When To Use an Air Fryer (and When the Oven Is Actually Better)

The arrival of the first and only air fryer in our house was unheralded. I was curious but skeptical. Was this hyped-up machine worth mastering? Would it earn valuable counter real estate? 

After seven years and counting, I am happy to report that my air fryer and I are still going strong. And we’re still coming across new and surprising uses for it. My daughter makes frozen pierogies in our air fryer, which is about as close to actual cooking as she gets.

Through trial and error, however, I’ve learned that some things the air fryer doesn’t excel at. If you’re new to air frying or want to break out of a rut of heating frozen pierogies, how do you know when to air fry and when it’s best to use your oven instead?

The Key Difference Between How Air Fryers and Ovens Work

Ovens and air fryers both use hot air to cook food. In a conventional oven, heat is never evenly distributed because hot air rises, plus the temperature drops up to 50°F every time you open it. Conventional ovens take a long time to preheat because there’s a lot of space in there.

Air fryers, meanwhile, are much smaller, so they heat up faster. In fact, you don’t even need to preheat them. In an air fryer, fans blow rapidly heated air around in patterns that mimic the way frying oil distributes heat. This rapidly circulating hot air makes food surfaces brown deeply and more evenly than they would in a conventional oven. It’s what makes air fryers so appealing for heating frozen fried foods, or mimicking the texture of fried foods.

When To Reach for the Air Fryer

For perspective, I wanted to ask someone who was well-versed in both ovens and air fryers, so I asked Nick Evans. He’s the creator and author of Crunch Time Kitchen and has developed dozens of recipes for Simply Recipes, including many air fryer ones. Thanks to Nick, I won’t make hamburgers or hot dogs any other way.  

“I use both my oven and my air fryer regularly, but it’s important to know when to use one over the other,” Evans says. “I love my air fryer for fast meals for kiddos or just for a few servings. I go back to my conventional oven if I’m making more of something since the air fryer tends to have smaller baskets.” 

Capacity is the most obvious factor when choosing between an air fryer and an oven. Whether you have a basket-style air fryer or a multi-function air fryer/toaster oven, it simply can’t hold as much as a regular oven. For items when you only need four servings or fewer, think air fryer! Use it for baked potatoes, brussels sprouts, salmon, or even frozen dinner rolls.  

Small casseroles can fit in an air fryer/toaster oven, so if you’re cooking for one or two, try halving a casserole recipe made for a 9×13-inch dish. The top will get bubbly and beautifully browned in less time than a regular oven. 

Small-Batch Baking in an Air Fryer

If you like to bake but prefer to do it in small batches, don’t overlook your air fryer. “The air fryer does an amazing job in making a batch of cookies,” says Laurie Fleming, writer of ForkToSpoon.com and author of The Essential Air Fryer Cookbook for Beginners. “I recently made my grandmother’s cookies (a recipe that goes back over 100 years) and the air fryer made them better than the oven, light and airy.” 

The baking comes with a caveat, however. To ensure baked goods with centers that aren’t raw or underdone, adapt traditional baking recipes for the air fryer by reducing the temperature by 25°F and decreasing the baking time by at least 20 percent. For basket-style air fryers, try using parchment paper instead of baking sheets. Muffins, cookies, and rolls—small bakes that benefit from browning—work best in the air fryer. Full-size cakes and loaves, not so much.

When To Crank up the Oven

Sure, an oven takes a while to preheat, but it has its advantages. When I bake sweets, I do it big, because I want lots of cookies all at once. At mealtimes I cook for three people, but we like leftovers, so using the oven delivers a big quantity of food without having to cook batches back-to-back the way I would in an air fryer.

You can also cook multiple dishes in an oven at once, and it doesn’t require as much minding as a turbo-charged air fryer. “I prefer my oven if I need to do other things while the item cooks,” says Evans. For those days when you’re more absent-minded, the oven might be a better choice, lest you overcook your french fries and wind up with sawdust sticks.

Air fryers can also brown certain foods a bit too much. If you like roasted broccoli with tender stems and lightly crisped florets, know that an air fryer can over-frizzle the tops long before the stems lose their raw bite. 

The Takeaway

Both ovens and air fryers can do heavy lifting in meal prep, so don’t discount one over the other. Your diet, lifestyle, and household will determine which one is the most practical for the situation. Increasingly, though, I’m noticing the brisk cooking times and energy efficiency of the air fryer keep winning out. I even roasted a pound of chestnuts in the air fryer the other day, and they peeled more easily than another batch I’ve made. Who knew?