It’s a concentrated convection oven. It’s not magic, but I definitely like mine. Great for side dishes like roasted veggies. Also uses wayyyyy less power and time than a full oven when you’re only baking something small enough to fit in an air fryer
I thought they were dumb for the longest time, but I only have a conventional oven. Some stuff you want a convection oven for. It’s definitely a WAY cheaper alternative than buying a new oven that has both features, that’s for sure. Definitely need to adjust to the difference for temperature and time though, I’ve made that mistake before
Also compared to a full size convection oven, the airflow is much faster and more concentrated in an air fryer, giving not just faster cooking times but a crispier skin effect
I bought mine because it was cheap and didn’t really think i use it all too much. I hardly ever used my oven ever since. It’s nothing special per se, but it uses less energy and everything goes way faster, because you don’t have to heat up a really big box for a piece of bread.
It is waaay faster and easier to use than an oven.
Yeah it is a small oven, but you use it like a microwave.
Throw it in, put on a timer, and in a couple of minutes your thing will be ready.
Right? Why is a small, fast oven a disappointment?
And it’ll taste so much better than when you put it in a microwave. Microwave makes things soggy. ovens make things crispy.
It’s a small convection oven. Most ovens are not convection ovens, they’re fan ovens or gas ovens. The biggest downside to both of them is that what you’re mostly heating up is empty space.
I can practically fill my air fryer with enough food for one person. Clearly more efficient.
Also because of the small size it heats up basically instantly, none of this preheating the oven for 45 minutes before you can cook anything.
Your air fryer likely runs on 120v if you are in the US and your oven runs on 240v. This changes the efficiency equation.
240v lets you pump more amps through smaller gauge wire, but since it’s an air fryer only needs to maintain a certain temperature, 120v is fine, and will not use any additional power over 240v. The amount of total watt hours used is what determines efficiency.
Where 240v is nice is with electric water kettles, where the higher voltage increases your wattage ceiling, letting you dump the energy into the water faster, and thus boiling it faster. A 120v electric kettle would use the same amount of total watt hours to boil the water, but because it’s heating it with a lower wattage output, it just takes longer.
Technology Connections did a good video on the subject.
They also use air that moves a lot faster than a convection oven, which makes a huge difference.
And they’re also rounded instead of a square so the air moves more efficiently, which also makes a huge difference.
Most ovens are not convection ovens, they’re fan oven
As far as I understand the nomenclature, fan ovens are convection ovens.
The difference is between normal ovens with top and bottom heating elements and a fan that moves the air around on one hand and a real convection oven that has a heating element in front of the fan on the other.
following because I also dk the difference here
I’ve found that air fryers often make far better results than conventional ovens. Conventional ovens tend to cook things unevenly, will more easily burn some parts of the food, take more time to cook and dry things out.
You’ll never get homemade chicken wings as crunchy and juicy as you can get them in an air fryer in a conventional oven.
For the longest time in my life I didn’t realize that a conventional oven is different from a convection oven. Some regular size ovens have a convection mode even though they are also conventional.
I assume that’s why when someone finally came up with a decent word substitute for “convection” – that is air fryer – it sold well.
I’ve had experience with convection ovens too and they still suck compared to an air fryer. I have no idea if the ovens with an “air fryer” function are any different to convection or if it is just a gimmick though.
A convection Oven means a fan in the oven to move the hot air around.
An Air Fryer typically has a fan that moves a alot of air, and typically in a much smaller space such the super heated air moves quickly all over.
Air Fryer gets way crispier, preheats faster(my old one took 2 minutes), doesn’t waste huge amounts of power bill, oh and bonus pounds - it shuts off when timer goes off so I don’t have to worry about ADHD brain burning food.
It’s because it’s trying to move more air in a cube. Air fryers don’t have to move as much air meaning it will all be moved more evenly, and you don’t have sharp corners creating turbulence. Convection ovens are a great idea, putting them in a conventional oven that was never designed for the concept isn’t. Air fryers are what convection ovens should be.
I disagree with your last sentence. Not saying air fryers aren’t amazing for wings, but you definitely can get juicy, uber-crunchy wings out of a conventional oven with a little bit of prep. A dry brine and a little baking soda will make some insanely juicy wings with a glassy skin in the oven. I prefer to fry mine personally, but that isn’t always convenient.
dry brine and a little baking soda
smoker nerd checking in - this is the way, the light and the truth. I can get wings with skin so crisp it shatters when you hit it with a fork with some baking soda in the rub, on smoke at 225 for a bit and then finished on a ripping hot grill or in a 500f oven
When you’re paying to heat 5000% more air than you need to, it doesn’t matter what the device that saves you money is called.
