How big can an air fryer get before it’s just a oven?

43 comments

1. The point is presumably the size, and therefore the cost of running them, the ease of cleaning and maintenance. If someone already has say a gas oven, they’re not going to buy a fan assisted convection oven to get the effects they want – they’re going to buy a wee air fryer for the worktop.

2. An oven needs to heat up the entire area before it’s warm enough to use, be it for one person or four persons.

   The airfryer can very quickly pass super-heated air into a small area to get it up to temperature. Uses less energy to do so than an oven, and is efficient for those cooking in small portions e.g. one or two people.

   If you’ve got to cook a large amount, just use the oven and all it’s levels.

3. For me personally, i love that frozen chips taste as good (if not better) than putting them in an oil fryer (oven chips are just horrid). Also, when you chuck a couple of sausages in – you can go have a shower and get ready and they’ll be waiting for you when you are ready. Not like grill/oven, that needs some level of supervision.
   They are cheaper to run than an oven (apparently, by all the recent press).

   I am pretty useless at cooking, so i find it really useful when my partner is out.

4. Technically they *are* just a small convection oven.

   Essentially they’re no different from a Merrychef – often used in pub/restaurant kitchens to quickly cook things like baguettes or garlic bread. Most commonly seen by the public as the little ovens they use to heat up your sandwich in Subway.

5. i prefer my little toaster oven with hotplates, it steams vegetables in a couple of minutes then cooks them in the oven really quickly.

6. Don’t disrespect the air frying community, you will be banished and cursed, these are serious devotees you are messing with!

7. They reduce the cooking time of pretty much everything and don’t use gas. Tasty food and money saved. There’s not much else to get, chief.

8. The point of them is that they cook great tasting food in less time than an oven and using less energy.

   A wonderful bonus to them is that for some reason they **REALLY** get on the tits of some people. Just take a look at this (or any other thread where they are mentioned) and you will see weirdly angry redditors making a whole load of comments denying they have any value serving only to demonstrate their own ignorance.

   It’s such an odd thing to be so triggered by.

9. Portable, Cooks food faster and more evenly and cheaper to run. I got a dual ninja one on sale a few months and I legit only use that nowadays over my oven and microwave where possible. It’s noticably better than an oven in every way other than being able to cook pizza. I just cut the pizza in half and cook the 2 halves in both trays though lol

10. If you deep-fry a lot of food normally, an air fryer is a healthier, easier and cheaper alternative to deep fat frying.

    If you don’t cook a lot of fried food normally, the benefits of an air fryer will be much less.

    But it’s basically same sort of deal as microwaves – some people seemingly can’t live without them, and some other people never use them at all. Each to their own.

11. An air fryer _is_ an oven. Just one that heats up really fast.

    I don’t get what it is you don’t get.

12. It is an oven. It’s just cheaper to run

13. So many people here are answering the non-question in the second sentence and not the actual question in the title.

14. Air fryer isn’t a small oven. It uses IR heating elements rather than convection heating elements so rather than trying to heat up the space it (mostly) only heats the food. It then circulates the air more rapidly so it is better at crisping things up.

15. My cousin was going on about this a couple of days ago when we were round their house for steak, if this is you BD you’ve got to let it go

16. The point is they’re smaller ovens than conventional ovens, so they cost less and can be more easily heated to higher temperatures. They’re all ovens, just smaller and more efficient

17. I had a new air fryer for my birthday (I asked for one). I cooked a whole chicken in it to make curry. The smart meter said 10p an hour and it took about 45 minutes. If I do it in the oven it’s about 1hr 30 and about 35p an hour.

    I wouldn’t want a bigger one since this is a two drawer one and I can cook for the three of us much more quickly now. Next on the agenda is something with liquid, original was vented and I couldn’t do anything with liquid in.

18. Didn’t want an air fryer. Got one for Christmas. Had fries last night that tasted every bit as good as McDonald’s ones and took 11 mins to cook.

    Had bacon this morning that is the best I’ve had since I stopped using the frying pan years ago and started using the grill or foreman instead.

    I’ve just had a chicken burger and it took 14 mins from freezer to plate and was delicious.

    Point is, I’m converted.

