Why does nobody talk about preheating with the basket out

I used to just toss food in cold and set the timer, figured it saved time. Then I tried preheating the air fryer for 3 minutes with the basket pulled out halfway. Crispy tofu went from okay to actually crunchy on the outside. The difference was the hot air hitting the food right away instead of warming up around it. Anyone else do this or am I the last one to figure it out?

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abbyr969d ago

Preheating with the basket out does help some foods, sure, but for most stuff it's kind of overkill. The extra 3 minutes just dry out the air fryer's interior and waste energy when the food needs that time to cook anyway. Plus, throwing cold food into a hot basket seems to make the outside cook faster than the middle, which is annoying for bigger pieces.

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faithb789d ago

My air fryer preheats for exactly 4 minutes with the basket hanging halfway out, and my wife thinks I'm running some kind of science experiment in the kitchen. @abbyr96, you make a fair point about the energy waste, but I'll gladly burn a few pennies if it means my frozen nuggets come out with that crunch instead of sad and soggy. The cold food into hot basket thing does bite you on thick stuff, though, so I just flip everything halfway and call it a workout. Honestly, half the fun is watching that little heating coil glow like a tiny orange sunset while I wait.

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