Your obstacle to cooking frozen pizza in the air fryer is nothing to do with the topping or it being frozen. The issue is the size of the pizza, and the diameter can be too large for most air fryers.
Buy budget
The very budget friendly £1 Iceland frozen deep pan pepperoni pizza is not a large pizza by any stretch of the imagination. This quality makes it an ideal air-frying frozen pizza.
For the £1, you get a pretty good deep pan pizza. We prefer this pizza cooked in the air fryer over our conventional oven because the base is fluffier and lighter with an even tastier topping.
It also costs less electricity budget to cook this pizza in the air fryer.
Fits the basket
The small size of this pizza fits in the 5.8L (6.1Qt) or a family-sized air fryer. There is room to take it out quickly with our air fryer pizza tool, and there is no need to struggle to remove the cooked pizza.
Cooking Time
The cooking time for a frozen pizza in an air fryer is much reduced over the conventional or fan oven timings. Using the oven timing for the air fryer pizza will burn.
Trial run
It is easier to cook the pizza a bit longer than uncook an overcooked pizza. Use a lower time and check on the pizza, then add more if it’s not done. All frozen pizzas vary, but we have tried and tested these settings for the value Iceland deep pan pepperoni. Use them to guide a perfect frozen pizza from the air fryer.
Time and Temperature
We set the air fryer temperature to 170°C (340°F) And set the time to 7 minutes. I am using the Air Fry mode.
The frozen pizza was put into the basket, and no pre-heating was used. This saves time and energy. But at the cost of a more variable final cook. The pizza may be a bit over or a bit under using this method. But a frozen pizza tastes suitable for 1 minute either way – under or over.
Check the food is piping hot before serving.
Compared to a fan oven
The fan oven directions are excessive for an air fryer, but they can help you see how quickly a frozen pizza can cook in the air fryer.
22-24 minutes at 180°C (355°F) in a fan-assisted oven, pre-heated.
If you cook it that long at that heat, your air-fried will be charcoal.
Our Verdict
The air fryer frozen pizza tasted better than when cooked in a conventional fan oven, and the base was lighter and fluffier with a tasty topping. Great value for money pizza when keeping costs down, cooked economically.
A rotisserie and rotating basket have been been features only previously found on expensive traditional ovens.
Air Fryer Rotisserie
As air fryer design improves new feature are becoming available to the home cook and in a much cheaper format than available in the past. This air fryer has a rotisserie for rotating the food to cook it more evenly without the need to turn it manually.
The rotisserie is ideal for food like a chicken or joint of meat and employing the roasting fork, supplied. No need to stop and turn or flip the food as you do with a standard air fryer. Even roasting chickens need to be flipped over part way to ensure full cooking. With the rotisserie feature the food is turning all the time, automatically . Other foods like kebabs and corn can be fitted to the larger rotisserie kebab stick attachment.
Rotating basket
The rotisserie feature allows for the use of a rotating drum style basket attachment, supplied, for cooking food. The rotating drum basket can take smaller food like fries and vegetables and it continuously tumbles the food as its cooked. No need to turn or shake, just set the program and let the machine do the work.
This can be a real time saver. Not because it takes a long time to shake a basket, but because you don’t need to attend the air fryer to shake the food. You can be doing something else, instead.
Food Window
The food window gives you a view of the food as it cooks. Much like a traditional oven you can just look to see how brown the food is getting. This feature is missing from many of the basket style air fryers but this model features a big window.
Traditional layout
The traditional hinge-down door and two removable shelves give advantages found in a traditional oven.
These are:
A window on the food unhindered by a basket handle
Two shelves for pizzas.
Shelves are better for pizza than baskets
Possibility of a Rotisserie feature
Internal oven light
The disadvantage to other hinge-down door air fryer models is the lack of a basket to shake. The basket shake is great for fries to keep them cooking evenly. The rotisserie feature makes up for the lack of basket shake and actually improves on it by continuously turning and tumbling the food.
Large Capacity
The 12 QT capacity is large for an air fryer. It has the space to fit either a
4-5lbs whole chicken
Two 8in pizzas
18 chicken wings
4 steaks
800g French fries.
