Considered this as well. Power drain was my issue. Also, you can buy plenty of fried food at the shops. or chips on the gas stove in a pot of oil.Be careful, be very very careful.

You can cook roasts and potatoes on a weber or in a frypan.

Remember the Sunbeam Frypan? Mum fed the family of 6 in that. There wasn't much she couldn't cook in it. even cakes.

I personally don't think the cooking method saves much fat.

Daughter had one. It was raved about at first and I almost got one but then it ended up unused in her cupboard.

If I could find a Sunbeam Frypan that is stainless steel and has a high domed lid, then I would go with that. I have one in the shed. Unfortunately after the last trip and 45yrs the electrical cord gave up the ghost.

I also have one of those cookers that are a round glass bowl with an element on top it was good, but unfortunately caught fire lol.

Where do you draw the line. I drew the line on this myself due to the fact, that we have nearly every new fangled cooker you can get. I even have a garden shed full of the unused ones today. It is not Donna's fault, I like them as well, but either sell all the others first or use them, before we get another. These new cookers , are after all,  are  only Glorified George Forman cookers anyhow, and we have one of those.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Wednesday 1st of June 2022 02:36:07 PM

There are smaller airfryers on the market. We gifted our original unit to our daughter and purchased the smallest version of the Ninja Foodi which is really a multi cooker. It typically needs less than 1500watts in both air fryer and pressure cooker modes. Prices vary so hunt around online.

DMaxer wrote:

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and Bay City Rollers records.

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Bay City Rollers!?

Dmaxer: one of us is either younger or older than we are admitting :)

Oven does much the same thing if you dont use fat or oil. Air fryers are, I think a gimmick and end up being another item to take up space in your cupboards

Mein wrote:

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Give it twelve months Mike and it will end up in your storage shed next to your fondue, hula hoop and Bay City Rollers records.

 

Did you borrow that comment? I'm sure that I read the same, or a similar, comment in 1989 referring to microwave ovens.

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 1972, saw my first microwave, Annandale Hotel in Sydney, was doing a course and staying at the pub, you picked your meal that was on a plate covered in clingfilm, it was whacked in a large machine, the food rotated, the clingfilm swelled up. Bing! The food was done. Magic happened.

Mind you, I was in the PMG as a technician at the time and knew all the theory about them.

 

Never had a fondue or a hoola hoop or a bay city rollers album for that matter BUT we do have an air fryer , 2 actually and you know what after about 6 years neither one is in the storage shed . Very versatile bit of gear .

-- Edited by bratboy on Thursday 2nd of June 2022 08:36:15 AM

We, like a couple of others who have replied, have long been pondering the purchase of an Air Fryer.  To help the argument in favour, we recently stayed over at a friend's place & they did the complete breakfast of bacon, eggs & grits etc in an Air Fryer ..  very good it was too.  Storage is no problem for them as they have a butler's kitchen with lots of shelves.

It seems that the extra large one would be best for us..... Of course!

A smaller one might sit in the unused gas oven in the Van.

A recent reno of our home kitchen revealed amongst lots of other long forgotten things; a great pile of electrical 'must have' appliances like 2 rice cookers, 2 slow cookers, 2 juicers, 2 Food processors and a blender, not to forget the stick blender with its' range of never used attachments. Oops almost forgot 2 mix master thingies.  I negotiated a couple of shelves in an adjacent linen cupboard to place them in easy access positions, as we progress them towards the bin along with a couple of boxes of mixed crockery, cutlery & kitchen implements.  Of course we had to have new crockery & cutlery to compliment the new kitchen.  But at least this time we will throw out the old stuff!   At least that's the plan.

Will an Air Fryer become just another never used indulgence?

But I am very interested in using it to semi dry the abundance of veges that my garden produces every year.  (Of course I could do that with a sun powered one or in the brand new kitchen oven).

 

Thanks all for your responses.

I've decided to buy one, just a small 2.5L $70 job which I can store well enough and should, at least, keep me supplied with roast potatoes and chips :)

Rgen, we also saw our 1st microwave in Sydney in a long forgotten pub, it produced the second worst meal I had ever had at that stage.

msg wrote:

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If I get a new kitchen oven (unlikley) I will get one that air frys as well. Your microwave will also dry produce and the oven as well.

I wouldn't be without my Food processor, stick mixer and blender although I do like the look of those on tele that make hot soup in one go. (Tempted but too expensive just to make some soup) and that new Kleva slicer looks good. But not interested in an air fryer

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 No doubt we should have gone for an upgraded oven rather than settle for the well priced one that came with the package  .. but have you looked at the price of kitchen renos these days.  Just have to stop somewhere.

BTW we will keep one of most of the things that we have two of.   Make room for an air fryer perhaps.

We have been using an air fryer for a few years now and I reckon that they do a pretty good job. I think we paid a couple of hundred $ for the first one (Tefal brand) then when it was getting near the time to replace it I happened to see one in Woolies which was around $30 or $40 (Mistral 3.5ltr) so I bought one. Its a bit more basic and probably a little smaller but its large enough for doing chips etc. for one or 2 people. Regardless of whether you use an air frier or not there is still plenty of fat that comes out of processed frozen food like chips, gems, spring rolls, fish etc. you just arent adding to it by deep frying. Probably wouldnt take one in the van though as we have an oven and a Baby Q that can pretty much do the same thing.

BB

Mike Harding wrote:

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It must be close to two years I have been pondering whether to buy an air fryer and living in a caravan brings issues....

Downsides: they are large, I'll need the generator to power it, cleaning may be an issue.

Upsides: it looks like they can do chips and fabulous roast potatoes and, I'm sure, a whole heap of other stuff.

What does the wisdom of the forum say? A good cooking tool or a passing fad? 

 

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We have one and wouldn't be without it. Small roasts, roast veges, chips, whatever you can think of are all good. Don't think of it as a fryer but as a benchtop fan forced oven . We used ours while we were bush camping for the first time last week. A couple of roast lamb leg steaks, potatoes, pumpkin and steamed brocolini ....hmmm...

They do suck a fair amount of power though - we chewed through over 200Ah (LiFePo4) in one meal but it didn't matter as we drove 600km the next day and got properly charged up again. We normally save it for home or caravan parks.

Craig1 wrote:

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we stopped at a "nameless pub" near Wangaratta( they may well have good meals now), 5 people on a road trip, all agreed it was awful.
To add insult, we bought 6 stubbies to continue on with and the a fell out of the paper bag above the concrete path, so then there were 4 thirsty people.

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 6 stubbies, 5 people, 4 thirsty people.........sounds like a cryptic clue to how many stubbies broke? Pub meal from hell hey Craig? 

Cheers Bob