Ditch the Hot Oven: The Ultimate Summer Cooking Hack Is Sitting on Your Counter

CNET

6 days ago

I love grilling as much as the next backyard warrior, but standing over open flames in 90-degree heat feels less like cooking and more like slow-roasting myself. And firing up the oven indoors? That just turns your kitchen into a sauna and your living room into a convection zone. Not to mention, using a gas range with the windows shut is basically inviting bad air to dinner.
That's where the air fryer swoops in. These compact countertop dynamos crank out crispy food fast, without turning your house into a hotbox. Sure, they blow a little warm air, but it's more like a light summer breeze compared to the furnace blast of your wall oven. Best of all, most air fryer recipes take less time than it takes to preheat your oven -- or sweat through another tongs-in-hand grill session.
But don't take my word for it, I ran tests to see how much an air fryer would warm my kitchen compared to cooking them same food in an oven. The results cemented the air fryer as one of the best summer kitchen tools, right up there with ice makers and blenders.
The numbers don't lie
A heat wave requires creative thinking to keep the home cool and an air fryer is my ticket to getting through those sweltering summer spells without starving. To see if air fryers belong in the summer cooking hall of fame, I ran tests to see how much the oven heats up the kitchen versus an air fryer.
Trendy air fryers are all they're cracked up to be, especially when it's hot out.
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I ran tests to see how much hotter an oven would make the kitchen
The air fryer turns out juicy chicken thighs in under 20 minutes.
David Watsky/CNET
To find real-world differences, I roasted chicken thighs in my KitchenAid wall oven (less than 10 years old) and a 4-quart Dreo air fryer, according to two popular recipes from a well-known cooking site. I tested the temperature before, during and after to see how much of a difference each machine makes.
My Brooklyn apartment kitchen is on the small side, but it's not enclosed and opens up to the rest of the apartment. I kept the windows closed for the test, although it's worth noting that recent studies show cooking with natural gas in an enclosed kitchen can be a health risk.
I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons to turn on the big oven these days.
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The standard oven recipe called for the chicken to be roasted at 375 degrees for 30 minutes in the oven. Because of its smaller chamber, the air fryer recipe only required 20 minutes of cooking at the same temperature. The air fryer requires only about a minute to come to temperature, while the oven takes more than five.
An ambient thermometer is all I needed to test how much hotter a gas oven can make the kitchen.
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I placed a standard ambient thermometer in the middle of the kitchen -- about 5 feet from the stove -- at counter height. I took a reading before the oven or air fryer was turned on. I took another reading halfway through the cooking time and the last one at the end of the cooking time. Between the two sessions, I waited for the kitchen to return to a resting temperature before starting the next one.
Ovens may have more capacity but they warm the kitchen far more than an air fryer.
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The oven made my kitchen 10 degrees hotter than the air fryer
Midway through the recipes (15 minutes), the oven raised the temperature of my kitchen by 15 degrees from 71 F to too-hot 88 F. After 10 minutes of cooking with the air fryer on 375 F, the temperature in my kitchen had gone up only 5 degrees F, from 72 F to a pleasant 77 F. You can feel heat emanating from the air fryer if you stand close enough, but it's not enough to significantly change the temperature of the kitchen.
Read more: Here's How to Keep Your Kitchen Cool (and Lower Your Energy Bill) During a Heat Wave
Not only did the air fryer cause less of a temperature spike, but I only needed to have it running for roughly 20 minutes with one minute of preheat time. The oven took 30 minutes to cook the chicken and 6 minutes to preheat.
Using the air fryer will cut down on energy bills
Even modern ovens use significantly more energy than an air fryer.
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During a heat wave, your air conditioner is already working hard. Heating the kitchen up with your oven will only require them to work harder, using more energy to bring the room back down to your desired temperature. For the AC to make up the difference for one 20- or 30-minute cooking session with an oven, it may not be a total budget-buster. Spread that out over time or for longer cooking sessions and using the oven during hot months can have real fiscal ramifications. For more on this, read my breakdown of exactly how much more an oven costs to run than an air fryer.
What can you make in an air fryer?
Roasted chicken in the air fryer is dynamite and takes less time than in the large oven.
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An air fryer can do almost any cooking job that an oven can, although air fryers are typically smaller than wall ovens so you can't cook as much in one go.
I've been tinkering with the air fryer a lot this year. I discovered the joy of cooking whole chickens in the air fryer, filets of salmon and even bacon cheeseburgers. The air fryer goes well beyond its reputation for cooking crispy wings and french fries. You can make dinner party-level recipes in the air fryer without breaking a sweat, literally.
Here are seven foods that I only make in the air fryer now not just because they keep my kitchen cooler but because the results are as good or better than other methods. Here's our complete guide to air fryers, everyone's favorite new kitchen appliance.
FAQs
How much energy does an air fryer save when compared to a wall oven?
An air fryer uses 50% less total energy than a wall oven does, according to calculations performed by CNET's resident kitchen home tech expert, David Watsky.