A good consideration for a family-sized air fryer.
If a hinge-down door 12 Qt air fryer that can rotisserie and cook pizza is something that would benefit your family, have a look at the full details here on Amazon.
Our View
The Deime 12 Qt with pizza shelf and rotisserie air fryer oven is a good option for traditional oven replacement if fries are less important than pizza or rotisserie roasting. With its 10 Presets, and dishwasher-safe attachments it stands up with the other airfyers. But has some extra special features that make this airfryer oven a little bit different.
This basket-style air fryer has what most air fryers are missing. Something that most traditional ovens have…
Window
Most air fryers are missing the window on the food, which is a standard feature of most traditional ovens. If you are changing to an air fryer, the window is something you may miss. A window is helpful for checking the food is browning and can help gauge the done-ness.
No View
Most air fryers rely on pre-programmed modes and are easily open to check baskets. Opening the air fryer basket, observing the food, and closing the drawer is quick, and the stopping and re-starting are automatic and little heat is lost.
Cooking Progress
A quick look at the food’s colour gives an instant indication and even peace of mind about the cooking progress. This is where this mid-sized 6.2 QT Deime basket air fryer has its ace. The large window on the basket, only slightly obscured by the handle, tries to solve this problem. It is undoubtedly better than no window, but you don’t significantly improve without the light.
Stainless Steel
One of the other notable external features of this air fryer is the professional kitchen-looking stainless steel finish. In a world of black plastic air fryers, the stainless steel stands version out, and it may be a better match or look good on its own.
One Touch Programmes
The Deime 6.2 Qt has the usual features of a basket air fryer, including one-touch cooking programmes for easy cooking. No guessing or looking up on Google how to air fry… Press the one-touch button for the right time and automatically set the temperature.
Good Value
Even without the window on the food. This air fryer offers plenty of features and a family-sized 6.2 Qt capacity for a very reasonable price.
This is an air frying oven with a traditional oven look, and it has some advantages over the available basket-type air fryers.
Large Capacity
The COSORI Air fryer oven has a vast 10 Qt capacity. This is like a traditional oven with wide oven racks but is fitted into a desktop air fryer.
Pizzas
The advantage of this large capacity and traditional layout is pizzas. The front door hinges reveal two oven shelves ideal for cooking pizzas. Where the basket air fryers do cook pizza well, (we even have a recipe). Getting the pizza out of the basket can be more challenging. There is no such trouble for the COSORI air fryer oven 10 Qt, that can cook two pizzas at the same time, no basket airfryer can do that well.
Roast Chicken
With the removable oven trays, the COSORI has enough space to roast a family-sized chicken.
Extras included
Several different cooking adaptors are included in the package that can help with roasting baking.
An air-frying basket
Wire rack
Crumb tray
Crisper plate
2 dehydrating racks/pizza racks
Family Size
The 10 Qt capacity is the proper family size. Coupled with the traditional layout, it is suitable for family meals that aren’t just fried. Yes, it can cook fries, but you don’t get the convenience of the air fryer basket shake, and you will have to use it more like a traditional oven in that respect.
Worktop Oven
Placing the COSORI Air Fryer Oven can make it much more accessible, and there is no need to bend down to reach the back of the fitted kitchen-style oven. Having the air frying oven at worktop height with its hinge-down door can be a big plus if a worktop height oven would benefit you.
Air Fryer Features
The COSORI air fryer oven has traditional basket air fryer features and programmes for cooking. It has 14-in-1 Functions, including:
Toast
Roast
Bake
Keep Warm
Dehydrate
Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
The COSORI Air Fryer Oven is the next generation of air fryer ovens with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration. You can set the air fryer oven settings or, more usefully, ask the voice assistant how much time is left to finish cooking the food, from another room.
Lidl Breaded Cod Fillets and Iceland Hash Brown Waffles (Both frozen)
With the faster cooking times of an air fryer over a conventional oven, the on-label instructions may not be relevant to an air fryer.
Cooking Instructions
The printed helpful cooking instructions typically specify a conventional oven and, occasionally, a fan oven. If the air fryer instructions are missing, how should the frozen food of Breaded Cod Fillets and Iceland hash brown waffles be cooked?