19. When its oven sized?

20. We just got one in Sept. Main pros:

    * Cuts cooking time to roughly half
    * Crisps up food very well
    * Easy cleanup
    * Ours can ‘roast’, ‘grill’, ‘bake’ or reheat and honestly it does a cracking job. Thrown everything from burgers, steaks, and trays of veggies, to crisping up Brussel Sprouts to baking gingerbread/brownies.

    The only time we use the oven now is if its huge trays of veg, roasts, or multiple dishes

21. An air fryer is ALWAYS an oven. They’re a bench top convection oven. I’ve been using them for years, they just re branded them and made them smaller with those silly baskets.

22. A youtube channel did a comparison with an oven. With a view of energy efficiency. Pending on the volume of food you cook and price of electricity. An air fryer might pay for itself in a year, because you have less volume to heat up per cook. Similar to boiling a single cup of tea rather than more than you need.

    There is also a slight speed boast given the smaller space to heat up.

    Air fryer sounds better than mini oven.

    How to cook that, is the youtube channel I believe.

23. > How big can an air fryer get before it’s just a oven?

    …when it’s the size of an actual oven?

24. The air fryer cult are out in force today!

    Read the question!

25. We dont hate ovens. Bit of a dozy thing to say. I was a cook at sea for 25 years and used standard electric and later Rational hotel grade ovens. Yes now I’ve an airfryer but my oven is used for most cooking. Small things like chips and, grr, nuggets are done in the Ninja if the grandbairns want them, but try doing a full size pasta bake or large roast chicken.

26. It’s just a rebranded halogen oven, basically. So it already is one?

27. Hurr durr its an air fryer, you should get on, hurr durr idiot

28. Once it’s too big to fit on the counter, then it’s an oven.

29. Really annoy them by telling them that if you turn a normal convection oven up and bit and put your food inside a basket, then it’s just the same thing

30. This big: [__]

31. Lol. I love threads on zealot attracting topics. Any question get ignored so the zealots can instead discuss why X is great/awful depending on their leaning.

    OP didn’t help himself with the second statement. Clearly, they do understand the point of them – they just don’t consider the benefit to them as being worthwhile. Which is fine but you are dealing with a religion so should be more cautious!

    To answer the actual question, i am going to say that it depends on the kitchen; when it dominates the section of worktop in which it is placed then it is effectively an oven. For me, that is the distinction; whether it is convenient as a bench top or not. When it is no longer space saving and convenient on the bench top then it is an oven.

32. The answers on this thread just have me further convinced it’s all a cult and OP has just come dangerously close to uncovering it

33. They ARE just ovens, or at least a type of oven. The name air fryer doesn’t even make sense. Love our Cosori!

34. An air fryer *is* a convection oven. That’s all it is, just smaller.

35. How big? I’d say once it’s an oven size it’s an oven…smaller than that then it’s an air fryer.

36. When it can’t go in the cupboard and I have to build it into the kitchen units? Idk lol

37. An air fryer is just a fan oven. End of

38. Mmmmm, fried air.

39. I think it comes down to the following.

    1. We all have a broad idea what an air fryer really is – a compact counter-top cooker using a fan to achieve high temperature cooking.

    2. Air fryers have sensibly been combined with other functions in a similar sized cooker, combining, perhaps, air frying with pressure cooking, slow cooking and steaming, all in the same device.

    3. Compact air fryers and combination air fryers are more popular than ever, especially with people cooking for just 1 or 2 people. They are less appropriate for family cooks for obvious reasons.

    4. So the logical result of this is a marketing department launching a large oven, basically no different from a conventional oven, except it may be counter-top, but riding high on the buzz there currently is about air fryers.

    Which leads me to suspect we might find more enlightenment raising this in r/ProductMarketing.

40. As big as your smallest oven.

    They’re not useless for me. I only cook for myself, so instead of turning the big oven on, I just use the small air fryer. Saves me a lot of energy and takes half the time.

    It’s that simple. I don’t really know what you mean what’s the point of them, when they’re literally more energy efficient.

41. At the risk of getting downvoted into oblivion by the air fryer cult – air fryers are wrongly named and not that useful because they don’t fry things, they bake things, and a lot of the time when using the oven, it’s for big things that wouldn’t fit into one of those small, portable ovens.

    That is to say, there shouldn’t be a distinction.

42. Ooh, the pot calling the kettle black question.

43. A big air fryer is better than a big oven