Top 13+ hacks to transform how you use your air fryer

Since investing in an air fryer, the 32-year-old in-house food producer hasn’t turned on her oven - Clara Molden

“I really thought air-fryers were a ridiculous fad which no one needed,” admits recipe developer Jodie Nixon, “but since getting one, I haven’t turned my oven on in months.” 32-year-old Nixon, an in-house food producer for the cult online recipe platform Mob, first created eight dishes for its app last year, to find they were a smash hit, used by tens of thousands of users in the first few weeks.

Before then, “the whole food team [made up of professional chefs, cookbook writers and food experts] had said ‘categorically no, we do not want our name on that’,” laughs Nixon.

“But I suddenly realised I could create legitimately amazing food in an air fryer, so I did a full 180,” she says. “The only time I use the oven is when one of my housemates is using the air fryer.”

Nixon’s food team was initially sceptical about air-fryer recipes, but she managed to convince them otherwise - Clara Molden

The goal of Mob (which was launched by Ben Lebus in 2018, and now has seven million app users and a following of over three million on Instagram) “has always been to help people create good-quality midweek meals,” says Nixon. And, with a new cookbook called Delicious Air Fryer, that includes inspiring them to use the kitchen gadget for more than just reheating leftovers or making mean roast potatoes.

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Use the 20 per cent rule to convert cooking times and temperatures from oven to air fryer

Nixon admits that her intuition was “thrown off a bit” by air frying to start with. “The air fryer is quicker and you don’t have to cook at such hot temperatures which makes it more energy efficient, but it’s tricky to wrap your head around,” she says.

Her trick is to take 20 per cent off both: 10 minutes in the oven needs eight minutes in the air fryer; 20 minutes in the oven needs 16 minutes in the air fryer. Similarly, 200C in the oven means 160C in the air fryer.

A meat thermometer will help you cook more precisely

Air frying has an unfair reputation for producing dry food, admits Nixon, who says the real reason for this is because its users are not used to the shorter cooking times. “I found a £5 meat thermometer really useful when I was starting out. You can make sure everything is done, and that’ll stop you from overcooking it.”

You don’t have to preheat an air fryer (generally)

“With an oven, you generally need to preheat it for 20-30 minutes to get it up to temperature. You don’t need to do that at all for an air fryer,” says Nixon.

The only exceptions? Dishes which need a quick blast of intense heat right at the start of cooking. “If you want to sear meat to get it nice and brown on the outside and pink in the middle, then you can preheat your air-fryer,” Nixon explains. “Yorkshire puddings are another good example.”

You can cook everything in the same basket…

Which is useful for more than just saving on the washing up: “we have a recipe which we call ‘Special Chicken Caesar Salad’,” explains Nixon. “It seemed a shame to cook the chicken and bread separately and lose all the delicious fat, so we put focaccia underneath to catch the juices and it produced the most delicious chicken-fat croutons.”

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Nixon has a similar approach to avoid using the hob to heat up oil separately. “I was making a crispy chilli chicken and normally you’d heat the oil in a pan and pour it over your spices,” she explains. “But I just put the ramekin of oil in while the chicken was cooking.”

… except rice and pasta

“I tried, lord knows, I tried,” sighs Nixon. “I’d seen so many recipes online and in recipe books where people put dry pasta or rice into the air fryer with all their other ingredients and it had turned into some delicious pasta bake or something, but it just never worked.”

Nixon’s air fryer at home is a £80 number with just two buttons, but even when she tried units with multiple drawers and dozens of settings, rice and pasta were impossible to get right. “Just do them on the hob or use those microwavable pouches,” she advises.

Cut your vegetables differently to make a 25-minute tray bake

“A potato is going to take a long time in an air fryer because it’s so dense, so swap it for carrots or parsnips,” advises Nixon. “Then it’s about how you cut them. Instead of doing traybakes with big chunky pieces, cut your veggies into slices. Root vegetables take longer so cut them thinner.”

Air fry your veggies then blitz them for perfect sauces and soups

“Tomatoes work really well for this,” says Nixon. “They still char in the air fryer just like they would in the oven, albeit more quickly, and they taste amazing if you then blitz them in a food processor – the perfect base for many sauces.”

For an instant burst of flavour, air garlic whole

Roasting your garlic in tin foil in your air fryer will make your cooking more efficient - Clara Molden

Slice the top off a head of garlic, drizzle with a bit of oil, sprinkle with salt, then wrap in tin foil. Air fry for half an hour then squeeze out and mash the cloves, before throwing them back into the drawer with the rest of your meal. “It’s so much quicker than roasting it in the oven,” says Nixon.

Nuts and seeds cook really well in an air fryer

“It’s a quicker way to get the most flavour out of them,” says Nixon. “It provides a uniform heat which means nothing is burnt on the outside and there is no rawness inside, improving both taste and texture.”

You can still produce a crisp finish in the air fryer

“When I want something to be really crispy, I go straight to [the air fryer],” says Nixon. “With chicken thighs, cook them skin-down for the first six minutes, which gives them an amazing boom of heat under the grill, then flip them and continue cooking to get the crispiest chicken skin ever – season it nicely with salt and it’s delicious. Similarly, tofu coated in cornflour with just a little bit of oil comes out so crisp it’s almost like you’ve deep-fried it. Schnitzel also works brilliantly,” she recommends. “Breadcrumb it with different spices or seeds and it’ll be far better than pan-frying it, and you’ll use much less oil.”

A spray bottle is best for oiling

Investing in a good spray oil means less waste and healthier food

Air frying uses much less cooking oil than pan frying but it’s vital to make sure all the food gets a good coating. While you can toss everything in oil, it’s much easier (and you’ll use less) if you invest in a good spray bottle. “And I mean a proper spray oil,” warns Nixon. “Honest Toil makes one, Good Fats is another. A squeezy bottle is a good substitute if you can’t find one.”

You can ignore the buttons

“A lot of air fryers have baking, ‘super crisping’ and dehydrating settings, among others” notes Nixon. “But you really don’t need any of that. Every recipe I wrote was created in an air fryer with only two buttons: time and temperature. Have fun and experiment with the others if you like, but don’t feel you really have to use them.”

Clean your air fryer every day – or try this easy trick

Unlike ovens, the air fryer basket should be washed after every use - Clara Molden

“Because an air fryer is basically an oven, and we don’t clean our ovens every day, people sometimes get the wrong idea,” says Nixon. In fact, “you should treat the basket like a pot and wash it out after every use.”

One quick solution if you don’t want to clean it out every day is to use a silicon tray or cover the base of the basket with baking paper (if you do the latter, make sure it’s weighted down, otherwise the flow of air can cause the paper to fly up and get stuck in the heating element which can be a fire hazard). “You can also cook in a heatproof ramekin,” says Nixon. “Those ones which contain supermarket desserts are great for air frying an egg in.” Win win.

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