Discover the Truth About Air Fryers vs Ovens – What’s the Best for Cost-Efficient Cooking?
Air fryers have skyrocketed in popularity over the years. These devices are efficient and quick when it comes to cooking and baking foods. The prospect of cutting down on energy bills has been one of the main attractions of air frying during these challenging economic times. However, popular money-saving expert Martin Lewis believes air fryers might not save you as much money as you’d think. The cost-effectiveness of using air fryers depends on the amount of food you’re cooking and for how long.
On his podcast, Martin discussed the pros and cons of microwaves, air fryers, and ovens. “A microwave gives you consistent heat, whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up, so it isn’t running at full power the whole time,” Martin said. It’s possibly cheaper to cook a full roast dinner, including many jacket potatoes, in the oven than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave. This is because every additional object you put in a microwave needs more time to cook, as a microwave only heats the individual object.
That being said, if you want to cook just one jacket potato, which needs around 10 minutes, it would be “far cheaper” to do so in your microwave or air fryer since the oven would require “an hour and a half,” which is more expensive. Depending on portion sizes and cooking times, it’s probably best to mix it up between using your oven and air fryer.
Luckily, Martin has shared a helpful equation that can guide you in deciding which appliance to use. “Find the wattage of an item, then work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it’s using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use,” he said. “The general equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2,000W.”
In summary, if you’re budget-conscious and are thinking of buying an air fryer, you might want to weigh up the actual savings and consider using both an oven and an air fryer, depending on what you’re cooking. Knowing the right equation and how to use it can help you make the right cost-efficient decision.