Quicker Cooking
The air fryers, mainly when not overcrowded, cook more quickly than even a fan oven. You can also save money on the cooking cost by reducing the temperature to cook the food thoroughly. Less energy is wasted in an air fryer than in a conventional oven, and more goes into the food.
Cooking Times
Without any air fryer cooking times on the packaging, it can be worrying that the food will be cooked properly. Follow our timings as a guide, and check the food is piping hot before serving. You can always cook it for a bit longer if it’s not hot enough when you test it. All air fryers, just like ovens, cook at slightly different temperatures. Be sure to add time/temperature or cook for less time/temperature if your air fryer differs from ours.
On Label Vs Actual Air fryer times
Lidl Breaded Cod Fillets
Lidl Breaded Cod Fillets (per 2) take approximately 25 minutes at 200°C in a conventional oven.
We have tested this and found the optimal time for a piping hot fish with a crispy crumb breaded coating them in the air fryer is:
180°C / 360°F for 16 minutes.
The Iceland Hash Brown Waffles packaging states the fan oven cooking time is 15 minutes at 200°C from frozen.
An air fryer can reduce the time and temperature (and hence the electricity needed) to 180°C for 10 minutes. This gives you crispy hash brown waffles that are fluffy in the middle and crunchy outside.
Cooking both for a meal at the same time
A sufficiently sizeable single-basket air fryer can cook two Lidl breaded cod fillets and four Iceland hash brown waffles and finish simultaneously. The 5.7L capacity of the air fryer means that the air can easily circulate and, importantly, underneath the food in the basket.
Timing
To get two different foods to finish at the same time, it just takes a bit of maths.
For our Frozen breaded fish, the actual air fryer cooking total time is 16 minutes.
The total time for the air fryer to cook the hash brown waffles is 10 minutes.
Instructions
Preheat the air fryer to 180°C and add the fish; set the timer for 6 minutes. Ignore any shake or turn food warnings.
At the end of the 6 minutes, turn the fish over and add the hash brown waffles.
Set the air fryer to 10 minutes at the same 180°C. Ignore the shake or turn food advice; the fish is already turned, and the waffles don’t need it. (The waffles are primarily empty spaces that allow the air to circulate)
At the end of the final timer, the total cooking time of the fish will be 16 minutes at 180°C, and the waffle hash browns get a perfect 10 minutes at the same 180°C.
Plate up and serve, enjoy.
Mushy peas are optional with fish.
Calories
There is no added fat for cooking this meal in the air fryer to the calories on the packaging stand.
A single Frozen Lidl Breaded Cod Fillet is 248kcal/1041kJ
A single Iceland hash brown waffle is 132 kcal/551 kJ
Cooking time
Two Frozen Lidl Breaded Cod Fillet is in the air fryer for 16 minutes at 180°C.
Four Iceland Hash Brown Waffles is 10 minutes at 180°C in the air fryer.
Tips:
Avoid overlapping or overcrowding the food in the air fryer. A good circulation of air will cook more efficiently and quickly. If the food overlaps or touches other food, it may increase the cooking time.
Ensure the food is fully cooked before serving.
For the Frozen Breaded Cod fillets cooking timeFrozen Hash Brown Potato Waffle AirFryer Cooking Time
Having an air fryer can save a fair amount of time cooking meals and heat up to a cooking temperature more quickly than most conventional ovens. The cooking time and temperature can also be reduced, producing perfectly cooked food.
Programmed Modes
When looking for an air fryer to buy as your first or upgrade your existing model to keep up with the family, there can be some features to look out for.
Programmed modes are a single selection button or control that takes the guesswork out of cooking in an air fryer. You can select what you are cooking, and the machine will run a pre-programmed routine of time and temperature to give you a perfectly cooked meal.
There is no need to guess the time and temperature to set the air fryer as the manufacturer has already programmed this into the machine.
Press and Forget
Another advantage is the press and forget. You must add the food, select the correct program by pressing a button, and the cooking will commence. When the food is ready, the machine will let you know. It’s friendly and accessible. Ideal for a busy household when there are several plates to spin simultaneously.
