Unpopular opinion incoming, so buckle up. Also a little context: I’ve owned two different models of air fryer and eaten a few meals out of them, I do a hell of a lot of cooking, and I’m a curmudgeon. This is just my trash opinion. Liking an air fryer doesn’t make you a better or worse cook than me, so nobody get offended if I trash your favorite appliance.

Air fryers are fine for what they are, but what they are is just little ovens that don’t need to preheat more or less. There are only a handful of dishes that I use mine for that I can’t do with my oven and the right cookware. Other than those rare occasions it just takes up space in my kitchen.

I have a friend who starts by them, a real die-hard air fryer fan. He served me some roasted brussel sprouts he made in his and they were good, but just on par with the rest of his cooking. Sure, he made them quickly but those time savings were eaten up by having to make three batches to feed everyone.

My friend is the ideal air fryer user. He and his girlfriend both work long hours, want to eat healthy, have little time, have average cooking skills, and rarely cook for company. He loves being able to serve veggies on the side in just a few minutes, which is just dandy.

The problems with air fryers crop up when you want to go beyond “pretty good food pretty fast” or want to cook in larger volumes. Then their limited capacity and the fact that … ya know … they’re just little overpowered ovens … gets in the way of what you can do with them.

I’ve encountered some sentiments that they’re bad simply because they’re trendy

air fryers are just a rebranding of convection ovens, which are awesome. I don’t care what it’s called, cooking with circulated hot air is really useful

Nothing really, but they should call them something else. Frying is a specific thing and air “frying” isn’t that.