- The air fryer might be
one of the most popular kitchen gadgets of the year.
I'm still trying to decide if I'm a big fan or not.
It takes up a lot of counter space.
And at the end of the day it's just
a glorified miniature convection oven.
As my friend Karen says,
it's just an Easy-Bake oven for grown-ups.
You can get that fried taste,
it's not quite as good but still it satisfies the craving
with a fraction of the fat.
If you've been a little intimidated
and haven't pulled it out of the box yet,
I'm gonna show you it's really not that hard to use.
There's three key points to remember.
First, you need to preheat it.
There's no preheat button, you just need
to add a little more time
onto whatever you're cooking.
So you're gonna turn the dial to get it going.
It needs to heat up, you know just think about it.
You wouldn't put food into a cold oven,
you want it to preheat so same goes here.
Rule number two, or tip number two
is you have to cook in small batches.
You can't crowd this thing with a bunch of french fries
if you want to entertain a bunch of people.
It's not gonna work like that 'cause then
all that will happen is that it will steam.
So you still have to put a small amount in here at a time.
The third key tip is to crank it up.
You're rarely going to roast at a low temperature,
so you're not gonna air fry at a low temperature.
I have yet to find a purpose for using the 180 degree
or 200 degree setting.
I crank it up for almost everything.
Maybe if you're like dehydrating fruit leather.
But who does that?
Let's take a look at the insides.
The ones I have worked with, you can take out the basket.
This is where you put your food in.
As you can see, it's not that big.
Maybe a couple quarts or so.
And then this is a nonstick inside
which I have found that they are pretty easy to clean.
So you can take it out to dump or to fill it up
and then just set it back in.
It locks.
And don't be afraid to check on it
to flip in the middle of the process
because it's not like the Instant Pot,
it's not gonna explode or do anything
it's just like same thing, if you were
in your oven and you wanted to flip something,
you would just open the oven, flip it,
and put it back in.
It's the same concept.
It's really good for foods that you would wanna roast.
Like getting that crispy texture on potatoes
or other vegetables.
I'm gonna make some sweet potato fries today.
I hear it makes great bacon, I have not tried that.
If you have tried it, give it a thumbs up
or a thumbs down in the comments below.
It also works well for foods that are breaded.
So maybe like chicken nuggets, fried shrimp,
things that you would just dip in a classic breading.
It does satisfy the fried craving.
Still missing that little fatty goodness,
but you know what I'm saying.
You can still have your fried shrimp and eat it too.
And lemme tell you, it does not work with battered foods.
If you lay batter in an oven, it too would
turn into a gloppy mess
so it would do the same thing in here.
Remember it's really just a miniature convection oven.
So I'm gonna start by just showing you
quick and easy sweet potato fries.
Remember my three tips.
Number one, crank it up, well I'm out of order
but you know what I mean.
Crank up the temperature.
I'm going to 400.
Also, preheat.
These will probably take 10-15 minutes in here
so I'm gonna go ahead and set it for close to 20
just so it can have a few minutes of preheating time.
And then I am going to toss these in a little bit of oil.
It will just help them get crispy on the outside.
If you don't wanna do that, don't.
You can also spray them with a little cooking spray
if you like chemicals.
There are a lot of cases where you want
to spray the basket that's inside of here
because the breading could stick to it.
I just do it for extra security.
Pan spray does leave a coating on there
so you need to clean it really quickly after you use it.
And we'll wait just a few minutes while it preheats.
Okay so when you turn it on, these lights are gonna come on.
Right now both lights are on.
The green light on this model means that it's on
and the orange light means it's heating up.
The heating up light will come on and off
so to me you know when it's preheated
when that orange light kinda goes off.
Then you know it's reached the temperature
but it'll probably come back on during the process.
I'm going to not spray the basket this time.
I'm gonna avoid the chemicals.
The inside is made with a little bit of a nonstick coating
so I've got faith in these little babies
that they're not gonna stick
and they're still gonna be crispy.
Light's coming on and off but it was just off
so I think it's ready.
I'm just gonna put the potatoes straight in.
You don't want 'em to be too close together,
but you gotta at least cook a serving.
We'll check 'em in about five minutes
just to see how our progress is doing.
All right, it's been about five minutes or so.
Remember don't be scared, you can open
in the middle of the process.
They're looking pretty good, they're not sticking.
I just need to flip them.
See they're a little too close together,
so you really cannot cook a lot at one time.
That is my biggest complaint about the air fryer.
Going back in for another at least five more minutes or so.
We will have sweet potato fries in less time,
but when you can only make a single serving
to me this isn't ideal for making it for a big family
'cause you have to do this four times.
That's my gripe.
I'm just gonna let it go like two more minutes.
All right, here we go.
(timer dinging)
Ding.
Oh yeah, looking good.
Look at that brown crispiness.
I mean they are sweet potato fries
so they're still gonna be you know
sweet potato fries never get really crispy.
I'm gonna tell you if they taste delicious.
Probably should've waited like a second
before they burned my mouth.
They're good and crispy on the outside,
still soft on the inside,
definitely would satisfy my craving
next to a big juicy burger.
But anyway you get the idea how to use it.
Preheat it, crank the heat up, and cook it in small batches.
I would love to know some more recipes
or fun things you can do in the air fryer
if you've got any great ideas
please leave them in the comments below.
If you want me to try out any more kitchen gadgets for you
or if you wanna see more videos like these,
don't forget to like comment subscribe
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Happy air-frying.