Full size gas and electric ovenreally good at heat the kitchen Usually the entire house, depending on how big your space is. Turn the large oven for 10 minutes during heat wave can change things from bad to worse. cooking outside Grilledsmoker or pizza oven Better, but standing outside in 90+ degree temperatures exceeds Hot BBQ Still treacherous.
Heatwave requires creative thinking to keep homes cool and air fryer It was my ticket to getting through those muggy summer days without going hungry. The best part? A quality air fryer can be used for As low as $50.
Air fryers cook quickly and emit less energy than an oven or grill. I’ve found that cooking in an air fryer doesn’t cause the temperature in my home to rise that much, whereas turning on the oven – even just to preheat – does cause the temperature to rise significantly.
A stylish air fryer does exactly what it’s cracked up to be, especially when the weather is hot.
So much so that I almost gave up oven Even during my barbecue sultry summer The air fryer is full. My sanity and my monthly energy bills are better for it.
To see if an air fryer really is the ultimate heat wave cooking device, I compared how much you raise your kitchen temperature when cooking in an air fryer versus cooking in a full-size wall oven.
How do I test the heat output of an air fryer vs. wall oven?
The air fryer can fry juicy chicken drumsticks in just 20 minutes.
To find a real-world difference, I roasted chicken thighs in a KitchenAid wall oven (less than 10 years old) and a 4-quart Dreo air fryer, based on two popular recipes from well-known cooking websites. I tested the temperature before, during, and after to see how much difference each machine made.
The kitchen in my Brooklyn apartment is smaller, but instead of being enclosed, it’s open to the rest of the apartment. I closed the window while testing, but it’s worth noting A recent study Showing possible health risks from cooking with natural gas in closed kitchens.
These days I find fewer and fewer reasons to turn on the big oven.
The standard oven recipe calls for roasting the chicken in the oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Since the air fryer has a smaller frying chamber, it only takes 20 minutes to cook at the same temperature. The air fryer only takes about a minute to come up to temperature, while the oven takes more than five minutes.
I just need an ambient thermometer to test how hot a gas oven can make the kitchen.
I place a standard ambient thermometer at counter height in the center of my kitchen (about 5 feet from the stove). I take a reading before turning on the oven or air fryer. I read it again halfway through the cooking time and read the last one at the end of the cooking time. In between treatments, I wait for the kitchen to return to resting temperature before starting the next treatment.
Big oven makes my kitchen 12 degrees hotter than an air fryer
An oven has a larger capacity than an air fryer, but it’s still not worth heating the house in the summer.
As I suspected, my oven heats up the kitchen far more than the air fryer does. Halfway through the recipe (15 minutes), the oven raised the temperature in my kitchen 15 degrees from 71 degrees Fahrenheit to a too-hot 88 degrees Fahrenheit.
After 10 minutes of cooking in the air fryer at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature in my kitchen rose only 5 degrees Fahrenheit, from 72 degrees Fahrenheit to a pleasant 77 degrees Fahrenheit. It is not enough to radiate heat and significantly change the temperature of your kitchen.
read more: Here’s how to keep your kitchen cool (and lower your energy bills) during a heat wave
Not only does the air fryer not cause temperature spikes, but I only have to let it run for about 20 minutes and preheat for a minute. The oven takes 30 minutes to cook the chicken and 6 minutes to preheat.
Use an air fryer to reduce energy bills
Even modern ovens use more energy than an air fryer.
During a heat wave, your Air conditioner Already working hard. Heating your kitchen with an oven will just require them to work harder, using more energy to bring the room back to your desired temperature. For air conditioning to make up the difference for a 20 or 30 minute cooking session in the oven, it may not be a total budget buster. But over time or longer cooking times and using the oven during hotter months can have a real financial impact. For more on this, read my detailed analysis How much more does an oven cost to operate than an air fryer?.
What can you do with an air fryer?
Rotisserie chicken in an air fryer is dynamite and takes less time than in a big oven.
An air fryer can do almost any cooking job that an oven can, although air fryers are generally smaller than wall ovens, so you can’t cook as much food at once.
I made a lot of modifications to my air fryer this year. I discovered the joy of cooking whole chicken In the air fryer, salmon fillet and even Bacon cheeseburger. Air fryers go far beyond their reputation for cooking crispy wings and French fries. You can literally whip up dinner party-grade recipes in the air fryer with little effort.
here has seven kinds of food I now only cook in air fryers, not only because they keep my kitchen cool, but because the results are as good or better than other methods. This is Our Complete Guide to Air Fryerseveryone’s favorite new kitchen appliance.
