I use my air fryer all of the time & love it! There is no way to tell if yours works like an air fryer without trying it out. I would experiment with something that cooks great in an air fryer like frozen fries. See how they turn out.

I have the Ninja Flip which is essentially a toaster oven with an air fryer setting. It does not produce the same finish as a separate air fryer appliance.

I have an air fry oven style thing that's supposed to toast but doesn't at all. The inverse corolary. :)

Air fry is essentially high speed convection cooking. In theory, there's no reason why a toaster oven couldn’t also do as good air fry as an oven style air frier, but if it's the same price as other toaster ovens, I'd doubt it. They're two different systems, and if meant to be high end and space saving by having both in one housing, could be good. If throwing extra features at you with a competitive price, IME, it's likely there to make tempting advertising rather than working paricularly well. You'd have to check the reviews for a particular model to be sure.

Now I’m curious. I have an air fryer that I’ve barely ever used. I also bought my son a toaster oven with air fry capability. And lastly, I just bought a double wall oven that has an air fry setting. I’m hoping that works well because of the large basket, which would solve the reason I never use my stand alone air fryer.

So here’s a question, as I’m obviously still an air fry newbie. What type of food should I try that would make “air fry” stand out over regular convection? The toaster oven is away at college but I’d like to compare the others against each other and convection.

French fries? In my very fine wall oven with good, normal convection, I do a lot of lightly coated in oil and roasted or broiled vegetables, including peewee potatoes, which are the closest to french fries I get. None are the kind of things that get crusts. The air fry oven was a Prime Day special a few years ago, where they reduced the price while I was dithering with it in my cart, and I'd guess is worth what I paid for it. I use it the opposite way from what you said, FOAS—for things too small for my wall oven, There's a rotating drum perfect for sunchoke chips. I've done half a dozen breaded ravioli. Things like that. I'm fascinated to hear how your tests go.

So on a lark, just now, I checked to see if Breville makes a toaster oven air fry combo, and they do! I have Breville multicooker (pressure cook/slow cook combo with additional settings) and food processor, and both are brilliantly designed with usage considerations first, They do! And like I said to the OP, several times the price of the average unit. Also, I checked the comments on Amazon for one model. The few that mention them say it does both toast and fried potatos well, and I'd guess those are the real tests. Any toaster oven or air frier should be able to do good breaded chicken breasts or baked mac&cheese with crumb topping.

Toast, both bread and bagels, is difficult and I still miss my ancient, dead Black&Decker which was an amazing toaster. I don’t expect latkes (what I fry most) to work in an air frier—it would be a mess! But I'd think fried potatos (which air fry was designed for originally) would have to be really good to get full marks. Regular ”oven fried potatoes” aren't good enough to eat, IMHO. I don't like fries that much. The peewees have flavor.

That makes sense.

dcarch, I do appreciate what you’re saying but it sounds a little subjective to me unless you can objectively define “air fry” such as to differentiate it from convection baking. That’s why I’m hoping someone chimes in with a recipe or food that would have a clearly different outcome with air frying, so that I can compare the results between appliances.

I still say french fries is the easiest and most obvious for differences in the actual cook. Although they say battered can be done in an air fryer in a way that it can't be done in an oven, IME, the simple beer batter I use for onion rings or shrimp needs room to poof up and needs to float in oil. I do it in a frying pan, rather than a deep pot, but with a couple inches of oil. Deeper might be better, but I can't deal with the waste. :) No way to do it in an air fry basket without it adhering to the basket, dripping all over, and making a big mess, let alone not being able to puff against gravity.

Do you do naked fried wings, like for Buffalo style? That would be a great comparison. Or anything breaded like schnitzel or eggplant cutlets for ep parm.

I just got a used small clean air fryer from a friend. I was trying to think of what I might cook in it — I had no fries, tater tots or chicken wings. I took about 6 fresh button mushrooms, left them whole, coated them lifhtly with cabola oil, them dusted them with seasoned panko. I think I likely cooked them at abot 375 or 400 deg F for 5 minutes. They were very tasty, but how could that ever be a fail.

The little pamphlet that came with it said to NOT cook battered foods in the air fryer.

I also have a large-ish countertop Breville oven that has an Air Fry mode (with a fan) amoung it’s various other mode options. When I first got it, I ”air fried” a few batches of Tater Tots (which we otherwise never buy and haven’t since. They were tasty. The thing about Air Frying, however, is that you will stll be eating oil or ioly or greasy things. Fattening, calorie-rich foods. (Air frying fresh whole green beans withou added oil doesn’t sound very tasty, does it?)

I don’t tend to cook in that oven because it is not insulated and my regular oven is faster.

It IS good at reheating pizza or the occasional fish & chips. We got in in the event we lost power for days. Also we can bake things in the hot summer weather by just moving it outside on the stone steps next to a well grounded outlet. I don’t think I’ve done this yet.

What I have done in hot summer weather is to bake blueberry muffins in an enameled steel roastting pan with a cover. I insert a cabeled probe thermometer beneath the cover. The muffins come out perfectly. I have photos somewhere. That little electric roasting pan is very light weight and not cumbersome as would be the large Breville.

Of course, it you want to try something like this, be sure to have a GFI outlet and use a heavy duty, short appliance cord only.

I think naked chicken wings is the best test. Probably the only thing I have been using the air fryer for lately, made them yesterday actually. I think the method I settled on might have come from the pioneer woman? I have tweaked the rub everytime but I remember the baking powder did something for the skin in the fryer.

method

pat wings dry then toss in rub

air fry 370 for 10 min

turn and cook for 10 min

change to 400 degrees

turn and cook for 8 min

rub

chicken wing pieces - single layer 8-12

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp season salt

1 Tbl olive oil

They're so BIG! I got rid of mine. It was good for "fast food" type things but that's not what we eat mostly. Chips - french fries- I do in the oven. If you have the right potato, they come out well. I'm happier with sous vide cooking and my remoska oven as well as being lucky enough to have a great fan oven and a good induction hob. That's enough for me. I found the air fryer needed a lot of cleaning - sigh - perhaps it was the style I had and others are better. I don't know anyone who has one so I couldn't compare.