Cooking Presets
For example, this COSORI CP158-AF model has 12 pre-programmed cooking presets. These include touch preset cooking modes for:
Steak
Chicken
Seafood
Shrimp
Bacon
Frozen Foods
French Fries
Vegetables
Toast
Bake
Preheat
Keep Warm
While you may not use every function in the machine’s life, it gives you much more to choose from. If you are very busy and want the food cooked, a next-generation air fryer like the CORSI Pro II model will be well worth looking at. It gives you lots of cooking capacity and the ease of the programming modes.
This is ideal if you want to cook bacon in an air fryer without much thought.
Programmable
The next generation of air fryers, as the new model CORSI Pro II mentioned above, is programmable. This feature means you can assign a new cooking time and temperature to a button and custom shake reminders for things like fries or just turning the food over.
This feature is ideal if you like your food cooked slightly under or over what the pre-programmed mode provides.
For subsequent cooks, you can program more or less time or more or less temperature or a combination depending on your personal preferences. Next time you cook the same meal, use your newly assigned programmed mode.
The food will now be how you like using the saved programming one-touch mode.
Find the Single Basket, Programmable 5.8QT (5.4 Litre) CORSI Pro II Air Fryer to enjoy the next generation of programmable air-fryers. They give you much more repeatable control over cooking food your family enjoys regularly.
The Air Fryers tend to heat up more quickly, cook more quickly and need less heat setting to cook just as well as a conventional oven.
Cooking Instructions
The cooking instructions on the label will often specify an oven and often a reduced time or temperature for a fan oven. The air fryer instructions are not very common, and following the packaging label instructions provided as suitable for a conventional oven won’t be right for an air fryer.
Quicker Cooking
With quicker cooking (than even a fan oven) air fryer, you can reduce the time to cook the food. It can also be helpful to reduce the temperature too.
Cheaper Cooking
This helps save money on electricity because the air fryer doesn’t need to get so hot to start your cooking and doesn’t need to stay on for as long to cook your food thoroughly. There is also less wasted heat because the air fryer is better insulated and has less space to heat unnecessarily.
Cooking Times
With no cooking times on the label dedicated to an air fryer, it can be an unknown quantity, and first-time users can quickly overcook the food.
For example, the Frozen Lidl 4 Breaded Cod Fillets take about 25 minutes to cook at 200°C based on two fillets.
This is too long and far too hot for a typical air fryer to get a crispy breaded coating and piping hot, flaky code fillets from frozen.
The actual Air Fryer cooking time was 16 minutes with the temperature set to 180°C. This cooked two breaded fillets with a nice crisp coating and piping hot yet moist cod in the centre—just perfect and less time and temperature than suggested on the packaging.
Air Fryer Timing
I served the Lidl fish with some Iceland Criss Cross Fries going down. This brings another timing calculation to get both parts of the air fryer meal perfectly cooked and served simultaneously.
Iceland Criss Cross Fries
The 800g Criss Cross Fries packaging is 200°C at 15-20 minutes for a fan oven.
This is far too hot and long for an air fryer to get crispy and adequately cooked crisscross fries from frozen.
You can drop the temperature of the air fryer to 180°C when the conventional or fan oven states to cook at 200°C. The 180°C is also suitable for the fish with a single basket air fryer.
You will also need to reduce the time from the suggested 15-20 minutes to a more precise 8 minutes. This will stop the criss-cross fries from getting too hard and overcooked.
Bringing it all together
With the timings in mind, it’s just a case of starting the fish off for 8 minutes at 180°C.
Preheat the air fryer or add the fish and allow it to heat up. The preheat time is short and doesn’t noticeably affect the cooking time.
Ignore the turn food warnings, as you can use the time you are adding the criss-cross fries also to turn the fish. This means you don’t unnecessarily remove the basket from the air fryer.
With the air fryer 8 minutes complete, you can open the basket, flip over each of the two breaded fish portions and add the criss-cross fries in the space.
Set the timer to another 8 minutes and keep the temperature at 180°C. Wait for the cooking to complete and ignore the turn food advice. The fish has already been turned, and the criss-cross fries don’t need it.
Food Cooked
The air fryer food will be cooked.
