The Complete Air Fryer Buying Guide – Choose your best air fryer in 2023
What should I look for in an air fryer? Air Fryer buying guide
The following list of things you should consider before buying an Air Fryer. In this Air frying buying guide, we will explained in detail each part. So without skipping, read this article through out the end.
- 1. What is an Air Fryer?
- 2. How it works?
- 3. Types of Air Fryer
- 4. Air Fryer Basket types
- 5. Air Fryer Capacity
- 6. Which is best Air fryer or OTG vs Deep fryer
- 7.Air Fryer healthy?
- 8. Whether Air Fryer worth buying?
1. What is an Air Fryer?
Air Fryer is a kitchen appliance, which used to fry the food through hot air. We can control the temperature, timing using the dials or buttons. In this gadget food cooks faster than the traditional OTG. It will fry food without oil or less oil. This air fryer is comes as a counter top appliance. In this modern life style, people gradually moving to healthy life style, also they choose the air fryer. But whether the air fryer is healthy? Lets see in the end of this article.
2. How Air Fryers are working?
The top section of an air fryer holds a heating mechanism and fan. the food goes into a perforated basket and the machine cooks the food by blowing hot air around it. The force of the air produces a convection effect that cooks and browns the exterior of the food in the basket.
As long as the temperature of the air reaches more than around 320 F, breaded foods like frozen chicken tenders or unbreaded starchy items like french fries will in fact turn brown.
3. Types of Air Fryer
In this Air Fryer buying guide we are going to see the types of air fryers available in India. There are mainly 2 types of air fryer available in India. one is basket Air Fryer, another one is Air Fryer Oven.
Basket Air Fryer
A basket-type air fryer features a basket design to place food inside and cook. The basket has tiny holes that allow air to enter and heat the food ingredients. This design can prevent your food from sitting in oil.
2. Who don't want to put much effort on cleaning.
Air Fryer Oven
An oven air fryer uses the same heating process as the basket fryer. One difference is that oven air fryers feature racks that keep a crisper and baking tray in place whereas air fryers do not include this feature.
The kitchen air fryer oven features various cooking functions like baking, rotisserie, grilling, frying, broiling, and toasting – and performs them in silence. Resembling an convection OTG, the oven air fryer lets the user see through the glass door. It is also convenient for cleaning since oven air fryer parts can be tossed into the dishwasher.
The oven air fryer takes longer to pre-heat compared to basket-type air fryers. It can also heat the entire room when the pre-heating temperature is reached.
The oven air fryer is larger than the basket fryer, which means it occupies more kitchen countertop space. It also means it has greater food capacity.
2. If you are do more frying, baking, toasting and grilling, you can choose this.
3. Cleaning is little difficult than the previous model.
4. Air Fryer Basket Type and Shape
Types
Separate Basket
In this type, wired bottom basket or perforated basket placed inside a pan.
Basket Separator
In this type, there is no basket, instead of that, there is a rack placed in the drawer itself. In this type, more cooking space will be available.
2 Baskets
In this type, there are 2 baskets available. We can cook two different kinds of food without messing up. But in India this model is yet to come.
Shape
Round Shape Basket
In this type, our air fryer will looks great. But less cooking space.
Square Shape Basket
Square shape baskets are good to accommodate more food than the round shape one. Counter space also will be organized due to its square shape.
Few best Air Fryers to choose
6. Comparison between Air Fryer vs OTG (convection) vs Deep Fryer
In this section, we are going to compare which frying is best in all aspects. Taste, time, oil consumption, nutrition values. In this comparison we have taken french fries recipe. Same amount of french fries has been tested in all these methods.
Cooking Type | Air Fry | OTG Convection Fry | Deep Fry(Traditional) |
|---|---|---|---|
Taste | Good | Good | Best |
Time | Long | Longer | Shorter |
Oil Consumption | Very less | Very Less | Too much |
Crispiness | Better | Good | Great |
Calories (in 100g) | 128 | 128 | 319 |
Fat (in 100g) | 4.14g | 4.14g | 17g |
Carbs (in 100g) | 20.69g | 20.69 | 37.53g |
Protein (in 100g) | 2.55g | 2.55g | 3.76g |
7. Air Fryer Healthy?
As per the above data, air fryer takes too long to cook than the traditional method. But as per the nutritional value, Air fryer is outstanding. The fat content is 75% lesser than the deep fry method. Taste wise the difference is negligible. But health wise Air fryer is good to go.
Few best Air Fryer Ovens to choose
8. Do I really need one Air Fryer?
It depends on your cooking style. If you are not fry too often, then you no need to invest in Air fryer. If you have convection microwave oven with slim fry technology or Diet Fry technology, then you no need to invest in air fryer.
If you have convection OTG oven, just buy a crisper basket for your oven, ( click the image to see).
If you don't have any of the above said ovens, and you are eating more fried items. Then depending on your family size you can buy Air Fryer.
If you have 2-3 members then basket Air Fryer is best. If your family size is 4 and more, then you need Air Fryer Oven.
Conclusion
Air fryer is not complete replacement for the deep frying. Some of the foods only can be done using deep fry methods. Also Air fryer is not fully healthy gadget, because some studies says high acrylamide is produced in the air fried food. It is harmful for our health. Acrylamide produced in starchy foods that kept under high temperature for long time. So if you are cooking starchy food, keep the temperature down to 180 degree Celsius or below, and cook for few minutes. Also dont fry starchy foods until it turns to brown in either deep fry or air fry.
