Lately I have seen a lot of interest in air fryers. We had been itching to get one for awhile based on a friend’s recommendation. The promise of crispy food with little oil seemed like a pretty decent idea. Thankfully with some research we discovered that there is an inexpensive air fryer hack available.
What is an Air Fryer
Essentially an air fryer is a counter top kitchen appliance that cooks food by circulating hot air using a convection fan. So let me get this straight, an air fryer is just a small convection oven? Yup.
A quick look at Amazon shows that an air fryer will run you anywhere between $80 and $200 CDN. I guess that’s not a terrible price for the promise of crispy fries. On the down side who really needs another counter top appliance taking up space in a cupboard or… on the counter. For me that was the biggest issue. Here we are trying to simplify our lives and buy less stuff and we’re about to bring more electronics into the house. That just didn’t feel right.
Here’s the Hack!
With that, we kept on reading and researching. Well honestly it only took about a half hour to find a much better solution. This won’t work for everyone but it will for many. It turns out that most new kitchen ranges or ovens come with convection settings built right in. I checked ours and indeed there are convection bake and roast features, and our oven is 12 years old. So run into the kitchen and check to see if your oven has convection capabilities. if so you’re almost good to go.
The next challenge is a method or device that would allow the hot air to circulate around the food. This is what allows the food to become crispy on all sides, something that you can’t achieve with a baking tray.
Wouldn’t you know that such a rack already exists. Gotham steel, Breville and Cuisinart all make such a basket that mimics the air fryer’s set up. So for $20 we got our hands on a Gotham Steel none stick crisper tray and put it to the test, and the results were good.
For tofu, onion bhajis and cauliflower we’ve been very happy with the results. There are plenty of great things you can make in the basket that make your $20 investment worth your while.
Where can you get one
You can get the basket on Amazon, but you can also get one from Walmart or Canadian Tire.