It took 8 minutes to cook the frozen criss-cross fries and 16 minutes to cook the frozen breaded cod fillets.
We gave the fish an 8-minute head start, and I was turning them after 8 minutes and adding the criss-cross fries simultaneously. Another 8 minutes means the fish got 16 minutes, and the fries got 8 minutes.
You can check if the food is piping hot; if not, you can add more time. For our 5.7L single basket air fryer, both parts of the meal were cooked perfectly after the times above.
Just plate up and serve (with mushy peas and lashings of freshly ground cracked black pepper)
Tips:
Don’t overcrowd the basket as this will increase cooking time and need more food turning.
A larger air fryer makes the cooking easier to manage by reducing overcrowding and the need to shake the basket as frequently.
Lower the temperature from the conventional oven instructions. 200°C can safely be changed to 180°C if you check the food is piping hot before serving, and this will keep the food crispy without drying it out excessively.
Cut the time back. You can add more time by setting the timer again, but you can’t undo an overbaked dinner. Check the food is piping hot before serving.
Iceland Criss Cross fries from frozen and a preheated air fryer took just 8 minutes at 180°C.
Lidl breaded cod fillets (2) from frozen to just 16 minutes at 180°C
Calories
There is no added fat for cooking this meal in an air fryer, so the calories are the same as for a conventional oven and correct on the packaging.
Each Frozen Lidl breaded cod fillet is listed on the packaging as having 248kcal/1041kJ per fillet.
A 100g portion of the Iceland Criss Cross Fries is listed as having 259kcal / 1085kJ
Cooking Times
Criss Cross Fries in the AirFryer Cooking TimeFrozen Breaded Cod Fillets AirFryer Cooking Time
We all know by now that you could cook a frozen pizza in the air fryer if it would fit in.
But what about a quick pizza base from scratch, topped with your favourites and a generous helping of cheese?
You can’t beat a homemade, from-scratch pizza base, and it would be awesome if you could make it the perfect size for your air fryer basket. But can you cook a fresh dough pizza base from scratch in the air fryer?
Yes
Yes, you can cook freshly made pizza dough in the air fryer.
Then top it with a tomato-based sauce and your favourite toppings, not forgetting the cheese. It’s a great alternative to ordering pizza, and little helpers can get involved and learn that not all pizzas are grown in cardboard boxes. See our air fryer fresh pizza base tips to make it happen.
Pizza Base Tips
Airfryer Pizza Base Cooking Tips
Template
Use the removable lower tray from your air fryer basket for templating your pizza dough’s shape. Whether you roll or stretch, the tray or base of the basket will help you make it a perfect fit for the next step.
The Flip
Cook one side of the pizza base in the air fryer before flipping it over and partially cooking on the other. This will ensure the base is well-cooked and not doughy at the bottom. It is impossible to circulate the air fully with a full basket, so flipping the base over means it will cook on both sides.
Easy Tomato
Tip the cooked pizza dough base onto a wire tray to add the tomato sauce layer. It’s much easier to spread the tomato sauce on with the cooked base out of the air fryerbasket.
Then pop the base with its tomato covering back in the basket before dropping on your toppings.
Cook
Return the basket to the air fryer and cook until the cheese has melted and it looks how you want your pizza to look.
Enjoy
Enjoy your efforts and not a cardboard box in sight.
Some Iceland Chicken Popsters – SOUTHERN FRIED was found in the freezer.
Can you cook Chicken Popsters in the air fryer?
Do Popsters taste any good when cooked in the air fryer?
100% Chicken Breast
Iceland Chicken Popsters are made with 100% chicken breast, coated in a southern fried style crispy coating.
Let’s see how they get on in the air fryer.
Half a bag
The cooking instructions are based on half a bag. Well, that was an 800g bag, and the current offering of the Chicken Popsters is now 600g. That is called shrinkflation—less product for the same price in almost identical packaging. Half a bag serves two if that’s all you are having. We were being lazy, and half a bag was what got cooked.
No added fat.
Use the air fryer in oven mode; omit any additional oil.
