I am 42 years old and am going to drop some insane wisdom on you guys: air frying is convection. Countertop air fryers are just small convection ovens with baskets that work faster because they are smaller.

The "air fryer" setting on your oven is a regular convection oven. An oven.

The circle completes.

We have a GE wall oven with convection bake and convection roast. GE is offering a paid software download to add a no-preheat air fry mode, for what it's worth.

Anonymous wrote:Air fryers are just convection ovens.

Standalone air fryers, especially the basket models, perform very differently and much more effectively than conventional convection ovens. Here’s an excellent video that explains why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Ki9RKXpMM

But the “air fryer” function in a conventional oven is typically exactly the same as what used to be called the “convection” function. It will heat food a bit quicker and brown the surface of it more than the “bake” function, but it’s not going to produce results close to those you get from the standalone devices.

Anonymous wrote:Air fryers are just convection ovens.

That’s what I always thought. But then why do ovens have both options?

Anonymous wrote:I have an oven with air fry and it doesn't work very well, mainly because it's too big for effective air flow. If you try, you'll need to add time to "regular" air fryer recipes.

Agree. We purchased a new stove in Sept with this feature.. Takes way too long as it's big.

Air fryers are just convection ovens.

I’ve had a Samsung and LG oven with air fryer and found them both fairly useless.

Op here - ok I followed a recipe / instructions for air fried broccoli. And it was terribly mushy.

I’ll give it another try next time I have frozen fries or something, and I’ll try getting an air fry tray like someone mentioned above. But not off to a good start.

Anonymous wrote:The owner's manual for the oven surely has guidance about using the air fryer feature?

Instructions on these things are typically wildly different than lived experience.

Anonymous wrote:I have an oven with air fry and it doesn't work very well, mainly because it's too big for effective air flow. If you try, you'll need to add time to "regular" air fryer recipes.

Same. It's a double oven and I don't understand why they put the air fryer feature in the bottom larger oven instead of the upper smaller oven.

We use it occasionally, but mainly for unhealthy foods. The occasional frozen hashbrowns for breakfast, or mozzarella sticks when the high school group is over. Seems to get things a little crispier faster than the regular oven.

The owner's manual for the oven surely has guidance about using the air fryer feature?

Make sure you use the air fryer tray so the air flows all around the food. For mine, I have to use a lower temperature setting, otherwise it’s too high and burns my food.

I have an oven with air fry and it doesn't work very well, mainly because it's too big for effective air flow. If you try, you'll need to add time to "regular" air fryer recipes.

Presumably. Air fryers typically have two possible adjustments, for time and temperature. Air fryer recipes specify the set points for those, so just give those a try.

I don’t have an air fryer and just got an oven with an air fry option.

Do I just use it like a regular oven and hit air fryer? Anything I need to do differently?