How to Preheat Air Fryer
Getting the perfect fried food with an Air Fryer is easy if you know some tricks. Preheating an air fryer is one of those tricks that can help you making perfect crispy and crunchy with your air fryer. Many people buy air fryer with lots of hope and end up not getting the kind of fried food that they want. So many of my readers also asked me about how to preheat air fryer and why should they do it, after reading about it somewhere. So this is a guide for you on how to preheat an air fryer.
Why should you preheat air fryer?
Preheating an air fryer is necessary. It is usually done to make the air fryer heated up before the frying food. Just like before putting dipping your food into oil, you preheat the oil, an air fryer needs heating up too. It makes your food crunchy as you would get in a deep fryer!
Guide for preheating air fryer
Preheating air fryer can seem a little worrisome thing for you if you don’t know how to do it. Preheating an air fryer works the same way you preheat oil before frying an item. It is an essential part of frying food.
1# Check User Manual
Every popular air fryer brands like Farberware, Crux, Yedi provides a user manual with the product. You can get almost every answer related to that specific air fryer. Many people ignore the user manual, but it is a very important thing to read it, you may get some insights on how to get the prime result from your appliance.
2# Clean it before using
Air fryers should be cleaned before preheating. The dirt inside the air fryer can make your food smell bad. Cleaning it regularly also means that you will get long-lasting usability. Check all the corners of the main basket and make sure it is fully cleaned.
3# Plug it in the right source
Like all other electronic appliances, air fryer needs to plug in right source. You should check the source voltage and make sure that suits your air fryer. Plugging in high voltage can destroy your air fryer, so you should be very careful about it.
4# Set the timer for preheating
Preheating takes some time. We found out 3-5 minutes is the perfect time to preheat an air fryer. Also attach all the accessories before start your preheating process, as it gets all the accessories heated up for prime results. If your air fryer is relatively new, 3 minute is enough for it to get heated up. Otherwise, it may take up to 5 minutes to get to its top performance.
But there comes the user manual again, some air fryer may not need preheating at all. And some air fryer mentions how much pre heating it needs in the user manual. So if your air fryer does not need preheating, don’t do it. And do it according to your user manual, if you find a clear instruction. But if you see your food not getting crispy, you can try preheating, even if the user manual has no instruction about it.
5# Set high temperature
Set the highest temperature in your Air fryer to preheat it. Usually, it ranges between 325 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit. You may get a little worried about this much temperature, but there’s nothing to worry. It will make sure for very good fried foods later on. The higher the temperature you set the better.
5# When you forget to Pre-heat
What if you forget or don’t want to preheat?
You might forget to preheat your air fryer, or you just might not want to preheat your air fryer. What to do in that case? Well, you can add some time additional time to your cooking time. It depends on the food and the air fryer itself. You need to experiment a bit now and then to get the perfect timing for crispiest and crunchiest food.
Final Words
If you have cooked with other ovens before, you might already know what a little preheating can do to your food. It can enhance the taste of the food. An air fryer is also not much different in this aspect, a nice little preheating can give you the perfect taste and you will get amazed at how much of a change it can bring.