Cooking Time
The instructions were for a fan oven at 200°C (390°F) for 12 to 15 minutes. With the air fryer cooking better than a fan oven, I cut the temperature to 170°C (340°F) and 12 minutes, including the heating up time.
Dropping the temperature costs less electricity, and the air fryer still cooks the food better than our oven.
I put the chicken popsters in, set the time, set the temperature and pressed start. The heat-up time of the air fryer is much quicker than our oven, so I wasn’t worried about any overcooking. It’s more convenient to cook in the air fryer from the cold.
Shake
Partway through the cook, the air fryer beeps, and a message to turn the food over appears. For things like fries and chicken posters, that means a shake of the basket. Quick and easy. No need to stop the machine; it stops as soon as you pull on the basket. Shake and replace the basket. Cooking continues to the final beep.
No overcrowding makes the shake more productive.
Taste
With the chicken popsters cooked and dished up, they can now be tasted.
Brown Sauce, Mayo and Tomato Ketchup Dippers
A nice crunchy outside and tender chicken inside. This is what the air firer excels at, crisp or crunchy outside without drying the inside. It cooked the Iceland Chicken Popsters to perfection.
One problem that did dampen the experience was the lack of southern fried flavour.
It was odd that they didn’t pazazz of southern spices or zing at all. Just a slight hint of pepper. It is as though the plain version got in the wrong packaging at the factory. Could these be the plain recipe in the Southern-fried packaging?
Not Southern fried.
The Other Half
There is the other half of a bag of chicken popsters in the freezer, and I will need to make some spicy dipping sauce for those when their time comes.
Cooking Times
Iceland Chicken Popsters Cooking time in the AirFryer (from frozen)
Aldi supermarket has sourced their brand dual basket air fryer for stocking in their local stores and marked up at £89.99 with a delivery option available.
Discount Supermarket
Aldi and Lidl are discount supermarkets with occasional bargain kitchen appliances in stock.
We have tried many of their products over the years and have been very happy with the quality provided. They do last well and have offered good value for money. I don’t see why the new Ambiano Dual Basket Air Fryer would be different.
Ambiano
It is a branding of an Aldi product. Aldi doesn’t actually make them, but the specifications are set by Aldi, and so is the price. You can get a good spec machine for a reasonable price from Aldi. The Ambiano Dual Basket Air Fryer has a three-year warranty to give you peace of mind.
Dual Basket
The advantage of dual baskets is the possibility to cook two different meals, at two different temperatures, in two different modes, in the same machine, and at the same time.
This dual basket feature can make things run much more smoothly in the kitchen, but it does have one drawback. You won’t notice it when cooking fries because each 4L basket can take a portion to cook on each side. But the issue arises when cooking a large joint or a whole chicken.
With the large yet single basket 6L to 8L air fryers, you can fit a whole small chicken in there.
You are limited to two 4L baskets with the Dual Basket air fryers. Each is not big enough for a chicken, but a single 8L air fryer would also have ample room and space for roasties.
Consideration
Consider if roasting chickens and larger single meals is something you need from your air fryer. Or would a Dual Basket like the Aldi Ambiano Dual Basket Air Fryer suit your needs?
Cooking Programmes
Cooking programmes are great and make things more ‘one touch’. Less thinking about times and temperatures and more on the food. The Aldi Ambiano Dual Basket air fryer has 7 Pre-set cooking programmes. These are:
Reheat
Defrost
Keep warm
Fry
Bake
Grill
Roast
Dehydrate
The Dehydrate feature is not often found on the cheaper air fryers, and this is a notable feature and well worth considering this model if the dehydrate feature is helpful to you.
Size, Weight and Capacity
The Ambiano Dual Basket Air Fryer measures approximately 40 x 35 x 32.5cm.
It weighs in at 8 kg and has two 4L baskets.
You can see if your local Aldi has stock or arrange for delivery on their web page.
This is a perfect option at under £90 for a dual-basket air fryer.
Three primary cooking devices in our kitchen sit on the kitchen sides. These are the Air Fryer, the Digital Pressure Cooker and the Microwave oven.
Each of our cooking devices has its specific uses and excels in its own field of cooking.
If I were to choose just three cooking machines, the Airfryer, the pressure cooker, and the microwave would all get a space.
