Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has issued a warning to those considering swapping their ovens for air fryers. The financial guru, who's become the go-to source for cost-cutting tips, has been fielding questions about this trendy kitchen swap, especially after many snapped up Ninja and Tower air fryers in the Black Friday frenzy.
Pitched as a more economical alternative to traditional ovens, some enthusiasts are even planning to roast their festive turkeys in these compact cookers. But during a chat on ITV's This Morning, as reported by Wales Online, Martin cast doubt on whether the energy-saving benefits really stack up.
He questioned: "I heard you on the show mentioning someone was gonna cook a Christmas dinner in an air fryer. Is that right? If that's being done for energy reasons, I would be somewhat sceptical whether that is a good idea."
Martin elaborated on his concerns, saying: "If it's being done for taste, I don't want to get involved. I mean, the benefit of an oven is when you're cooking a lot for a lot of people, and you can fill all the racks and have it on consistently. Air fryers are good for small things that cook quickly. If you're gonna have to use your air fryer 15 different times for different items generally on energy usage, you'd be better off to use an oven. So it's an interesting thought."
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Martin delved into the cost-effectiveness of cooking methods, highlighting: "If you're doing a jacket potato for 10 minutes it's going to be far cheaper [in the microwave] than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half. However if you were doing a full roast dinner and you were cooking many of them, that is where it's probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because each additional object you put in a microwave, you need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object."
He then offered a simple formula for energy-conscious cooks: "work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it's using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use."
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On the topic of air fryers versus halogen cookers, Martin explained: "If you had a 1000W microwave and you put it on for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour, a sixth of 34p is about 6p, shall we say? So it's 6p turning the microwave on for that amount of time. So yes it's a very useful equation."
With Christmas on the horizon, energy expert Llewellyn Kinch from MakeMyHouseGreen.com chimed in with advice, cautioning: "If you cook a turkey in the oven for several hours, it'll use up lots of electricity. The savvy way is to use a slow cooker, which costs a fraction to run compared to a traditional oven. Crispy skin lovers can always finish the turkey in the oven for a short period of time. For side dishes, opt for energy-efficient cooking methods, such as the microwave or convection oven. Roast potatoes come out well in energy-efficient air fryers. A final tip is to always match saucepan sizes to hot plates or burners, and keep lids on pots to reduce cooking time and energy waste."