Chefs share the common foods you should never put in an air fryer
You might be an absolute air fryer whizz by now or somehow still put off getting one out of stubbornness - perhaps your mate banged on about theirs so much it put you off altogether.
Or, maybe you’ve only recently got one and still in the process of using it for everything and anything.
Except, despite Brits relying on the handy kitchen gadgets for their nightly meals and midday hot snacks, not everyone is using them correctly.
That’s because while air fryers might be capable of cooking a long list of foods, there are plenty of things chefs warn against cooking in them.
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Buzzfeed collated opinions from a handful of globally-renowned chefs and best-selling cookbook authors.
Burgers
"Unless you like your burgers well done, leave them out of the air fryer," declared Anna Vocino, the author and recipe developer of Eat Happy Kitchen.
Vocino continued: "Air fryers are not ideal for grilling red meat. You’d be able to get the inside of a burger to medium rare, but the outside wouldn’t get that ‘char’ that you want on a burger. Plus, it’s really messy."
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Wet batters
Despite hundreds of TikTokers showing off their delicious-looking baked eggs juicy frittata recipes on social media, one cook says that home cooks should not mistake air fryers with having the same use as deep fryers.
"Foods that have wet batters, like onion rings", said Trisha Pérez Kennealy, a culinary educator and owner of the Inn at Hastings Park in Lexington, Massachusetts.
She added that air frying batter makes it trickier 'to set and become crispy', being that the result is often a texturally unsatisfying bite and a sticky mess of batter all over your cooker.
Cheese
The same warning against wet batters applies to cheese.
"An air fryer is actually NOT a deep fryer. When you make something like a mozzarella stick in a deep fryer, an instant outer crust is formed," said Yankel Polak, the head chef and culinary director of ButcherBox.
“In an air fryer, this does not happen, and you’ll instead end up with a gooey, cheesy mess.”
Fresh greens
It may sound like an obvious statement, but chefs also advise that no fresh greens should ever be used in an air fryer.
And no, they don't just mean lettuce and cucumber.
Despite the surge in healthy food vloggers promoting things like kale chips, Polak also told the publication that the convection oven-style air circulation in air fryers will cause 'greens like kale or spinach to fly all over the place and cook unevenly'.
It is for that reason, that he recommends users 'stick with a normal oven'.
Bacon strips
The last dish that experts say should be avoided at all costs when using an air fryer is bacon strips, due to their fattiness and size.
"Bacon is a fatty food," said Brenda Peralta, a recipe developer for FeastGood.com. "When it is cooked in an air fryer, the fat can drip down and cause smoke or splatter.
"This can make the bacon difficult to cook evenly, and it can also produce a lot of smoke and odours.”
Peralta also explained that because a bacon strip is a 'small and delicate food', it can sometimes be difficult to 'flip or remove from the air fryer basket without breaking it'.
She added: "The air fryer basket may not be large enough to accommodate a large quantity of bacon. This can make it difficult to cook a lot of bacon at once, which can be inconvenient if you are cooking for a group."
Topics: Food And Drink, Air fryers
Jess Battison