Do you really NEED an Airfryer?

Air fryers seem to have become one of those kitchen gadgets that everyone either owns or is thinking about buying, and I can understand why. They’re quick, easy to use and can make cooking certain foods so much more convenient, but do you really need one?

We’ve had our little Ninja air fryer for a while now and I genuinely use it quite a lot. It’s one of those gadgets that I wasn’t entirely sure we’d get enough use out of when we first got it, but it’s earned its place on the kitchen counter and I wouldn’t particularly want to be without it now.

That doesn’t mean I think everyone needs one though, and there are definitely a few things I’d think about before spending money on an air fryer.

What size air fryer do you actually need?

We have one of the smaller Ninja air fryers and it’s a good size for most of the things we use it for. It’s easy to use, doesn’t take ages to heat up and is perfect for cooking smaller amounts of food without having to put the big oven on.

Having said that, I do sometimes wish we’d gone for one of the dual drawer models instead. It would be handy to be able to cook two things at once, especially when I’m making dinner and want to cook different foods at different temperatures.

The smaller one does what we need it to do most of the time though, and I don’t think I’d rush out and replace it just for the sake of having a bigger one.

I think it’s worth thinking about what you’ll actually cook in your air fryer rather than automatically buying the biggest one you can afford. A larger model might give you more flexibility but it’s also going to take up more space, which is something that’s easy to overlook when you’re shopping for a new kitchen gadget.

Have you actually got room for an air fryer?

This is something I probably wouldn’t have thought too much about before we moved house, but I definitely would now.

Our air fryer sits on the kitchen counter near the hob and doesn’t take up too much space. That’s quite easy for me to say though because we’re lucky enough to have loads of counter space in our current kitchen.

In our old house, it was a completely different story. We struggled to fit anything extra on the counters without losing the space we needed to prepare food, and I honestly don’t know where we would have put an air fryer without it constantly getting in the way.

And while you could technically keep it in a cupboard and get it out when you want to use it, I wouldn’t want to be doing that every day. Even our smaller Ninja is a bit too bulky to be lifting in and out of a cupboard all the time, especially when I’m just making something quick.

It’s definitely worth having a think about where it would live before buying one because I think you’re much more likely to use it regularly if it’s somewhere convenient.

What can you actually cook in an air fryer?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about air fryers is that they’re mainly for chips, chicken nuggets and other things you’d normally cook in the oven.

They’re brilliant for those things but you can cook so much more in them.

I’ve made jacket potatoes in ours and they’re a great example of why I like using it. You still get that lovely crispy skin but without having to heat up the whole oven for a couple of potatoes.

It’s also really handy for cooking smaller portions of food, reheating certain leftovers and making those quick meals where switching the oven on feels like a lot of effort for what you’re cooking.

I still use our normal oven regularly and I don’t think an air fryer could replace it completely for the way we cook. There are times when I need the extra space or I’m making something that simply works better in the oven.

But for everyday cooking, especially when I’m making something fairly simple, the air fryer is often the easier option.

Is an air fryer cheaper to run than an oven?

One of the biggest selling points of air fryers is that they can cost less to run than a conventional oven, and for certain foods that really does seem to be the case.

Which? has tested the cost of cooking different foods in an air fryer compared with an electric oven, and the results are quite interesting.

Using an electricity rate of 26.32p per kWh, their comparisons included:

These are examples from their tests rather than guaranteed costs for every air fryer and oven, but they do show how the savings can add up.

If you cooked jacket potatoes twice a week using those figures, you’d save around £20 over the course of a year. That’s not going to change your life but it’s still money saved simply by using a different appliance to cook something you were going to make anyway.

The savings will depend on what you’re cooking, how much you’re cooking and the appliances you’ve got. If you’re making a big family dinner and filling the oven with several things at once, using the oven might make more sense than cooking everything in separate batches in a small air fryer.

And obviously, if you’re buying an expensive air fryer purely to save money on electricity, you’ll need to use it quite a lot before you’ve saved enough to cover what you spent on it.

Is an air fryer worth buying?

For me, the biggest benefit of our air fryer isn’t actually the money it saves. It’s the convenience.

I love that I can pop something in, set the temperature and timer and leave it to get on with cooking while I do something else. It’s easy to use, doesn’t need much preparation and often gets dinner on the table faster than using the main oven.

That convenience is worth quite a lot to me, especially on busy days when I want to make a proper meal but don’t particularly fancy spending ages in the kitchen.

And while I do sometimes look at the bigger dual drawer air fryers and think how handy one would be, our little Ninja still does a perfectly good job.

I don’t think an air fryer is something everyone absolutely needs, particularly if you’ve already got a good oven and you’re happy with the way you cook. But if you’re someone who regularly cooks smaller meals, likes quick and easy dinners or wants to avoid heating up a full-sized oven for one or two things, I can definitely see the appeal.

Ours has become one of those kitchen gadgets that gets used so regularly that I don’t really think about it anymore. It’s just there on the counter ready whenever I need it, and that’s probably the best sign that it was a worthwhile buy.

Although I do still occasionally wish we’d bought the dual drawer one. 😂

Thank you for reading, Cass x

If you don’t want to miss future posts, you can add your email address to the subscribe box on this page and new posts will land straight in your inbox. You can also follow along on Pinterest for more meal planning ideas, recipes and ways to make feeding everyone that little bit easier.

If you’re new to meal planning, my What is Meal Planning post is a good place to start, with lots of ideas to help you get into the habit without making it more complicated than it needs to be.

And if you want to know a bit more about me, you’ll find me over on my other blog, The Diary of a Frugal Family, where I’ve been sharing our family life, money-saving ideas, recipes and everything in between for many years.

Why not pin this post for later.

Share this....

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Email