Devotees of air fryers are often staunch advocates for these worktop wonders, touting them as a cheaper and superior alternative to traditional ovens.
Their rise to kitchen stardom has been meteoric, yet culinary specialists have issued cautions about frequent blunders many users are prone to when harnessing their cooking powers.
Regardless of whether you’re a newly minted enthusiast or have long evangelised the virtues of air frying, heed expert advice and refrain from tossing these five specific foods into your gadget.
Instead, revert to the trusty oven for dishes involving these ingredients, reports the Mirror.
Five items you should avoid using in the air fryer
As seen in the Huffington Post, seasoned air fryer-users should steer clear of wet batter.
It’s a definitive non-starter for this countertop kit as achieving desired crispiness is simply unattainable; not akin to a deep fryer in function, it’ll likely leave you contending with a gooey disaster. So bypass wet-battered items altogether in favour of more suitable cooking methods.
Furthermore, culinary authorities suggest side-stepping the temptation to air fry bacon. “Bacon is a fatty food, and when it is cooked in an air fryer, the fat can drip down and cause smoke or splatter. This can make the bacon difficult to cook evenly, and it can also produce a lot of smoke and odors,” explains Brenda Peralta, a chef and recipe creator.
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Next, fresh greens, particularly when making kale crisps, are the third food item you should avoid cooking in your air fryer. Those who have tried know that while these crisps are a healthy alternative to traditional ones and incredibly moreish, they’re too lightweight for an air fryer.
The circulating air will just blow them around, resulting in an unevenly cooked snack and a mess to clean up.
Cheese is another no-go for air frying, as it’s likely to create a mess. “An air fryer is actually NOT a deep fryer. When you make something like a mozzarella stick in a deep fryer, an instant outer crust is formed…In an air fryer, this does not happen, and you’ll instead end up with a gooey, cheesy mess,” explained Yankel Polak, culinary director of ButcherBox.
Lastly, if you fancy homemade burgers, stick to your traditional oven, as an air fryer won’t do the job properly. “Air fryers are not ideal for grilling red meat. You’d be able to get the inside of a burger to medium rare, but the outside wouldn’t get that ‘char’ that you want on a burger. Plus, it’s really messy,” cautioned expert and author Anna Vocino.
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