I remember when air fryers started showing up everywhere. Suddenly everyone had one. There was that brief stretch when half the stuff I saw online was just people air frying things they absolutely shouldn’t be—grapes, boiled eggs, entire steaks. Like, why are we doing this.
But yeah, I have one too. Got it on sale. Used it pretty obsessively for a month. It was fast, didn’t heat up the kitchen, and made frozen fries taste less like cardboard. It felt like some small kitchen miracle—especially when compared to the clunky process of turning on the full oven just to reheat a few slices of pizza.
Still, lately I’ve been noticing a few things. Like, when I actually want food to cook evenly, or stay hot more than five minutes after I take it out, the oven still kind of wins. And now there’s this conversation happening around whether air fryers are actually as efficient or healthy as we keep assuming they are. Which feels worth digging into.
What’s going on inside these things?
At the core, air fryers aren’t magic—they’re just countertop convection ovens. They use a fan to circulate hot air quickly around the food, which makes it crisp up without a deep fryer’s oil bath. It’s a useful concept, especially if you’re trying to cut down on fats or just want things to be less greasy.
But the thing people gloss over is: the air fryer isn’t automatically the “healthier” appliance. Sure, it uses less oil. But a tater tot is still a tater tot, whether it’s deep fried or blasted with hot air. The appliance doesn’t transform what’s in it. It just changes how it cooks.
That “cheaper to run” idea? Not always so straightforward
So here’s where financial expert Martin Lewis comes in. He brought this up on one of his podcast episodes—that an oven, once heated, cycles energy in a way that isn’t as wasteful as it seems. It takes time to get up to temp, yeah, but it doesn’t stay at full blast the whole time. Which can make it surprisingly efficient, especially for longer or larger cooks.
Meanwhile, air fryers heat up fast. That’s their whole thing. But for certain meals, especially anything that takes more than 15–20 minutes or involves multiple batches, the quick heat-up doesn’t save you as much as you’d think. It’s not exactly an energy hog, but it’s also not automatically better.
What actually makes sense depends on the situation
Say you’re heating up a small handful of nuggets or roasting a few carrots—sure, the air fryer makes more sense. It’s quick, doesn’t require preheating, and the cleanup’s usually a lot less dramatic. Plus, you’re not running a whole oven for a handful of food, which feels wasteful.
But try baking a lasagna. Or roasting a whole chicken. Or even just making dinner for more than two people. Suddenly the air fryer’s limitations show up fast—space, mostly. You’re rotating batches, things aren’t coming out at the same time, and the idea of “faster” starts to fall apart.
Real-life pros and cons aren’t quite as tidy as the box says
Air fryers are easy to love at first. They heat fast, use less oil, and don’t leave your kitchen sweltering in summer. You can toss in a batch of sweet potato fries and be eating them in under 20 minutes. And they’re easy to clean—at least most models are.
But they’re small. And some recipes need longer cook times anyway, so even with a fast start, you’re still standing around. Plus, the texture doesn’t always deliver—sometimes things end up more dried out than crispy, especially if the basket’s too full or you didn’t shake halfway through.
Ovens are slower upfront, yeah. But once they’re going, they’re better at holding temperature and handling multiple dishes at once. You can roast vegetables on one rack and bake a casserole on another without playing Tetris. They’re built for that kind of multitasking.
The downside? Energy use for short jobs can feel a little ridiculous. Heating an entire oven just to warm a frozen croissant or crisp up leftover fries is… not the most efficient move.
So what’s the takeaway?
Honestly, it’s just not a one-or-the-other thing. Air fryers aren’t meant to replace ovens across the board, and ovens aren’t obsolete just because we’ve figured out how to blow hot air at frozen mozzarella sticks.
It depends on what you’re cooking, how many people you’re feeding, and what kind of effort you’re up for that day. Energy use varies depending on load, time, and recipe. You can’t really declare one better than the other without factoring all that in.
And yeah, air fryers are trendy—but trend doesn’t equal best. Not for every job, anyway. They’ve got their place. But if you’ve been ditching your oven completely in favor of the air fryer? Might be worth pausing and asking whether it’s actually saving you time or energy—or just seems like it is.
Still, if you’re using it to make leftover pizza crispy again? No judgment. That’s one thing it really does nail.
Find out why people are ditching air fryers for halogen ovens next.