Thankfully I don’t have to choose, and I keep the toaster, the panini maker, the food processor, the kitchen mixer, the spice grinder, the bread machine and the electric fan oven with 4 gas hob.
Our main fan oven doesn’t get much use now, and the hob is used occasionally. It’s all down to the air fryer and pressure cooker.
Play to the Strengths
As each kitchen aid has its main uses, I can use each for the different styles or parts of the meals.
Microwave Oven
Ideal for reheating, quick defrosting, and microwave-ready meals. Do baked beans need warming up? Microwave. Iceland curries, from the freezer to the microwave. It is a great time saver for a busy household.
The microwave oven killer app? – the baked potato in super quick time, but without the oven crisp skin 🙁
Digital Pressure Cooker
The Morphy Richards MyPot is an integrated digital pressure cooker.
I use it for one pot pasta bolognese (one pot spagbol) for a super quick dinner. The mince, onions and peppers straight from the freezer, jar pasta sauce for speed and any shape pasta we fancy. The pasta cooks in a jar of bolognese sauce in extra quick time. This makes for a single cooking pot to wash without boiling the pasta.
It also looks pretty cool on the kitchen side.
The pressure cooker killer app is rice.
It makes the absolute best, foolproof rice. 1:1 basmati rice to water, cook for 7 mins on the timer, and it’s done. I’ve often messed up cooking rice; too much and it mushy, not enough, and there is a hard nut in the middle. But the pressure cooker has made it too easy. I will say the MyPot is worth the money for its rice ability, but it can do much more.
Air Fryer
My AirFryer replaces our main fan oven for grilling and baking. We don’t do that much air frying in it.
I cook primarily quick and easy cook from frozen meals. But I do a banging from-scratch pizza base, topped with whatever I fancy in the air fryer.
We roast chicken more often now we have the air fryer; they come out so moist with lovely crispy skin and less electric than the main oven. But they all get air-fried from bacon to fries to cake to burgers.
Combos
Combinations like Microwave Baked Potato, finished in the air fryer for a quicker cook with crispy skins, are worth a mention.
Or the new wave of kitchen cooking machines like the Ninja Foodi 14-in-1 that can pressure cook and air fry in the same device. This is ideal if there is limited space available for kitchen gadgets. Within the 14 different uses, steam and crispen, that sounds interesting.
And the next-gen Microwave ovens that can broil, air fry, bake and microwave all in the single Microwave oven-looking device for your countertop.
The tray at the bottom of many air fryers has silicone rubber boots. These fit over the metal arms to stop them from scratching the nonstick coating. The rubber ends help to keep the lower tray off the base of the basket.
Slide off
Unfortunately, they habitually slide off, usually when washing up. The dishwasher can damage silicone rubbers, and you may have removed them before loading them into the dishwasher. Or the dishwasher just ate them. Whatever happened to the rubber end caps, they are no longer doing their job.
Difficult to find
But the problem with these little black rubber boots is they go missing. When they are off, they can be challenging to find. If you use the air fryer without them, you risk scratching off the nonstick coating. Finding a set of replacement rubber end caps for your air fryer is essential to keep it working smoothly.
Universal
Most of the black boots for the air fryers are universal, and this is good because tracking down custom manufacturer parts can be impossible for the home cook.
If your air fryer lower tray is missing rubber boots, check this Amazon listing for spare parts (or Amazon’s suggested alternatives). These are the universal black silicone rubber end cap booties found missing from many smaller air fryer trays.
Black rubber end caps for the Air Fryers are available to replace the missing ones.
The air fryer is much more efficient than a traditional oven. You may want to cook your ready meals in the air fryer, but wonder if it is safe.
Oven Ready
Any oven-ready meal designed (it’s the packaging that matters) to be cooked in a conventional oven can be cooked in an air fryer. You may find you can reduce the temperature by 10°C (50°F) and shorten the cooking time by 10 minutes every hour. (knock off 5 minutes for a 30-minute cook). But you can easily interrupt the air fryer cooking to check the cook’s progress.
Microwave meals
Do not cook a microwave meal in the air fryer unless you can follow the instructions for a conventional oven.
