Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Like most red-blooded humans, I love french fries. I do not love belly fat and dangerously high cholesterol, so I indulge infrequently. That may change thanks to the recent arrival of an air fryer, the little convection oven that could. Suddenly healthy(ish) french fries are within my grasp.Not just fries, either. It turns out this criminally underrated cookware (which really isn’t a fryer at all) is good for all kinds of food prep. Let’s take a look at different ways to get the most from this countertop cooker — starting with which one to get.Choose the right size
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
If you haven’t purchased an air fryer yet, the first decision to make is arguably the most important: what size to get. They’re often measured in quarts, the smallest being around 2.75; the largest, about 6.Because I have a family of four, I wanted something big enough to accommodate at least that many servings of fries. (Because, let’s face it, we buy these things for fries.) Eventually, I landed on a Secura 5.3-quart model (roughly 2.6 liters), which I scored for $110.The cooking basket measures 9.25×9.25×4 inches — plenty big for all our chopped-up spuds. After cutting about eight of them, the basket still had plenty of room.Bottom line: Before buying, check the measurements of the air fryer itself and make sure you have the counter space to accommodate it. I’m glad I didn’t go with anything smaller, but my Secura does make a pretty chunky addition to the kitchen.
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
Invest in a french fry cutter Half the secret to successful air-fryer fries: a uniform cut. This $29 cutter makes short work of your spuds. EeoAbout those fries. The air fryer will do its best work if each piece of potato is a uniform size — challenging at best if you’re cutting by hand. My advice: Buy a cutter.It’s one of the fastest, easiest tools you can add to your kitchen; it took me all of two minutes to crank through the aforementioned eight potatoes, and that was because it was my first time and I was moving slowly.One more thing about fries…Many air-fryer french fry recipes tell you to peel the potatoes first. Many more say you should soak them in water first, from anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours.Here’s what I did: Cut the potatoes, coated them in a tiny amount of oil, dropped ’em in the basket and cooked ’em. No peeling, no soaking… didn’t even pat them dry first.They. Were. Delicious.Might they be better still after soaking and/or drying? Maybe. Is that extra effort necessary? Nope. Not in my book, anyway. If you’ve taste-tested them both ways, tell me your preference.Get shaky with itIf you’re cooking fries or something similar (tater tots, chicken nuggets, veggies, etc.), you’ll want to give the basket a good shake at least once during the cooking process.This will move everything around and allow the hot air to circulate to every surface of each piece of food — important for uniform “frying.” Although many recipes call for shaking halfway through the cooking time, I recommend doing it more often, like every 4-6 minutes.If you have an air fryer with trays instead of baskets, use oven mitts to take them out and flip your food over. It might seem like a hassle, but it doesn’t take much time and effort and will heat your meal through much more evenly and give it a nice crisp.Don’t overloadRemember, your air fryer is just a little oven. If you were cooking, say, chicken breasts in a regular oven, you wouldn’t stack them on top of each other, would you? Same deal here, with the aforementioned exception of fries and veggies, spread them out as best you can and don’t overload the basket.Some fryers come with a rack that lets you add a second layer of food above the basket. Now you can cook, say, four pieces of salmon instead of just two. (Speaking of which, I made exactly that last night. It didn’t get dried out the way it does in the oven. Yum.)Overloading the air fryer will make your food heat unevenly, knocking down the quality of your eats. These tiny ovens cook food quickly, so don’t be afraid to separate your meals into different batches for the best results.Adapt oven recipesWant to make an old favorite in your air fryer? Even if Grandma’s Best Chicken was written with conventional ovens in mind, it’s easy to adapt nearly every recipe for fryer use.Typically, you’ll just lower the cooking temperature by about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. If the oven recipe says 350 (176 degrees Celsius), the fryer gets set to 325 (160 Celsius). Similarly, you’ll need about 20 percent less cooking time, though this can certainly vary depending on the kind of food, the cooking temperature and so on.Need help with the math? Check out the Air Fryer Calculator, which will convert standard cook times and temperatures to Celsius.Think outside the fry
Enlarge Image
“Healthy” donuts, courtesy of your air fryer. Everyday Teacher StyleAssuming you can find a free minute when your air fryer isn’t cooking french fries, there are lots of other things you can make in there — some of which may surprise you.CNET has covered some of the best air fryer foods before, but if you want specific recipes, we have those too. Below I’ve rounded up some great recipes you’ll definitely want to try:Are you sold on the air fryer magic but don’t know which one to buy? Here are the best air fryers of 2025, ranked by CNET’s resident expert.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘set’, ‘autoConfig’, false, ‘789754228632403’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘789754228632403’);
