Over the next few weeks, Jody and I are going to share with you some of our adventures with air fryers and highlight Spend Smart. Eat Smart. recipes that we have made successfully using this appliance. An air fryer cooks food by circulating hot air around the food, which gives it a similar taste and texture to frying but with much less oil. Air fryers come in different sizes and types. Mine is a 5.8-quart basket air fryer. It is too big to fit into a kitchen cupboard, but it does fit nicely in a corner of my kitchen counter. To be safe, I always pull it away from the wall when I am cooking with it and then let it cool completely before I slide it back into place. Clean up is a breeze because I just need to wash the basket with hot, soapy water and then let it air dry.
Jody and I wanted to see how some of our Spend Smart. Eat Smart. recipes came out in our air fryers. Two dishes I tried were roasted broccoli and ‘fried’ fish.
- The first recipe I tried was our Roasted Broccoli, which is typically made in the oven. For the air fryer version, I used a bag of frozen broccoli instead of fresh, and kept the oil, salt, and pepper the same. I cooked it at 400 degrees for 8 minutes, then shook the basket to mix the broccoli around, and cooked it for 5 more minutes. We all loved the crispy tops of this roasted broccoli, and we ate every last bite.
- The second recipe I tried was fish with a cornmeal coating. We have two recipes that use this method of frying fish – Fish Tacos and Fish Sandwiches. I cooked it at 400 degrees for 5 minutes, flipped it over, and then cooked it for 5 more minutes. It turned out just the same as when I make it in the frying pan, so we were all happy.
Every air fryer should come with a user manual. When you try new recipes with your air fryer, always refer to the user manual for cook times and temperatures because these can vary by air fryer. Keep an eye out for Jody’s blog next week because she is going to share about how she uses her multicooker with the air fryer function.
