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Everywhere I go recently someone is talking about an air fryer. It was one of the most purchased kitchen gadgets during lockdown. According to a survey by BBC Good Food Nation 52% of people bought a new cooking appliance in 2021. The most popular kitchen gadget was barista style coffee machines. The second was air fryers; 12% of the people surveyed bought one.
John Lewis experienced a 400% increase in air fryer sales in 2021 according to their How We Shop, Live and Look report
Incase you’ve been living under a rock the last couple of years here are just some of the headlines:
Air fryers explode in popularity during lockdown, leaving kitchen experts baffled
My Air Fryer Made My Life So Much Better, I Published A Book About It
‘OMG I’m that person’ – I bought an air fryer and dammit, everyone was right
Covid: Britain clamoured for Speedos, Crocs and air fryers during pandemic
Then there’s the memes!…
So the question is do they live up to the hype?
Recently we were sent a Ninja dual zone air fryer. It has an extra large capacity making it great for families. An air fryer is something that we’ve always talked about getting but never got around to it. My partner, being an ex chef, was particularly intrigued by it.
The reason I was interested was purely from an environmental perspective. I’d been told that you can cook food a lot faster in an air fryer which means less electricity usage and no gas is used. There is also no pre-heating time needed which again means less electricity usage.
It’s also supposed to be a healthier way of cooking compared to a traditional fryer or oven. I’ve also considered it as a potential alternative to an oven in my new van (when I finally get it!).
What Is An Air Fryer?
Before we delve into the Ninja air fryer I thought we’d just cover what an air fryer actually is. They are small countertop convection heating cookers. They work by circulating the warm air around the food with a fan. You can use little to no oil for cooking but you can get the same effect as a deep fryer. The fan in the fryer speeds up the cooking process meaning you can cook food faster than you can in a traditional oven.
Ninja Dual Zone Air Fryer
I think one of the best things about this particular air fryer is the variety of ways you can use it. It has 6 different functions to choose from.
6 Different Cooking Functions
- Air fry
- Roast
- Max Crisp
- Bake
- Reheat
- Dehydrate
Air Fry
Perfect for cooking fresh foods such as halloumi fries or frozen snacks.
As an example of timings you can air fry chips in around 26 minutes, salmon in 14 minutes, vegetables in 8 minutes and corn in 18 minutes.
Roast
Great for roasting vegetables, meats and plant-based meat. We roasted a whole chicken in 50 minutes.
Max Crisp
Best for cooking smaller amounts of frozen food that need to be cooked at a high temperature.
Bake
Set to bake mode for cakes and other baked puddings.
Reheat
Best mode to use for reheating leftovers.
Dehydrate
Great for making veggie crisps, dried fruit and jerky.
This particular air fryer comes with an instruction booklet and recipe ideas to help you get started. Personally, I follow a plant-based, gluten-free wholefoods, high vibe diet (quite the mouthful) so I’ll have to research recipe ideas although I did come across this blog post: 30 Crispy Vegan Air Fryer Recipes which looks pretty good.
The Benefits of An Air Fryer
Dual Zone Technology
The Ninja air fryer has dual zones. This means you can either cook two separate things in each compartment at the same time or set each section to cook for a different amount of time. This makes cooking really easy as you don’t have to remember timings. The machine does it for you. You can also only cook in one compartment.
Easy To Use & Easy To Clean
The machine is really easy to use and only takes a minute to clean afterwards. You can pull out each compartment and wash it in the sink. The best bit is unlike the oven or microwave, nothing sticks to the sides so it’s a wipe clean job.
Faster Cooking Times
You can cook food much faster in an air fryer compared to a traditional oven which benefits the environment and your bank balance. As a rough guide it takes approximately 45 minutes to cook fried chicken in an oven whereas in an air fryer it takes roughly 15 minutes. That’s quite a time difference.
Less Waste
Unlike deep fryers or pan fryers air fryers don’t leave you with lots of excess cooking oil to dispose of. This leftover oil can be hard to get rid of and is also very messy. In an air fryer you can either use a small amount of oil or no oil at all as the trays are non-stick. No waste cooking is the way forward!
One way I reduce our food waste in the kitchen is by using leftover potato peels to make potato crisps. I normally do this in the oven but now I can do it in half the time in the air fryer. I’ll let you know how I get on with that.
The dehydrate function is also great for reducing your food waste as you can easily preserve fruits and vegetables that might otherwise go off.
Healthier Way To Cook
Whilst using the air fry mode you can use up to 75% less fat than the other traditional frying methods. An air fryer also prevents the food from sitting in oil for too long meaning the food doesn’t absorb all of the excess oil.
It has also been noted that air fryers may reduce the risk of acrylamides forming in your food. Acrylamide is a chemical that can be harmful to humans. It forms in certain foods when they are cooked at a high temperature.
Are Air Fryers More Environmentally Friendly Than Ovens?
As I mentioned above, my main interest in the air fryer was it’s environmental credentials. So the question is are air fryers more environmentally friendly than ovens? In short the answer is yes due to the fact that you can cook your food faster in an air fryer than you can in an oven. Saving on electricity thus reducing your carbon emissions and, in the (very) long run, saving you money.
They’re also really easy to clean and don’t require any harsh chemicals like an oven does. I’ve been using my eco-friendly washing up liquid to clean mine and it works perfectly. That means less harmful chemicals being washed down the drain and ultimately ending up in our waterways.
Why We Love The Ninja Air Fryer & How We’ve Used It So Far
So far we have used the air fry, roast and reheat modes. For the air fry mode my partner made halloumi fires which worked perfectly. The best bit is they only took 5 minutes to make!
On another day my partner used the roast function. He had a whole chicken in one compartment and the veg in the other compartment. The chicken only took 50 minutes to cook which is 15 minutes less than it does in our oven.
Top Tip: You food will cook much faster than you’re used to so check it often to avoid burning your food!
We used the reheat function to warm up our leftovers and it worked perfectly. We’d normally use the microwave or oven for this but found the Ninja was much quicker.
My daughter is looking forward to using the bake function. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.
I’m intrigued by the dehydrate function. We have a local environmental initiative in our town called Community Fridge. The volunteers that work there give away free food that is left over from the local supermarkets and food stores. The aim is to reduce local food waste. It’s a fantastic idea and works really well, every town should do it.
Anyway, our kiddies often go down there and get any leftover fruit, the problem is we cannot eat it fast enough before it goes off. I’m planning on using the dehydrate function to preserve the fruit for longer. The kids are particularly excited about making dried banana chips. I’ll let you know how we get on with that on my Instagram stories.
I also noticed in the instructions booklet that you can dry your own herbs using the dehydrate mode. That is something I’m definitely going to look into further. I’d love to create my own herb garden and then dry the herbs for tea.
My partner and I reckon that if there were only two of you living in the house you could probably do away with the oven completely and just use the Ninja air fryer instead as it does everything you need it to do. It could be a great alternative option to an oven for anyone living in a van or boat, as long as they had electric hookup or solar panels.
In short we’re very happy with the Ninja Air Fryer and I would recommend it to anyone looking to purchase an air fryer. Only, however, if you’re actually going to use it, otherwise it’s just a waste.
If you have any questions about the air fryer leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
Header photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
About Gina Caro
Gina is a content creator and award-winning blogger. Her aim is to help you live a more sustainable & simple life. Her blog covers zero waste, minimalism, wellbeing & thrift. She currently lives in Cornwall with her partner, two kids and Charles the dog.
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