Do I need to add oil when using an air fryer? Is the air fryer easy to use?

Many people like to eat fried foods, especially children, but the fried foods bought outside are unhygienic and it is better to make them yourself in an air fryer.

Does the air fryer need oil?

The advantage of an air fryer is that it uses less oil. Compared with traditional deep fryers, the biggest advantage of this modern air fryer is that it does not require oil. Not only does it not require oil, but it also drains the excess grease in the food. This is why we see some oil at the bottom of the fryer after using it. In fact, the air fryer drains the grease from the fat-containing food.

The principle is the high-speed air circulation principle, which uses heated air to form a hot air flow to quickly heat and brittle the food, thus making delicious food that is very similar to fried food. This principle is like marinated meat, seafood, French fries, etc., which can be made very fresh and delicious without adding oil. If the food itself does not contain oil, then you need to add oil, but you don’t need to add too much. Just brush a small amount of oil on the surface, and you can still taste the taste of deep-frying.

Is the air fryer useful?

The air fryer replaces the hot oil in the frying pan with air, using convection heating similar to the hot air from the sun. The hot air forms a rapidly circulating heat flow in a closed pot to cook the food. At the same time, the hot air blows away the moisture on the surface of the food, allowing the ingredients to achieve a similar frying effect without the need for boiling oil.

To sum up, it is nothing more than the following three steps:

1. Rapidly heat the air through the top baking device of the machine;

2. A high-power fan forms a rapidly circulating heat flow inside the fryer;

3. The special patterns inside the fryer form a vortex heat flow, which contacts the surface of the food 360 degrees in all directions, quickly taking away the water vapor generated by heating, thus forming a golden and crispy surface, achieving the appearance and taste of frying.

If there are still some people who don't understand, then we might as well imagine the process of heating ingredients in an air fryer as follows - using a high-temperature hair dryer to continuously blow 200-degree high-speed and powerful hot air in a sealed small space, and through the collision of hot air, the heat is directly transferred to the food.

Of course, compared with traditional household ovens, its advantages are also obvious:

1. The air fryer does not need to be preheated and has high heating efficiency. If the oven at home is the common size of 30L, it takes half an hour to heat up the machine, which does not seem to be a pleasant thing for hungry people at mealtime. But with an air fryer, there is no such trouble at all. Just put the food in. For example, chicken wings and crispy meat, usually a dish can be completed in more than ten minutes.

2. The air fryer takes up little space. If your kitchen is not large, a large oven will take up a lot of space, but an air fryer is usually only slightly larger than a rice cooker, making it very easy to move.

But it also has some obvious disadvantages:

1. The price is a bit high, you can buy two ovens with the price.

2. The kitchen is noisy. Imagine putting a blower running at full speed in the kitchen. It would be difficult not to make some noise.

3. The internal cooking space is small, and the range of dishes is limited. If someone comes to your house and wants to roast a whole chicken, it is obviously impossible to rely on the air fryer...

So, after clarifying the advantages and disadvantages of the air fryer, the next thing to do is to judge whether you need to buy it based on your needs.

How to clean an air fryer

Method 1: Wash it after each use, don’t leave it until next time

After each use, remember to soak it in hot water before cleaning. Some people will leave it until the next time before washing, which is easy to produce dirt and breed bacteria, which is not good. Please be reminded that this is not good. In addition, the internal material of the oil-free air fryer cannot be cleaned with a steel brush. It is better to use a small brush or a bristle brush.

Method 2: Spray oil or cover the frying net with baking paper before use

Before cooking the meat, preheat the pan and spray some cooking oil in it, or cover it with baking paper to prevent the meat from sticking. However, please note that covering it with baking paper may affect the cooking speed of the ingredients, so the cooking time and temperature must be increased, and the number of flippings can be increased.

Method 3: Air fryer cleaning tools

Bristle brush: Scrubbing the oil-free air fryer is really a hard job, but if you have a good bristle brush, you can get rid of a lot of mortal troubles. You have to find it yourself, and it will be ok as long as you are comfortable using it! Enzyme cleaner: The most indispensable thing for cleaning the oil-free air fryer is enzyme cleaning liquid! Pour the cleaner into the greasy inner pot of the oil-free air fryer, soak it for a while and then brush it, and it will be clean immediately.

Method 4: Be good at using oil-free air fryer cleaning tools

Due to the material of the inner pot of the oil-free air fryer, it is not suitable to use a steel brush. It is recommended to use a sponge, rag, bristle brush for cleaning (the brush can clean the edge of the net). Enzyme cleaner is also a good helper for cleaning! Just take out the inner pot and net of the air fryer and soak them in warm water and enzyme powder, and you can easily remove the remaining food residues.