The Best Air Fryer Accessories To Make The Most Of Your Air Fryer
Air Fryers are one of the best small appliances you can get for your kitchen. They are useful for so many amazing things from baking to dehydrating food in your air fryer to making snacks like mozzarella sticks easy for teens and kids to make for themselves. The trick to making the most out of your air fryer is to have the right accessories.
Today I want to share with you what I feel are some of the most essential items to have for using your air fryer. These allow me to make the most use of mine and feed my family on a budget by skipping the drive-through.
What is the best air fryer?
The best air fryer for you will vary on what you are doing with it and how many people you will need to cook for. We have two air fryers in our home. One is a simple basket-style air fryer similar to the original that started the air fryer trend. The other air fryer is an air fryer toaster oven that allows us to do more than just air fry and allows us to air fry much larger batches of food for our large family.
What are the best air fryer accessories?
There are a lot of great accessories out there for your air fryer. You can even get air fryer accessory kits to make it easy to get most of what you need all at once but there may be some accessories you haven’t thought of for your air fryer.
Double layer rack
Air fryers are generally small and may not be the best way to cooking for several people at once. Sometimes you can only cook one person at a time without getting in the way of proper airflow if there are several in the basket at a time.
Good news is that you are not limited to just one layer of food in your air fryer. You will be able to cook for your whole family at once by using a double layer rack, which will speed up the cooking process and help you make the most of every meal.
Cake barrel
Taking advantage of your air fryer to bake your favorite treats is a great way to avoid overheating your home in the summer. This means that you can make the most of your air fryer to help lower your power bill.
It is recommended that you use a cake barrel to make your cakes so they will fit directly into the air fryer. These two recipes will give you a cake that fits into an air fryer, but is taller so that you can use the same amount of batter as most of the other recipes you are used to making already.
As a result, you will be able to make beautiful tall cakes with less effort.
Pizza pan
It is surprising how many people are not aware of the fact that air fryers can be used to make pizzas, cookies, and other fun treats in small personal portions. This is perfect for snacking teens or for whipping yourself up some diet-friendly versions of the food you are feeding your family.
I personally like to use a pizza pan in my air fryer to use low-carb wraps for making myself small pizzas to snack on while I work. This is a very economical way to give me something hot and healthy to munch on that won’t blow my diet.
Mandoline
A mandoline slicer is a great tool for the kitchen, so if you plan on using your air fryer as a dehydrator or you are looking for a way to make your foods cook better in the air fryer, you may want to consider adding one to your kitchen.
With this tool, you will be able to make full use of the features of your air fryer. Particularly if you plan to dehydrate food in your air fryer.
If you are like me and tend to cut yourself you may want to consider getting some cutting gloves as well to help protect your hands. A couple of years ago I got myself pretty bad slicing tomatoes for the dehydrator.
Silicone liners
Nothing can be more frustrating than making a new recipe and discovering that the food is stuck to the bottom of the pan. It is a common issue for those who are new to air fryers and still trying to figure out how much oil they need. Using a liner can help prevent these issues and save you time cleaning up
The good news that you can avoid this issue for almost anything, including cheese if you put in the effort to use an easy to clean and reusable silicone liner for your food container. As an added bonus, you can use the liners as a trevet for other types of cooking projects, such as baking or for your hot cast iron when it comes off of the stove or grill.
If you are not interested in silicone you can get paper air fryer liners made from parchment paper.
Oil spray bottle
Despite the fact that the device is called an air fryer, it is sadly still required to use oil in order to get the perfect crisp you are craving. There are many ways to apply oil, but one of the best ways to apply oil is with an oil spray bottle. You can use a commercial oil spray like Pam or rub oil on with a silicone grill brush.
My favorite choice is an oil spray bottle. We have a few for oil for the air fryer, cooking on the stove/grill, and even one for popcorn flavoring oil for when we use the air popper. In addition to being easy to fill, this air fryer oil refill can be used to cook in a variety of best oils, saving you money and reducing waste as you don’t have to buy containers you throw away.
Tongs
If you want to cook with your air fryer, then tongs are a must-have accessory. Ideally, you will have to flip and rotate your items at regular intervals so that you get the perfect crisp in your air fryer.
With tongs, you will be able to accomplish this quickly and without the risk of burning yourself. You should choose sturdy tongs that are strong enough to lift baking pans and other items from your air fryer, as well as help to make removing hot pans more secure.
You should have a set of tongs that have a metal tip as well, even if you are using silicone tongs. Silicone is not as strong as a thick metal set.
Mini baking pans
In the summer, when you are not going to be able to heat up your entire home by running the oven, an air fryer will be a great place to bake particularly when you do not need a large batch of baked goods.
The basket-style air fryer is not usually large enough to hold large baking pans, however mini silicone bunt pans, small springform pans, and other fun mini versions of your favorite baking pans are a great way to make baking in the air fryer a breeze.
Silicone baking cups
Silicone baking cups are a great way to get the most out of your air fryer. It is possible to make cupcakes, muffins, and mini loaves of quick bread using these loose cups right in the air fryer.
Due to the fact that they are set individually as opposed to in a large pan like traditional baking cups, they can be placed almost anywhere, including inside a small air fryer basket.
Silicone baking cups are a great addition to your kitchen because they can be used in so many ways from baking to helping to separate your food in your lunch boxes.
