We’ve been in love with air frying for a while now and our collection of air fryer recipe is obvious. With 10 air fryers in our test kitchens working non-stop, we wanted to take a moment to really talk about what is air frying all about?

What is Air Frying? A Guide to Healthy Air Fryer Recipes step by step

What is Air Frying and what are Air Fryers?

Air fryers are mini counter top convection ovens with a heating element on top of the food. As it generates heat, a fan circulates the hot air to help the food cook evenly and crispy.  When compared to regular deep fried foods, most air fried food textures have a very similar crunch without having to use a ton of oil or fat. In fact, we barely have to use any oil and the food still comes out crispy and delicious. Most food also comes out like it’s perfectly roasted in a convection oven with wonderful roasted flavors and textures. When breaded and sprayed with oil, food becomes crunchy and very similar to what you would cook in a deep fryer. For some dishes like chicken wings, they cook amazingly crisp without any oil. Overall, food is crispy roasted and crunchy without all the fat.

air fryer salmon recipe bestrecipebox.com

How to Cook Healthy Food in Air Fryer?

Air Frying isn’t just about cooking frozen fries or chicken nuggets. It’s about eating fresh and healthy! It’s easy to cook healthy air fried foods because you don’t need as much oil. The hot circulating heat crisps and roasts food wonderfully without the need for a lot of oil. So overall, yes air fried food can be healthier. Portion control is another important factor and if you eat more than one recommended serving, you’ve just blown the “healthy” out of air frying. Air frying is just one method to cook healthier food. How much you eat is obviously important too!

  • Craving deep fried foods without all the fat and calories? Food crisps wonderfully without deep frying. Like we mentioned, a light spray of oil is enough and will give a wonderful crisp outside without the greasy results that deep frying does.
  • For breaded foods to have extra crunch, just bread like you normally would. Then spray with oil and the results are fantastic. Sure, it’s not like deep fried food but it sure is very close and you don’t get all that oil fat.
  • For even lower carb options, you can bread with almond flour, almond meal or coconut flour.
  • For super low to no carb breading options, use crushed pork rinds.

Pros of Air Fryer and Benefits of Air Frying:

  • It’s a healthier way to cooking fried or crispy foods. Overall, you can use much less oil to achieve crunchy and crispy textured foods.
  • The flavor of the food is wonderful because the heat gives a nice crisp and “char”.
  • There’s little clean up and less splattering of oil while cooking
  • Food cooks crisp because of the smaller cooking area and the heating element is closer to the food.
  • Because of smaller baskets, the food cooked quicker when compared to ovens and no pre-heating is necessary
  • You don’t have to heat up your house in Summer when you’re craving something warm, roasted or deep fried
  • Great for cooking frozen foods without oil and great for re-heating foods.

Cons of Air Fryer:

  • You really can’t cook big servings of food unless you buy the larger air fryers or cook in multiple batches.
  • They aren’t cheap and some can be more hassle to clean, depending on the design and model.
  • If you already have a little countertop convection oven and love it, you might want to stick to that, unless you’re into really low oil cooking.

What is Air Frying: Tips when cooking with your Air Fryer:

  • Don’t over crowd the baskets with food. Cook in batches if you need to (2 small-medium batches cook better than 1 large batch).
  • Don’t forget to shake while cooking, but sometimes shaking the basket during cooking isn’t enough. Gently toss the food with a rubber spatula so food doesn’t break or tear.
  • The bottom of the air fryers can get hot while cooking. Make sure to place on a heat-safe surface or wooded cutting board.

You won’t believe what comes out of the air fryer! Buy Our Air Fryer eCookbooks Here For Easy Meals and Low Fat Recipes!

Air Fryer Cookbook | @BestRecipeBox.com

What are the Best Air Fryers?

Here’s our extensive write up on Air Fryer World’s Best Air Fryer Guide. There’s so many on the market now. You just need to research and find the ones that fits your needs, capacity and style. We group the basket style air fryers into 2 main size groups: 3-4 qt. range & the 5-6 qt. range.  There’s oven style and basket style. With so many to choose from, we highlight the ones that are most popular for small to medium sized families. Here’s our favorites:

Good Mid-Sized Air Fryers

“That’s a stylish Air Fryer” was said as we unboxed the Cosori. Beyond being stylish, it has cooked great. The basket is not as tall and wider than most in its size group, which is perfect. You’ll have a lot better results in an air fryer with single layered, spread out foods, then with ones piled high and thick.
The non-stick basket style (non-wire base) & smoothness of the basket tray is also great for clean up.

Has a great ceramic coated basket, one of the longest lasting we’ve used. Super powerful fan that will often cook recipes even faster than other air fryers. We initially returned our first one because we thought we wouldn’t like the basket style. After reconsidering, we bought another and are super glad we did. We love it’s basket and just a platform insert. One less bulky thing to wash. This is a great air fryer.

Simple functional panel. Solid basket design that is less likely to come unscrewed or break like other designs frequently do after a few months of repeated use. Great price for the size. They have several color options for the design-minded user.  

Good Larger Air Fryers

This is quickly becoming one of our favorite larger basket style air fryers. Great basket size, good controls, cooks nice. Clean up is great. It has become one of our kitchen favorites.

Most of us are familiar with the Instant Pot Brand of pressure cookers. They now make air fryers and it has become a regular in our kitchen. The Vortex plus 9-in-1 is beyond the conventional air fryer. The “plus” boasts features beyond the hot circulating air: Broil, Bake, Dehydrate, Rotisserie, Roast and Re-heat. 

12 Cooking modes. Connects to your smartphone & has Alexa or Google Assistant integration for voice control. 32 quarts. Large enough it actually has a rotisserie too. 

Click Here for —-> Our Best Air Fryer Recipes