Many get easily excited with all of the possibilities an air fryer has to offer that they tend to forget about the part where they’re actually involved in. This can be a costly mistake, though, so it’s very important to get to know how you’re supposed to operate one right off the bat.
The promise of ease of use may be true for most of these appliances, but not everyone has the same amount of patience. Some people might expect that all they really need to do is plop the ingredients into the cooking basket, press some buttons, and they’re all set. While these are the gist of it, there are, of course, more to air frying if you want the best results.
How to Use an Air Fryer? 10 Easy Steps
1. Prepare the Food You’ll Be Cooking
Like in any other cooking methodology, the very first thing you should do is to prepare the food you’ll be cooking. Most ingredients aren’t always bite size and ready to cook, so you have to do the washing, peeling, and chopping in this step, mostly.
If you’re going to cook a ready-to-eat frozen product, all you’ll really need to do is take it out of the freezer. Most air fryers will be able to cook it nicely straight out of the fridge, making them very convenient options for quick meals.
Those who like to make their fried dishes with batter, check with your air fryer’s manufacturer whether they can work with such before doing anything.
If you’re going to use wet ingredients like meat and freshly washed veggies, make sure to pat them dry first as well. This way, your air fryer won’t have to work extra to dry the food and get to use its capacity to actually cook your food efficiently.
You can also wrap your ingredients with aluminum foil if you want to make the most out of your cooking basket’s space. This will let you cook two different dishes in one go without the need for any accessory.
2. Prepare Your Air Fryer
Once your ingredients are prepped, the next step is to prepare your air fryer. If you’re going to use accessories, grab them now. It’s best to have them on hand so you can also clean them up if they need some rinsing.
You should also check if the air fryer is clean and dry before plugging it in and starting it up. Crusted old food can affect the taste and smell of your dish, so it’s best to make sure that your air fryer is completely clean before using it.
3. Preheat Your Air Fryer
While this is still a part of preparing your appliance for cooking, it’s still worth a special mention because it’s something a lot of people tend to forget.
To preheat, set the appliance to the highest heat level and leave it on for five minutes. That will do the trick to heat up your unit nicely in just a short amount of time.
4. Load the Ingredients into the Air Fryer
Once the air fryer is already hot, it’s ready to start cooking. Load the ingredients into its cooking basket. Make sure to use the right accessories if you intend to use them. Also, make sure to use them properly so you can make the most out of them.
5. Make Sure Not to Crowd the Cooking Basket
Your ingredients will need all the space it can get so it can be exposed to hot air, while the hot air also needs room to move around.
Don’t think that you’ll get away with filling the basket to the brim as that will only lead to an undercooked mess.
6. Add a Bit of Oil to the Cooking Basket
The next thing you should do is to add some oil into your air fryer. While you can skip the oil entirely, it’s still useful if you want to make sure that your ingredients won’t stick together or to the basket while cooking. It will also give your dish the fried taste that only cooking with oil can give.
To stay true to the health benefits of air fryers, use canola oil when cooking with this appliance. Deemed as the healthiest cooking oil by experts, it will let you enjoy crispy, fried dishes without the guilt.
7. Select the Right Settings to Start Cooking
Different ingredients require various cooking settings when it comes to air frying. To know how long your food should cook and how hot it should be, you can always refer to the many guides online about air frying.
Most units also come with booklets that will give you a rundown on durations and temperatures each ingredient require. You can stick to these figures or experiment a bit if you’ve already gotten the hang of using an air fryer.
8. Shake or Turn
To ensure even cooking, shaking or turning your ingredients is also necessary for many air fryers. Dishes with bite-sized ingredients like fries, need to be shaken a bit so each piece will get exposed to the hot air and get thoroughly cooked.
Dishes with bigger portions, like pork chops and fried chicken, will need to be turned in most cases. It’s best if you can pause your timer to do this so you don’t have to re-do the settings in the middle of cooking.
9. Always Check for Doneness Before Serving
Once the timer has gone off, you should always remember to check your ingredients’ doneness before taking it out of the basket. This way, you won’t have to learn the hard way that your chicken is still pink inside. It will save you the hassle of putting everything back to the basket by bothering to check first whether your dish is already cooked.
Once done, serve and enjoy the food you cooked.
10. Clean Thoroughly After Use
It’s best to clean up your air fryer every after use. This way, old food won’t dry up and crust in the food rack making it gross and hard to clean later on. It will also help prevent your unit from getting smelly and sticky as you’ll be able to remove the excess oils in it right away.
However, if there are some food bits stuck into the basket, soak it in water first to loosen it up. Then, wash it by hand to thoroughly remove it.
Buying Guides: Tips on How to Buy an Air fryer?
There are numerous brands and models of Airfryer with different features. So, it may be a little challenging to choose a good one. We noticed that the more expensive ones do not always have superior features. If you’re not careful, you could pay more for less. This is why we have decided to give you a few tips on buying an Airfryer.
1. Check reviews
It is important to check comprehensive reviews on numerous brands of models before you select one. Remember, many reviews are mere promotions. The problem with promotions is that they are usually silent on the drawbacks of a product. They only exaggerate the pros. Stay away from promotions. Focus on reviews.
Even after choosing the particular one that you want, you need to find out what its users are saying about it. Users don’t lie. In fact, never select any product whose Amazon rating is lower than 3 stars.
2. Compare prices
To get a great price deal, you need to check the price of your preferred Airfryer on several platforms before you pay. While it is a good idea to go for the one with the lowest price, you need to be wary of overly low prices. They could be a pointer to a used or refurbished appliance.
3. Purchase your appliances from Amazon
It is better to purchase your Airfryer from Amazon for several reasons. The platform offers competitive prices. Secondly, they sell only original products. Even if any seller has used or refurbished products to sell, potential buyers will be notified that the products are used or refurbished. Finally, all the products sold on Amazon come with a 30-day return window. This allows you to try the products for a few days and return it if you don’t like it.
4. Take advantage of the return window
You should take advantage of return windows. Even if you’re not ready to start using your Airfryer, it is better to try it within the 30-day return window. So, if there’s anything you don’t like about the product, you can be able to return it and request a refund or replacement.
5. Post an honest review
Since you benefited from user reviews, you’re morally obliged to post your own review to guide and inform potential buyers on the appliance. However, you need to use it for a few months before you post a review.
In conclusion, if you have been following this article from the beginning, you should have learned all the things you need to know about an Airfryer. Knowing is not enough. You should apply what you have learned.
Final Verdict
Despite being composed of several steps, no one can deny that operating these appliances is simple. You just need to know how to use an air fryer to assess whether you’re willing to do as much, though, so you can use it to its full capacity.
These things can really do a lot for you in the kitchen, so they’re guaranteed to be very handy. It’s just up to you how well you’re going to use it. And to give yourself a good idea how proficient you can be in using these appliances, you first need to get to know how to use one.
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