A few weeks ago we were offered the chance to try an Air Fryer. All my friends have air fryers and I’ve wanted one for a while but they seemed like a big investment. Thankfully Very jumped to the rescue and kindly gifted me an air fryer from their range and tasked me with making a healthier meal for the family.

Healthier cooking with the Ninja Air Fryer

Apparently air fryers have been around for the last decade but sales have soared in the last couple of years. I think we’re the last people to get one but I don’t mind because our friends have been sharing their best recipes with us!

What is an air fryer?

So an air fryer is basically a counter top convection oven. Despite the name it doesn’t actually ‘fry’ anything. Due to its small size, it heats up quickly and cooks food quickly. We’ve been using our Ninja Air Fryer for the last two weeks and have tried all kinds of meals in ours.

We went for the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK. This is a versatile air fryer and cooks for up to 8 people. As a family of four I knew we would need one of the larger air fryers and so far this has been a great size, in fact I’ve barely used my regular oven in the last two weeks!

We’ve used the air fryer for most of our normal meals, from cooked breakfasts to our favourite roast potatoes for our Sunday roast. We love the fact that our favourite meals can be made healthier using an air fryer. I’m looking forward to sharing some recipe ideas over the coming months but today I wanted to tell you how much fun we had with our favourite weekend meal, a cooked breakfast.

There are 6 cooking functions – Air Fry, Max Crisp, Roast, Bake, Reheat and Dehydrate – meaning your favourite meals can be made healthier using an air fryer. We used the air fry function to cook hash browns, to cook the bacon and sausages, and even for the tomatoes and mushrooms. A cooked breakfast is a great way to start the weekend and a fun way to use up any  vegetables like tomatoes and mushrooms you have in the fridge.

The air fryer allows you to cook 2 different foods with different programs, temperatures and times, both ready to serve at the same time, which is a really handy feature. We seemed to use a lot less oil than usual and there was plenty of oil in the non-stick drawers when the food had finished cooking. We’re also finding that the air fryer is helping to reduce waste in the kitchen as there is so little washing up to be done! The non-stick drawers and crisper plates are all dishwasher safe too.

I’m really happy with our air fryer and look forward to trying air fryer toasties in it. I’ve seen a few recipes on food blogs and they look amazing. The air fryer we have is currently on offer if you’re tempted!

I’d love to hear if you have an air fryer and how you get on with it. If you have any links to your favourite recipes feel free to leave me a link so I can check them out.