Although air-fryer mania has faded from its mid-pandemic peak, the countertop appliance has earned a permanent place in millions of kitchens. Just take a look at all of the starchy finger foods in the freezer aisle that have air-fryer cooking directions printed right on the box or bag.We get the appeal. An air fryer comes close to offering the speed and convenience of a microwave. And it usually produces a more satisfying crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside texture than most conventional ovens can achieve, while also involving fewer calories than if you’d used a deep fryer.If you don’t already own an air fryer (or if you do, and you just can’t be bothered to wash the basket), here’s a bit of good news: When you want to whip up tasty, crunchy tots or chicken nuggets in a hurry, your oven might be better at this than you thought. Top pickThis appliance performs just as well for air-fryer duties as it does for toaster-oven tasks. It also has settings for bread-proofing, slow-cooking, and dehydrating.This sturdy, powerful stove with basic convection has a great cooktop and baking features, all for a good price. It’s made by a dependable brand, and it comes in four finishes.Of course, an air fryer is much smaller than a typical convection oven. So it can work faster — especially when you’re heating frozen foods that are supposed to be a little crispy on the outside.In our testing, a pod-style countertop air fryer cranked out medium-size batches of fish sticks, chicken tenders, and french fries about 10 minutes faster than the convection setting on a full-size oven.Still, if you opt for the convection setting on your oven — or even your toaster oven — you can shave minutes off of your cooking time, versus using the standard bake setting.Top pickThis fast-heating, easy-to-use air fryer cooked the most well-crisped food in our tests. Pod-style air fryers work so quickly because the heating element and fan are huge relative to the size of the oven cavity and sit inches away from the food basket. Liam McCabe/NYT WirecutterAnd when you aren’t reheating frozen convenience foods, the gentler heat of the traditional convection setting on your oven can give meat and vegetables a more-tender center beneath the crispy exterior, said kitchen writer Michael Sullivan, who has tested countertop convection appliances for almost a decade. In our tests, chicken tenders and fish sticks prepared in a convection oven and a convection toaster oven turned out crispier and more flavorful than those cooked in a pod-shaped air fryer. Michael Hession/NYT WirecutterIf your oven has a convection setting, and you want to get the best possible crinkle fries, tater tots, pizza rolls, Costco samosas, and other frozen delights without buying a whole new appliance, here’s how to optimize it:Consider using a crisper basket. “Baskets are most useful for bags of frozen food that are really icy, because they allow the ice to melt off and evaporate, and not pool on a sheet pan, which would create soggy fries,” Michael said.And since air can flow around all sides of the food in one of these baskets, you don’t need to manually flip your nuggets or tots halfway through the cooking time. (I bought this basket-and-tray set because it had the largest number of positive reviews. But I don’t know how it compares to others like it, though I sort of doubt that matters much.) For the most air-fryer–esque results, cook your food in a crisper basket like this one, and put it directly in the path of your oven’s convection fan. Liam McCabe/NYT WirecutterLoad your food on the middle rack, directly in the path of the convection fan. Small air fryers work so quickly mainly because the food sits inches away from the fan and heating element, so it gets absolutely blasted with hot air. The fan in a full-size oven generally doesn’t create such an intense convection effect. And the more direct airflow your food gets, the crispier the results.Cook the food for longer than the air-fryer directions on the package. Again, in a typical convection oven, the heat and airflow aren’t as intense as they are in a pod-style fryer. That’s because the fan is relatively small, and the radiant effects of the heating elements and walls aren’t as pronounced.For a regular convection bake or convection roast mode, the rule of thumb is to look at the suggested cook time for a conventional oven, and then trim that by about 20%. (Personally, I got the crispest results using the convection roast setting on my oven.)
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