add a fourth for me then, since I have one and simply appreciate it being another tool that does a job. I don't love it. it's just a tool. no different than my cast iron pans or microwave.

don't let it fool you, you can't just use it and toss it in the dishwasher. although tbf my dishwasher is not the most effective, and I should probably try different load settings when washing the air fryer basket

anyways, if you don't line the basket with paper, crud gets baked on there real good and is hard to get off, and the little tray is a pain to clean because of all the spots

totally fine if you always line it with paper when cooking meat or other soft things, though. I find most veggies are easy to clean off, compared to meat

anyways, my review: it's an effective tool for quickly making small batches of food with little cleanup. I like making single portions of home fries, toasting buns, reheating food, cooking a single hamburger patty. all with less effort and cleanup than using a pan, and better results than a microwave. and more efficient and effective than using the full oven. also, with less oil than using a pan on the stove.

also, I'm disgusting, so I often reuse the paper liner if it isn't gross. like today I cooked home fries for breakfast and then a hamburger for dinner on the same sheet, because the thing is barely dirtied by cooking some bare chopped potatoes with the tiniest bit of oil. and I don't need to clean it after cooking meat, because all of the meat juice stayed on the liner and I can just pull it out and toss it.

The key difference is the speed at which the air circulates. The faster moving air transfers heat more efficiently. I have 2 full size ovens that can also air-fry.

It’s nothing like an actual fryer though, which cooks by immersing in hot oil.

An air-fryer is a middle ground between a regular convection oven and an impingement oven.

Yes, they're essentially "just" a convection toaster oven, but honestly they're better at it because they have much more convection.

Exactly, the faster moving air transfers heat more efficiently and this results in faster browning. For commercial kitchens there is something called an impingement oven that does this with even faster air. An air-fryer sit somewhere between a regular convection oven and an impingement oven.

In pretty sure it’s all the same people who started playing Pickleball instead of Tennis, and then whatever it is next year.

We did an entire Christmas dinner in a combi oven once. The proper oven died on christmas eve so went to the shops and got one. Smaller convection ovens do crisp bacon up quite well so I can see where the “fryer” idea comes from, sort of.

I used to just use a range, a decent toaster oven and a microwave for most stuff. Heating up a regular oven is such a huge waste of power for a meal for 3-4 people.

When Instant Pot made a countertop oven with an "air fryer" feature, I bought one. When I wore that one out, I bought another.

An oven with a circulation fan is a convection oven. When I worked in a pro kitchen, our Blodgetts blew a hell of a lot harder than any air fryer, but no one would actually say they're frying the food.

To each their own on what they consider things.

Yeah, but for residential purposes a regular convection overnight and an air fryer are very different categories of products, and if you put oil on something in an air fryer you get similar enough results to an actual fryer that I'm comfortable with the term now.

All 3 products use convection for quickly heating the outer layers of food, but the difference in the rate of the circulation between my Ninja and my oven isn't even close. The air fryer will actually throw light food around, whereas the convection over just lightly circulates. The end result is the air fryer (especially when oil is added to the food) ends up cooking more like a fryer than a standard convection oven.

I avoided them for a long time because it's just a small convection oven! Then watched the Technology Connections video where he tests them out and it convinced me into buying one.

I get much crispier fries and other stuff. Preheating is half a minute not 10 minutes, or you can pretty much just skip it because it heats up so fast.

The small size and powerful fan do a lot to make it stand out from regular convection ovens.

Oh and it doesn't heat up my entire kitchen which is a bonus in the summer.