Some microwave meals (due to the packaging) can be cooked in either the microwave or the conventional/fan oven by adjusting the times.
This is good news for the air fryer as this can follow the conventional/fan oven guidelines to cook safely, but you may also be able to reduce time/temperature too.
BUT
Do not cook a microwave-only meal in the air fryer – BUT – the restrictions on the cooking are usually, if not always, due to the packaging. Nothing stops you from taking the ready meal from the microwave, only packaging and putting it in an oven-safe pot, dish or container.
Only then can you then cook the ready meal in the air fryer?
Cooking microwave-only meals from frozen will probably require a lidded or foil-covered cooking dish to ensure the food cooks more evenly. Be sure to mix the sauce part way through cooking and ensure it is piping hot throughout the meal before serving.
Exceptions
Some things won’t work, like microwave popcorn, unless you can follow the conventional/fan oven instructions.
Unlike a traditional oven with its oven shelves needing a professional cleaning and the oven trays being quite large. The advantage of the little air fryer is that you can fit the removable parts in the dishwasher.
Removable Parts
The removable parts are usually dishwasher safe (check first), as manufacturers often change designs. But at least the lower grill tray or inner basket will be safe to use in the dishwasher.
Quick Clean
With minimal added fat, to the point that there is no added fat for some meals, the air fryer will only need a light cleaning. Putting it into the dishwasher for an extended deep cleaning won’t be necessary. Just a wipe with a damp sponge with washing up liquid, then rinsing under hot running water is often sufficient to make it as good as new.
Non Stick
The nonstick coatings of the air fryers make cleaning up a quick and easy job, unlike a regular oven that gets caked on and baked on grime. Avoid scouring the nonstick, but try the soak method instead. Don’t scrape at the had bits; you will damage the nonstick coatings.
Soak
Any baked-on bits can be soaked. Achieve the soak by adding water to the inside of the air fryer basket and leaving the lower tray there too. Leaving the action of washing up liquid bubbles and hot water will soften the baked-on bit and release them from the nonstick coating. Leave for an hour or more overnight for very baked-on bits to make cleaning easy.
Outside
The outside surfaces of the air fryer don’t get dirty, and nothing that a dampened cloth wouldn’t remove.
Spatchcock is a simple way of preparing a chicken to cook in your air fryer and is particularly helpful if the bird is too big for the cooking basket.
Spatchcocking
Basically, you can cut out the chicken’s backbone or, more quickly, break it carefully with firm pressure. This will make the bird spatchcocked and is ideal for the air fryer if the chicken is too tall.
AirFryer Chicken
The air fryer is smaller than your oven, bringing energy efficiency savings, but with less space comes less room to cook. This is not an issue with most foods, but the chickens can be too big for your air fryer.
Not a problem as there is an enormous cavity in the chicken that was traditionally where the stuffing went. Nowadays, birds are not stuffed, and I wouldn’t recommend stuffing an air fryer chicken anyway. You can utilise that cavity to make it fit in the air fryer.
The spatchcock way will collapse or remove the breastbone (cut it out, knife, scissors) or crush the bone to flatten the cavity and widen the bird. This will drastically reduce the height of the bird so it can clear the heater element of the air fryer. The flavour and crispy skin are unaffected.
Airfryer Chicken Tip: Roast the spatchcock chicken breast side down and flip it over 15 minutes before the end to crisp up the other side. This will keep the breast meat moist and give it a crispy skin.
Flatter Bird
The flatter bird, aka ‘spatchcock’, will cook quicker as it will spread out in the basket a bit wider. You may not have much room for roasties if you end up spatchcocking, but it’s an excellent way to rescue a situation that would have called putting the oven on. You can fit the chicken in the air fryer, even if you need to remove the backbone.
If anyone asks why the chicken looks flat, tell them it’s a Spatchcock Chicken (safe to google).
The name for the spatchcock process has been around for hundreds of years, but only relatively recently has it been linked to the air fryer.
Advantages
A key advantage to spatchcocking a chicken is that with its much flatter shape, any sauces or marinades are less likely to run off. You can put the extra flavourings on a bit thicker without the waste.
