Air fryer hacks on trial: what actually earned the counter space

Our kitchen is the size of a generous lift. There is one stretch of worktop that gets any natural light, and for years it belonged to the kettle, the toaster and a rice cooker that S's mum gave us when we got married and that we are not, under any circumstances, allowed to get rid of. So when S came home with an air fryer, T didn't say hello. T got out a tape measure.

We struck a deal. The air fryer got one month. If it couldn't earn its spot by doing real jobs, the jobs we actually do on a weeknight, it would go into the cupboard under the stairs to live with the spiraliser and the bread maker. These are the four hacks we put on trial, what happened, and what we'd tell a friend who's thinking of buying one.

First, what an air fryer actually is

This is S's section. T has asked for it to be short.

An air fryer is a small fan oven. There's a heating element at the top and a fan that blows very hot air down and around whatever's in the basket. Because the space is tiny and the fan is strong, the outside of food dries and browns quickly, which is why chips and roast potatoes come out crisp. It doesn't fry anything. The "fry" is marketing. What it's good at is surfaces: crusts, skins, edges. What it's less good at is anything that needs a lot of gentle, even heat to reach the middle, or anything that's heaped up so the air can't get round it.

Two things follow from that, and they explain almost every result below. One: don't overfill the basket. A single layer with gaps is the whole game. Two: timings on the internet are for someone else's machine. Ours is a single-drawer, roughly five-and-a-half-litre model, and it runs a bit hotter than the dial claims. Yours might not. Check food early the first few times and you'll learn your machine's habits within a week.

Hack one: roast potatoes without the big oven

This was the one S was most excited about, because roast potatoes in our house usually mean the oven on for an hour and a half for two people, and a tray that needs soaking overnight. The internet promised crunchy edges in about half the time.

Our first go was raw chunks of potato, tossed in oil, straight in. They browned nicely and the edges were fine, but they ate more like a jacket potato's cousin than a roastie: leathery skin, dense middle, no shattery crust. T took one bite and said, kindly, "These are wedges with ambition."

The second go is where it clicked. We did what you'd do for oven roasties: parboiled them, let them steam dry in the colander, then gave them a proper shake to rough up the outsides. That fluffy, broken surface is what goes crunchy. In the air fryer, with a bit of oil and plenty of room, it went glassy and golden in about twenty-five minutes, with soft, floury middles. S stood over the drawer making a noise T has only previously heard at a Bangladesh cricket match.

Then we got greedy. S decided they needed cumin seeds, scattered over before cooking. The fan picked up every single seed and blew them round the drawer like a tiny sandstorm. Half of them stuck to the element and smoked. The kitchen smelled like a tarka someone had walked away from. Lesson learned: whole seeds and loose, light spices go on after cooking, not before. Now we toss the hot potatoes with a little chaat masala and chopped coriander in a bowl at the end, and nobody needs to open a window.

Hack two: the no-flip cheese toastie

If you've read our masala toastie post, you'll know we take this subject more seriously than is healthy. Our toastie lives in a frying pan with a lid, the way T's mum did it. The air fryer pitch is that you don't have to stand over it or flip it.

Attempt one, the top slice of bread lifted off in the fan like a car bonnet in a gale and ended up resting at an angle against the side of the drawer, toasted on both sides and attached to nothing. The cheese underneath was beautifully melted and completely exposed. We ate it as a sort of open melt and pretended that was the plan.

Attempt two, we pinned it together with two cocktail sticks through the middle, buttered the outsides, and cooked it at 180°C for about four minutes, then turned it over for another three. So much for no flipping. It was good. Even colour, properly melted middle, crisp corners. T's view was that it was a perfectly nice toastie that had lost some of its soul. The pan version gets that slightly uneven, lacy, butter-fried crust that the air fryer just doesn't do.

Hack three: reheating leftovers

This is the one that surprised us most, and it's T's favourite, which nobody saw coming.

Some background. Every time we visit T's parents in East London, we leave with a carrier bag of foil trays and freezer bags. Shingara, beef cutlets, the odd tub of chicken curry, sometimes a bag of piyaju if there's been a family gathering. In the microwave, anything with a crust turns soft and sad, and the shingara pastry goes chewy in a way that feels disrespectful to the woman who made it.

In the air fryer, the shingara came back crisp, the cutlets got their crunch back, and a slice of leftover pizza was frankly better than it had been the night before. Anything breaded, battered, pastry-wrapped or fried the first time round came back to life. For that alone T would now defend the thing in court.

