Meh. Strangely easy. Especially if you do it almost immediately instead of letting it bake on.
Good point though, there are more nooks and crannies. If I put something juicy in there without a little foil tray, it’d get nasty. It’s not a mesh basket in mine, it’s a stamped metal bucket thingy with occasional holes. The foil doesn’t mess with the cooking, afaik.
Most toaster ovens, even ones with strong convection for “air frying”, are not quite consistent enough in their heating. You have to pay far more than you would for an air fryer to get even heat coil distribution and a good door seal for that. The specific kind of rapid cooking that dessicates and browns the surface you get out of air fryer devices is just kind of hard to replicate outside of them.
If you ever look inside an air fryer you can kind of immediately see why – the heater-to-volume ratio is absurdly close. You have the equivalent of the biggest coiltop stove burner directly above a few quarts of air volume with a fan forcing air from it to circulate. It’s just kind of unfair of a comparison for both toaster ovens and even full-size ones that advertise an “air fryer” mode by comparison for that reason.
I have an old toaster oven that has a really weak convection fan but it moves so little air it is nowhere near an air fryer. The timer doesn’t work anymore and it’s ugly but I have another timer and it just works. I don’t own an air fryer and I’m not going to buy one until my toaster oven dies.
why do people like air fryers more than toaster ovens? i don’t get it
I like it because it’s easier and quicker to put a few chicken legs in the basket than to put them on a tray in the toaster oven.
That and our toaster oven is too complex but our air fryer is two dials.
But cleaning the basket vs cleaning a baking tray?
Meh. Strangely easy. Especially if you do it almost immediately instead of letting it bake on.
Good point though, there are more nooks and crannies. If I put something juicy in there without a little foil tray, it’d get nasty. It’s not a mesh basket in mine, it’s a stamped metal bucket thingy with occasional holes. The foil doesn’t mess with the cooking, afaik.
Most toaster ovens, even ones with strong convection for “air frying”, are not quite consistent enough in their heating. You have to pay far more than you would for an air fryer to get even heat coil distribution and a good door seal for that. The specific kind of rapid cooking that dessicates and browns the surface you get out of air fryer devices is just kind of hard to replicate outside of them.
If you ever look inside an air fryer you can kind of immediately see why – the heater-to-volume ratio is absurdly close. You have the equivalent of the biggest coiltop stove burner directly above a few quarts of air volume with a fan forcing air from it to circulate. It’s just kind of unfair of a comparison for both toaster ovens and even full-size ones that advertise an “air fryer” mode by comparison for that reason.
I have an old toaster oven that has a really weak convection fan but it moves so little air it is nowhere near an air fryer. The timer doesn’t work anymore and it’s ugly but I have another timer and it just works. I don’t own an air fryer and I’m not going to buy one until my toaster oven dies.
I got a ninja air fryer for 50 bucks because the old Philips one needed internal cleaning to stop it smoking
I’m all for reducing waste, this was the first time I threw something out that technically was functional
I didn’t lose any sleep. And I fry free of smoke. Can recommend new stuff sometimes just because we don’t live that long anyway