You’re also trying to move 5000% more air than you need to in a square instead of a cylinder, so you’re not going to get nearly as much crisp either.
It’s a nice little convection oven. Especially great for one or two people.
I can’t fit one person in, let alone two. What’s your secret?
I was expecting the tubby custard machine
Good cutting technique.
you need the one with shelves rather than the “fryer basket”
Just use your shrink ray first, obviously. That’s what I do.
That sounds rather inhumane.
Well excuuuuuse me! Look at captain morals over here! Pff… Wimp!
I had one of the older style air fryers around 12 years ago. Those were much smaller and not oven like. I think they were ideal for making small portions and especially good for re-heating food the next day.
These newer ones do seem a bit like a smaller, more efficient oven. Again, I reckon it would be useful for a lot of smaller stuff I use the main oven for, but we just don’t have the space in the kitchen for one.
It’s an adult easy bake oven.
And I won’t be ashamed of that.
Yeah, why should baking be difficult though?
Mine also comes as an air grill and making hamburgers from frozen patties takes roughly 15 minutes, bonus it doesn’t make a mess on my stovetop and most of the fat drips at the bottom.
I could say the second part of your sentence about a lot of things
I like to bang your mom because she doesn’t make a mess on my stovetop and most of the fat drips at the bottom.
Huh. Neat.
Anon is clearly smooth brained and in capable of telling the time or doing basic arithmetic
Big oof
Well yeah but it heats up a lot faster using a lot less energy
You mean like a… Convection oven!!!
I’m not here to convert you, but this is just as dismissive as OP. Yes it’s a convection oven. We also have a full size convection oven. It does not cook things as dramatically faster as an air fryer does. It’s not the same experience at all.
I say this as someone who literally said, “so it’s just a small convection oven” until we got one. We have used it literally every day since getting it ~2 years ago.
It’s not just any of these things:
- Toaster oven
- Small convection oven
- Small oven
There is so much air moving around in an air fryer that parchment paper without food holding it down gets immediately sucked against the circulating fan filter (which we learned the hard way) and lighter bits of food (like cooked bacon that you might toss in for a quick reheat) will swirl around inside the cook basket.
It may not be for everyone, but it absolutely does cook food faster than in a regular oven, sometimes by an astonishing amount. We have a short but significant list of things that we also think are noticeably better from an air fryer, and nothing I can think of that we’ve tried comes out worse.
What about frozen stuff?
Frozen stuff works great, everything from fries to eggrolls.
You will start to get an idea how long things take after you have it. Many things now have airfryer instructions, or there are lots of “how to make xxx in an airfryer” articles.
Generic airfryer instructions are usually pretty close for ours, but any given model may have its own cookbook with times for different sorts of things (ours does) and after awhile you’ll get a feel for how to nudge generic instructions to fit your model.
For a very small number of specific kinds of breaded things, I’ll spritz them with cooking spray when they go in to help them get more like they were fried in oil, but that’s really personal preference and I only do it on a couple of things.
Get one with a big enough basket. Things need to be cooked in a single layer. You can pack it pretty full, but single layer is important.
Thanks
It absolutely is a convection oven however the rate of airflow is faster therefore the reaction is more pronounced.
Exactly, and most Americans don’t even have a convection oven either, so in that case the air fryer is functionally different from their oven.
Most people don’t even know how to use their microwave properly. You really think they know how to use their convection oven properly? It’s not WHAT it does, it’s that an air fryer is usually simple and has shit like “turn dial here to cook a chicken”.
People like it because they don’t know what they’re doing and it does it for them.
Yes, but smaller!
How much smaller though
Depends on the size
This is the big thing. So many times we want to heat up some left-overs and that would turn soggy in a microwave, but heating up the oven to reheat a few square inches of food is a vast waste of energy.
These take up a lot of space, though. I think one of those double ovens, where one is only tall enough for one tray, would be ideal. Convection, of course, but I haven’t seen a built-in without a convection mode in years.
deleted by creator
I’ve considered one if those as well; convection heat does make a difference, though, and that’d be nice to have. It seems to me that convection is the thing that turns a toaster oven into an air fryer.
They definitely cook different! Right tool for the job, and ideally my next toaster oven will do both.
I find my air fryer is great for crispy anything. However in my use it’s been almost exclusively for veggies: fries, broccoli, zuchini, onion rings it’s impossible to beat. Really any dish that’s traditionally deep fried, its great.
