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Air Fryers: A New Must-Have Kitchen Gadget For RVers

This post was updated on March 15th, 2024

Air Fryers: A New Must-Have Kitchen Gadget For RVers

There’s always a new kitchen gadget coming out that sweeps through social media as the new it thing: from dehydrators to the Instant Pot, we’ve now landed on the air fryer.

An air fryer is a kitchen appliance that cooks by circulating hot air around the food using the convection mechanism—essentially a downsized version of the convection oven. The hot air circulating around the food at high speed cooks the food while simultaneously producing a crispy layer.

This mechanism uses only a fraction of the oil (or none at all) required for regular frying, making it healthier. The name “air fryer” is a bit misleading as it doesn’t actually fry but is really a smaller version of a convection oven.

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When living in a small space, having gadgets that are multi-functional as well as space-saving are a priority. The air fryer has become especially popular among tiny house dwellers for the same reason the air fryer is perfect for an RV: it’s small enough to fit on a counter (it’s about the size of a toaster oven), and it can be used instead of an oven which is great for those hot days when you don’t want to heat up your small living space just for cooking.

What to make in the air fryer

Certain foods do better in the air fryer than others like potatoes and roasted vegetables. There are several air fryer cookbooks on the market like The Complete Air Fryer Cookbook, the Air Fryer Cookbook for Beginners, The Skinnytaste Air Fryer Cookbook and many more.

Plenty of delicious recipes can be found online as well that range from entrees like air fryer pizza to snacks like air fryer apple chips to desserts like air fryer doughnuts. And of course, there’s always room for improvising!

For small items like Brussels Sprouts Chips, the cooking time is a total of 8 minutes, less time than it would take the preheat the oven!

air fryers
Brussels Sprouts Chips. Photo by Two Red Bowls, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

What is the best air fryer?

There are many air fryers on the market varying in size and cost. Most come in a two-liter to six-liter capacity and will range in cost from as little as $70 up to $200. For a good reference when buying an air fryer, check out Consumer Report’s Best Air Fryers of 2019, a list of the five best air fryers on the market.

Rated number one on Consumer Report’s list is the Elite Platinum EAF-1506D air fryer, available for about $90 on Amazon. This model has a fold-down handle that makes it easier for storing, controls and preprogrammed settings are easy to read and understand, and the cleaning of both inside and outside are easy.

The other four air fryers on the list range in price from the cheapest at $60 to the most expensive at $109. Numerous accessories are also available for air fryers like a rack for maximizing cooking space as well as a grill pan.