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- Hi, I'm Becky Striepe from Glue and Glitter
and today I'm gonna talk to you
about one of my favorite topics.
Air fryers.
The kind of air fryer that I'm going to talk about today
is this style of air fryer with the removable basket
and the unit that looks kind of like this.
Not gonna talk about combo ovens
because I haven't really found a combo oven
that I'm in love with
and so I don't feel comfortable talking about them.
If I do find a combo oven I love though,
I'll be sure to make a video about it.
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I'm gonna answer some questions
that I often get about air fryers
and hopefully they will be your questions.
If you have other questions
that I don't address in this video,
feel free to leave a comment.
I try to respond to every comment
especially if it's a question.
The first question that I get about air fryers is
what is an air fryer.
An air fryer is basically a super hot convection oven.
It's obviously a lot smaller than a convection oven
and what distinguishes it from a convection oven,
the main thing, is cooking time.
An air fryer takes about half the time that it would take
to cook something in your conventional oven.
A convection oven takes about 25% less time.
So an air fryer, half the time.
A convection oven, 75% of the time.
So, it's a lot faster.
It also doesn't heat up the house the way an oven does
which is something I love especially in the summer.
I live in Atlanta.
It's hot here for a lot of the year
so not heating up the house is a definite plus.
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The other great thing about an air fryer
is that you can cook with little to no oil.
Just know that if you skip the oil,
you are going to give up a little bit of that
crispy, fried texture that you might be going for.
But that's just a sacrifice you make.
It's still gonna be a delicious result.
It just might not be as crispy on the outside
as it would have been if you'd used
a little bit of oil or even a little bit of spray oil.
The other thing that the oil does help do
is prevent sticking.
Air fryers have non stick baskets
but a little oil really does help prevent sticking more.
You can also use a piece of cut
parchment paper to prevent sticking.
If you do use parchment paper,
you just want to make sure it doesn't cover
the whole inside of the basket
because you do want the air to still be able to circulate.
Things you should not use in your
air fryer to prevent sticking are wax paper
because it's hot in there and wax melts
and tin foil or aluminum foil
because that can scratch the non stick coating
and you do not want that.
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The next question that I get a lot about air fryers
is what size air fryer do you need.
This depends on how many people you're looking to feed.
Something in the two to three and a half quart range
is good for one to three people.
So if you live alone or if you have a small family,
like I do, that size is generally pretty good.
I recently upgraded to this
5.8 quart Zenchef XXL Pro Air Fryer.
This feeds six to seven people
and I love it.
It allows me to cook for leftovers for my family of three.
That way we all have something to eat
in our lunches the next day too.
And it's also nice if we're having company,
I can cook a little bit more food.
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The next thing I'm gonna go over
are some air fryer basics that people ask about.
A lot of people ask if it's easy to clean
and that really depends on the design of your air fryer.
This one is incredibly easy to clean.
It has a little button here to release the basket,
so you can clean the inner basket, top and bottom,
and wipe out the inside here.
The other thing that I prefer when
it comes to finding an air fryer that's easy to clean,
this basket has holes on the bottom rather than mesh.
I find that the holes prevent sticking
better than the mesh does
and also the holes are easier to clean.
If something gets into that tiny mesh bottom,
it's a real pain to get it out.
But with the holes it's really easy to get in there
and clean everything with just a sponge
and some warm, soapy water.
So the next thing to know about your air fryer
is that it's gonna have two kinds of controls.
Let me slide the basket in so it'll turn on.
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It's gonna have your automatic controls,
which are presets for different things like fries and chips.
And then the other set of controls you have are manuals.
So you can set a custom time and temperature.
So the other thing that I like about this air fryer
is that it has this little s button,
which is a start and stop button.
So if you finish cooking early,
you can just turn it off.
You don't have to just unplug it while it's cooking,
which I really love.
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Another question I get about the air fryer is
how long do I cook my food in it
if you're not following a recipe.
There are a couple of general rules to follow.
For something frozen that's like kind of like a tator tot
to a chicken-less nugget size,
you can do ten minutes at 400, for frozen items.
And that generally will get the job done.
You can always add a little time or stop a little bit early,
depending on how things are progressing.
But if you know the baking time,
you can cook it for half of that baking time
at the same temperature or as close as you can get.
So if it's something says 425,
most air fryers only go up to 400,
so cook it at 400 for half the time.
You can also add a little time
on the back end if you need to.
The other important thing to know
when you're cooking with your air fryer
is that you do not want to overfill your basket.
I know that when you see pictures of air fryers,
they're always filled
with a bountiful, overflowing french fries
and that looks really beautiful
and it's great for a photograph
but when it comes to practical cooking in your air fryer,
those fries are disgusting.
They look beautiful on the top
and the ones on the top will be nice and crispy
because they were able to get exposed
to that hot, circulating air.
The ones in the middle are gonna either be
uncooked, mushy, or a disgusting mix of both things.
Do not overfill your air fryer.
If your air fryer doesn't have a fill line on the inside,
I wouldn't go more than halfway.
The basic rule is the more you fill it,
the longer you need to cook
and the more often you need to shake.
So if you're cooking just like a single veggie burger
in here, it won't take nearly as long
as if you're cooking eight veggie burgers in here.
So just keep checking for done-ness
and know that cooking times are gonna vary
depending on how much you fill.
So for these hash browns that I want to make today,
see how much room is in that air fryer?
And then I told you that I like oil.
I'm just going to use spray oil today.
Please don't get mad at me.
This is a new spray.
And it's not spraying.
There it is.
Please don't yell about too much oil at me.
I like oil.
If you don't like oil, you don't have to use it.
I'm not gonna make you eat these hash browns.
For hash browns, I usually follow the french fry rule.
So you can either use your french fry preset
or if you're like me you can do it manually.
So what are we at, so we'll go up to 400
and I'll do it for 20.
And in about ten minutes, I'll give this a shake.
That's another important thing to know
about cooking with your air fryer.
You wanna shake during your cooking.
That helps move the food around
so that the food in the middle gets to come to the outside
and get more air exposure.
And it gives that food on the outside a break,
moving it inside so that you don't get
some burnt food and some undercooked food.
That's no good.
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The last thing I want to talk about with your air fryer
are a couple of safety concerns.
Air fryers are pretty safe.
You can see I'm standing right here while it's cooking.
Although I'm not putting my hand behind it
because that's where the vent is
and hot air comes out of there.
And because there's that vent releasing
hot air out of the back,
it's important that when you're cooking on the counter
that you move your air fryer away from the wall.
I generally just move mine so that the
front of the air fryer is as close to the
edge of the counter as I feel comfortable with.
I learned this rule because I was using my air fryer
for the first time and didn't move it away from the wall
and when I went to unplug it,
I had melted the plastic outlet cover.
Someone was asking if they were okay
to keep using their air fryer
if the non stick coating had chipped,
my heart goes out to this person
because that happened to me with a previous air fryer
from a different company
and I would not keep using it if the basket is chipped.
Because it will keep chipping once its started,
you don't want to eat that non stick coating, disgusting.
If your basket chips, you should reach out to the company.
Their customer service should get back to you
about how you can get a basket replacement
either for free or even if you have to pay for one,
it's worth it.
So those are really my basic air fryer
frequently asked questions.
I hope that if you have more questions
you'll leave a comment below and thank you so much.
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