Why you should try air frying this Thanksgiving (or any time)

Do you love delicious, crispy fried food, but you’re concerned about the potential effects of eating fried foods on your health? The good news is that you can enjoy a healthier alternative that maintains the great taste you love by using an air fryer!

Air fryers work similarly to convection ovens by circulating hot air around the food being cooked. The outside of the food cooks more quickly than the inside, just like when frying food in oil, so the result is what you expect from frying – crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. Since the food is not being fried directly in oil, this reduces the calories (in some cases up to 70-80%!)

Most air fryers are designed to allow oil and grease to drip off the food into a collector at the bottom, which also serves to reduce the total amount of fat. For recipes that include breading, another way you can reduce the calories is by using a mixture of half flour, half breading/seasoning (for example, Lefty's Fish N' Chicken Mix).

You can cook almost anything you’d normally fry in oil in an air fryer, including:

• Chicken & Turkey
• Vegetables
• Fish
• French Fries

(Note that recipes which use wet batter may be difficult to cook in an air fryer because batter can drip off food items before they get a chance to cook fully)

There’s one other benefit to using an air fryer: leftovers! Unlike a microwave which can turn reheated fried foods into a soggy mess, air fryers do a much better job of preserving that delicious, crispy texture. That way, you can split your fried foods into smaller portions to avoid overeating during a single meal and still enjoy every bit of it like it’s freshly fried.

Happy frying!