Doing small batches of bacon, chicken wings, breads, small desserts, reheating last night’s pizza, those are prime candidates for my toaster oven. Air fried chicken wings and baked potatoes never give me the right texture.
Yeah! So the ideal tool would be both a toaster oven – a small oven – and have the ability, a setting, to circulate air in the same way an air fryer does, right?
And it moves way more air than a normal oven, thus removing water vapor faster. This water vapor that partly steams the food, resulting in moisture saturated air that in turn prevents more moisture from escaping, is the main difference between a frying pan and an oven. A deep fryer replaces the water with oil, an air fryer just extracts the water quicker. Both prevent the food from cooking in water or steam, resulting in a crispy texture.
The past three houses I’ve lived in have had convection ovens; I thought convection mode was fairly common by now.
Every place I’ve ever rented has had the cheapest possible electric coil stove with no features, some of them didn’t even have a “clean” setting.
Oh, yeah. It’s been a long while since I’ve lived in that environment. You’re probably right that most cheap stand-alone stovetop/oven units don’t have a convection setting.
And 3/4 work (on a good day)
Never even heard of electric stoves with a clean function. Never seen a gas stove.
The clean function locks the door, cranks up the heat, and burns off all the crud in the oven. You can vacuum any ashes left after it cools down. Its awesome if you’re lazy like me. I have zero interest in bringing out the Easy Off and elbow length rubber gloves.
It is unless you are buying the cheapest model(s) possible.
I’ve seen them commonly in homes in Europe, but I’ve not seen them once in the US. But even convection ovens are not as effective as air fryers because they’re not as efficiently designed. They use the same principle, but the shape and fan power to volume ratio in air fryers is much better. Also, not all air fryers are the same, some are way more effective than others.
I was very surprised that it cooked such moist chicken breasts without drying them out, I think you possibly just explained why that is! 😅
Everyone misquoting the guy telling you that you read the sentence wrong, and ignoring that you already said the breasts came out juicier in an air fryer. (they do)
They have the reading comprehension of baboons
Didn’t they say it does stuff out quicker?
Hold on let me read it again for ya -
This water vapor that partly steams the food, resulting in moisture saturated air that in turn prevents more moisture from escaping
They’re not the one with reading comprehension problems. OP said the air fryer removes that moist air more quickly, which would dry it out faster.
Dude.
The first sentence:
it moves way more air than a normal oven, thus removing water vapor faster.
Says that the sentence you quoted applies less with an air fryer than a conventional oven.
This water vapor that partly steams the food [is removed more slowly in a conventional oven], resulting in moisture saturated air that in turn prevents more moisture from escaping
And convects much more powerfully and efficiently since it’s shaped like a cylinder instead of a cube and the fan strength to volume ratio is way better.
If only there wasn’t a repository of human knowledge that could have cleared everything up before this meme was made:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_oven#Air_fryer
And BTW, it’s closer to an impingement oven
Do you expect someone who posts on 4chan to know impingement? Shit I don’t even know what that means
Google Translate tells me it’s “collision” in my language. So we’re talking about CERN-level of tech here, a highly advanced cooking process.
I knew dino nuggies were the God Particle
Impinj makes RFID tags
You mean the Wikipedia article that is literally about convection ovens and has a subheader for air fryers and literally a line where people agree that some convection ovens are better at producing crispier food than air fryers? That smoking barrel of an article?
Man it almost looks like the OOP wrote both.
deleted by creator
Clean countertops master race
Gotta get that undermount 💪
I’m here for toaster oven supremacy. I like seeing the thing i’m heating
Of course there is the toaster oven / toast-r-oven divide. Perhaps we can put our differences aside in order to fight off the heathens.
It is a bit more complicated than that. The WAY it moves the air is different than in a convection oven, so it “fries” a bit better.
This guy does a great breakdown of how it isn’t “just a convection oven”
Thanks for sharing this, interesting recipe too, I will try it. The cross section of the air fryer was cool.
deleted by creator
He literally cut one in half and showed how the air flowed and explained why it was different and more akin to deep frying. Maybe watch a video next time before critiquing it.
Tldr, no. To everything you just said.
That was like 10 frames and he didn’t explain shit.
Your a liar and a troll. Fuck off and stop harassing me.
This made my day ty
Just a heads up, the ?si=… part of the youtube url is a tracker linked to you and your youtube history. Youtube will recommend people who click your link other things you watch. The ? and everything afterward can be safely removed and the link will still work.
Thanks!
Same is true for Amazon and other POS websites. Always try slimming your links before sharing with others.
