped down with a damp cloth. Check the owner’s manual on how to clean your particular model.
✔️Healthy Meals
If you’re using the deep fryer several times a week, I would definitely recommend you consider buying an air fryer.
Food prepared in the deep fryer soaks up a lot more fat than food prepared in the air fryer. That’s a lot of artery-clogging stuff going in your body and expanding your waistline.
We all know the consequences of eating too many greasy foods and being overweight: diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, cancer, and even depression.
✔️Easy To Use
An air fryer has very easy-to-use controls. The cheap air fryers usually have just 2 analog controls for temperature and time settings.
The more expensive models have digital control panels with preset cooking buttons. With some models, there’s a bit of a learning curve, but these buttons can be programmed for your favorite foods, so you can truly just pop in and go!
✔️Fast Cooking
Using an air fryer to prepare your food produces fast results: Within 12 minutes you can have yummy crispy French fries or chicken nuggets.
Cons
Nothing is ever that perfect! There are a few cons to having an air fryer:
❌ Not for large families
Unless you can afford to buy the more expensive high-end air fryers like the Philips HD9240, an air fryer is suitable for 2-3 people at the most. So if you have a larger family upgrading to a larger air fryer or cooking in batches are your options.
❌Too Hot To Handle?
Some air fryers are a bit too hot to touch…Meaning the outside of the air fryer can get too hot to handle.
Some air fryers have a cool-to-touch hand grip like the Gowise USA Air Fryer or the Della Electric Air Fryer which also has a cool housing.
Solution: Use cooking gloves when you won’t move the air fryer and keep it out of reach of children (like you should with all kitchen appliances).
❌Heavy Weight Champion?
An air fryer can be quite a weighty appliance, but then again it’s smaller in size compared to the average deep fryer and will not take up a lot of space.
This would only be a problem if you have a really small countertop, so check upfront if the air fryer you’re interested in suits your kitchen.
Conclusion
Overall buying an air fryer has more pros than cons, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the money or not.
If you’re a busy parent, always on the go, or just started a new health regimen, an air fryer is well worth having.