My mom swore I didn't need to preheat the air fryer

So my mom gave me her old air fryer last month and told me I could just toss food in cold and it would cook fine. She's been using hers for like 3 years without ever preheating. Well I tried making frozen chicken tenders at 400 for 12 minutes and they came out super soggy on one side. Did it again the next day but let it run empty for 5 minutes first and they were crispy all over. Now I always preheat for 3-5 minutes depending on what I'm cooking. Has anyone else been told you don't need to preheat or is it just my mom?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_bell16d ago

Wait she's been using it for THREE YEARS without preheating?? That's WILD. My air fryer literally has a countdown for the preheat function so I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a thing.

parker_bell16d ago

And actually the preheat does more than just make things crispy. It changes how the entire cooking cycle works. When you put cold food into a cold air fryer, the machine has to work harder to get up to temp and that extra time messes with the moisture levels. Like I noticed with french fries it's night and day. Cold start gives you sad limp fries but preheated ones come out looking like they came from a restaurant. Have you tried doing something like salmon or steak yet? Because that really shows the difference since the outside gets a good sear while the inside stays cooked right.