air fryer problems/troubleshooting

[Anonymous]

I have owned an air fryer for about a year and can’t get the hang of it. My foods never turn out as in the recipe photos nor taste good. In particular, boneless skinless chicken is a flop when cooked in it. It always looks anemic and pale not crispy, and the meat is dry not juicy.

I have a Ninja air fryer.

I preheat it and add the chicken when the machine indicates readiness. I set the machine to air fryer at 400 deg for 12 minutes.

I don’t crowd the chicken in the basket.

I flip the chicken halfway.

Before cooking, I usually toss the chicken in a spice blend like paprika, garlic, salt, brown sugar and cornstarch.

I use thin boneless skinless cutlets.

The chicken breasts are always dry and pale, and never crispy/charred/roasted looking on the outside.

This has also happened with chicken wings, broccoli, asparagus. It is all flabby looking. I get much better results from roasting in my oven!

What am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like the air fryer is not working properly.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a little bit of oil somewhere? You need some to get the crisp. I usually just brush on a teeny bit. Also, you might be using the time for regular breasts not the thin ones so they are overcooking.

[Anonymous]

Why are these things called air fryers when they're really just small convection ovens?

[Anonymous]

try spritzing with avacado oil. It shouldn't be this hard so maybe it's broken?

[Anonymous]

Breast meat dries out really quickly, and requires pretty decent cooking skills to have it come out juicy. Try thighs instead, if you don't mind it.

In your shoes, I'd use an oven thermometer to make sure that your air fryer is heating to proper temperature. And as suggested, use a little oil. The meat you're using is really lean, so that should help.

[Anonymous]

Same, OP, same.

I actually got rid of the first air fryer I bought, a Gourmia, and bought a fancy Ninja. Same difference. I do use it occasionally, but really only because I don't want to heat up my entire oven.

[Anonymous]

It really does best with chicken thighs.

[Anonymous]

Wings and thighs come out fabulous in my air fryer (Instant Vortex Plus). Crisp and juicy. I never bother with chicken breasts so no idea how those would turn out.

[Anonymous]

For breasts I only use pre marinated ones.375 for 14-16 min. I try to pound them a little to even out the thickness.

If that dosntbwon your air fryer could have something wrong with it.

[Anonymous]

You need to spray with oil

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to spray with oil

I use olive oil in the marinade so this can’t be the issue.

Also I have tried wings and they, too, have not crisped up like I expected.

- OP

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your air fryer is a lemon. Chicken wings, breasts, and thighs turn out very crispy in my Cosori.

[Anonymous]

That's not long enough. To get crispy wings I need to triple the bake times. Be sure to use air fryer mode that seems to run a convection fan.