Curry and rice were a different story. We tried reheating a portion of rice in a little foil dish in the air fryer and the top went crunchy while the bottom stayed lukewarm. Curry dried out at the edges. Saucy things and rice belong in a pan or the microwave, covered, with a splash of water, stirred halfway, until they're steaming hot all the way through.

Hack four: a whole roast chicken

This was always going to be the big one, and it was the one T was most suspicious of. A whole bird is thick, dense and awkward, which is exactly the kind of food an air fryer can brown beautifully on the outside long before the inside is safe. So we treated it as an experiment with one non-negotiable rule: nobody eats anything until the probe thermometer says so.

Problem one was size. The first chicken we bought, about 1.8kg, physically fitted in the drawer, but the top of the breast sat a couple of centimetres from the element. Twenty minutes in, the kitchen filled with the smell of scorching skin and the smoke alarm in the hallway gave one warning chirp, which in our flat is enough to make the neighbour's dog start. We took it out, carved it into pieces and finished it in the oven. Dinner was late. T was gracious about it for at least ten minutes.

Second try, we went smaller, a chicken of about 1.4kg, and checked there was a good gap above it before we started. We cooked it breast side down first, then turned it breast side up to finish, so the breast didn't spend the whole time closest to the heat. It took about an hour in our machine, but the clock isn't what tells you it's done. We probed the thickest part of the thigh, without touching the bone, and kept going until it read 75°C, then checked the breast too and made sure the juices ran clear with no pink meat. It rested for ten minutes under foil before S was allowed near it with a knife.

And honestly? It was good. Really crisp skin, juicy breast, and the drawer caught the fat and juices, which became a very small, very intense gravy. But the drawer is a nightmare to clean afterwards, the bird has to be small, and you get none of the roast potatoes alongside unless you cook them separately. Which, you'll notice, we now know how to do.

The ones we didn't get to

S did try an air fryer "boiled" egg one morning, without telling T, and reported that it was "basically fine". T has seen the photo. The white had a faint brown spot on one side and the shell came off in about forty tiny pieces. We have a pan and a kettle. We'll leave that one to the internet for now. Air fryer brownies and a one-drawer chicken biryani are on the list for another day, mostly because S has promised and T hasn't stopped him.

Our air fryer roast potatoes

This is the version that made T stop measuring the worktop. It serves 2 to 3 as a side in a single-drawer air fryer of about 5 litres. If your drawer is smaller, cook in two batches rather than piling them up, because overcrowding is exactly what turns roasties into steamed potatoes.

• 750g floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or King Edward, peeled
• 1½ tbsp vegetable, sunflower or rapeseed oil
• ½ tsp fine salt, plus extra for the cooking water
• To finish (optional, our way): ½ tsp chaat masala, a pinch of chilli flakes and 1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1. Cut the potatoes into even chunks of about 4 to 5cm. Even sizes matter more than the exact size, so they all finish at once.
2. Put them in a pan of cold, well-salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are soft and a knife slides into the outside but meets a bit of resistance in the middle.
3. Drain in a colander and leave them to steam dry for 5 minutes. Then give the colander two or three firm shakes to rough up the edges. You want them to look a bit battered.
4. Tip them into a bowl, add the oil and ½ tsp salt, and toss gently with your hands or a spoon until every chunk is coated.
5. Heat the air fryer to 200°C for a few minutes. Don't put a paper liner in while it preheats empty, as the fan can lift it into the element.
6. Spread the potatoes in a single layer in the basket, with a little space between them. Cook at 200°C for 20 to 25 minutes, shaking the basket every 7 or 8 minutes, until deep golden and crisp all over.
7. Tip into a warm bowl. If you're finishing them our way, scatter over the chaat masala, chilli flakes and coriander, toss, and serve straight away.

So, did it keep its spot?

It did. Just. The month ended and T didn't get the tape measure out again, which in our marriage is a formal decision. The air fryer earned its place on two jobs: roast potatoes for two on a weeknight, and bringing crispy leftovers back to life. Everything else it can do, it does about as well as something we already own.

If you've got a decent oven and a frying pan, you don't need one. If you're cooking for one or two, hate heating a whole oven for a tray of potatoes, or have a mum who sends you home with a freezer bag of shingara every other weekend, it'll probably earn its keep. Just leave a gap above the chicken.

Cook it with Jan

Want to make air fryer roast potatoes tonight? Jan will scale it for your crowd and walk you through every step.

Let's cook!

• Air fryer meals
• Air fryer roast potatoes
• Kitchen gadgets
• Hacks
• Leftovers
• Food safety