If you’re using oil, I assume it heats then atomizes the oil so it cooks the food item in hot oil by coating it with a mist rather than the traditional method of dunking it in liquid oil, but it says on the box you can cook many items with no oil.. so how is this different from just baking/roasting them in a traditional oven?
ETA: Thanks everyone!
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Like the others have said, air fryers are essentially scaled-down convection ovens. However, there are a few crucial differences:
– air fryers don’t get as hot (mine tops out at 400F/204C)
– air fryers have a much higher fan speed than most convection ovens
– air fryers don’t need to preheat in the same way (you only need to wait for the heating coils to warm up, no need to warm the basket itself)
Before air fryers were introduced, there was an appliance called the NuWave that was essentially the same thing, but with multiple tiers like an oven or dehydrator instead of the basket you’ll find in most air fryers.
The surface of foods cooked in the air fryer are a bit more dry than what you’ll get out of a traditional oven or deep fryer. That’s sometimes a good substitute for the crispiness you get from a deep fryer, but an air fryer can’t achieve the “bloom” that you get from deep fryers, which relies on a rapid transfer of heat between the cooking medium (oil or air) and the surface of the food. (Fun fact: Food in a deep fryer is essentially “steamed” by its own moisture while the surface is fried; properly fried foods will have relatively little oil remaining on the surface.)
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