The Lazy Way to Master the Air Fryer

0:00 So, I think most people get air fryers all wrong. They are not just machines for making French fries and wings. Yes, I do make both of those things a lot in the air fryer. But I think the biggest benefit is not just crispy food with less oil. It's actually convenience, ease, and speed. Because when I'm the most exhausted or I'm short on time or I just don't feel like cooking at all, that's when the air fryer shines. And today I'm going to be showing you my 10 go-to recipes and techniques that I've developed over the years that are absolute lifesavers at getting food on the table fast, even when I'm at my absolute laziest. And to start things off, coming in at number one are meatballs in the air fryer, which for me are a huge go-to to just have a nice protein source that comes together quick with very little cleanup. Now, these

0:47 sweet potato turkey meatballs that I've showed you in the past is what got me into air frying meatballs in the first place. But more recently, I've just been doing a very standard beef meatball recipe. I dump in some ground beef, some finely chopped sweet onions, finely chopped garlic and parsley, one egg, and salt and pepper. And I just mix the filling together with my hands until it's all well incorporated. Now, one of the reasons I am obsessed with air fryers is their ability to batch cook. Since it's a much smaller machine than your oven, you can cook in small batches to bring together these individual meals very quickly. So, I keep this ground beef mixture in the fridge and when I'm ready for a simple meal, I'll take it out of the fridge. I'll roll a few meatballs right into the air fryer, give them a quick spray with some oil. Then, I'll throw them in the air fryer at 375° F for around 8 to 12 minutes, depending

1:34 on the size of meatball that you roll. And boom. With very little cooking effort, I get a nice crispy and juicy meatball. Now, actually, for lunch today, I had this stew and I thought it'd be good with some meatballs on top. And honestly, they don't need to be in ball form. If you're feeling really lazy, just rip up the beef right in there and roast it up. But another great option to serve with these meatballs is number two on this lazy air frying list, palenta fries, which I've been making all the time recently. They are so simple to make. All you have to do is add one cup of palenta to a pot or pan. And for one cup of grains, you're going to need three cups of water. So, what I like to do to add a little more flavor is I'll take one cup of some nice concentrated chicken stock. I'll add that in. Again, optional, but this will

2:19 greatly enhance the flavor. And then I'll finish with two cups of just water. And I'll season that with salt. And then on a mediumigh heat, I'll stir the palenta until it starts getting smooth. And at about 5 minutes, it thickens up nice like this. And I've got one of these little square brownie pans with some parchment paper. I'll add my palenta in. I'll do my best to smooth it out. Does not have to be perfect. And I'll throw that in the fridge to cool and set up a bit, which really only takes about 1 to two hours. And then when it's cool, I'll remove the entire block of palenta and I'll cut them up into sticks. These are around 1 in x 4 in long, and it gives me around 14 to 15 fries, which is really two batches worth in my air fryer. So, that's a nice two meals I can get out of it. I'll layer one batch in the air fryer. I'll give them a spray with oil. And I'll set my air fryer at 375° for 10 minutes. Then

3:05 the fries get flipped over and airfried for another 10 minutes. And you get these super crispy, flavorful palenta fries that are nice and tender on the inside. And these are delicious plain on their own. You can dip them in any type of sauce you want. But I'm bringing these first two recipes together. I'll serve the meatballs over the palenta fries and just douse it in some marinara sauce for an incredible meal. So, number three on this list is bacon, which is quite possibly the easiest way to cook bacon with by far the best results. So, what you're going to do is layer up your bacon right in your air fryer. And you can slightly overlap it to fit more since, of course, it's going to shrink as it renders. And I air fry the bacon at 375° F for about 10 to 12 minutes,

3:50 depending on the thickness of your bacon. Now, that bacon is going to be cooking away, making your house smell incredible. But your job is not done yet. What you're going to do is take any type of leftover bread product that you have or tortillas work great for this. I had a few pieces of this leftover homemade sandwich bread that I made. You can throw it in the food processor, but since I have a few minutes, I'm just going to chop it up nice and fine with my knife. And boom, bacon is done. I mean, what else could you possibly want with such low effort? That is perfectly crispy and tender bacon. But we have all of this delicious rendered fat at the bottom of the air fryer tray. So, what I'm going to do is take out my rack. And yes, you can cook on the bottom of your air fryer. I'll dump in all of the bread

4:36 along with some chopped parsley. And I've got some homemade green onion salt that I'm sprinkling in. I'll give that a mix so that bacon fat gets absorbed right into the bread. And I'll air fry that again at 375° F for around 5 to 7 minutes until those breadcrumbs are nice and crispy. But again, your job is not done yet. In the next 5 minutes, you should be preparing a salad, which is exactly what I'm going to do. That morning, I went through the garden. I picked some fresh kale, and the cucumbers are starting to come in like crazy right now. So, I finally chopped the kale, got that in a bowl, diced up some of the cucumber, added in some sauerkraut, grated in some nice aed cheese, chopped up a few slices of that crispy bacon, and just in time, those breadcrumbs are ready to go. Nice and crispy. They get dumped in. And how good

5:22 does a creamy Caesar crispy bacon kale salad sound? That's all this salad needed to bring it together. If you want this creamy Caesar recipe, I've written it down below in the description. And this salad would be perfectly delicious on its own. That is a great meal, but it is not my favorite meal. My favorite meal happens when we throw in what's coming at the number four spot on this list, leftover pizza in the air fryer. I've been making a lot of New York style pizza lately. And one of the reasons I love making it, it reheats much better than a more delicate neopolitan pizza, which is just better served fresh. So, I'll make a few pizzas at a time. I'll of course eat some fresh. I'm not an insane person. But what's better than pizza, say, once a week, is pizza multiple times a week. So, I'll store

6:10 some I'll throw that in the fridge or I'll freeze some. And if your pizza's coming right out of the fridge, throw a few slices in the air fryer and cook them at 375 to 385° F for just around 3 to 4 minutes, which completely brings your pizza back to life. And if you like a really crispy crust, I think pizza potentially tastes better out of the air fryer versus fresh. And to me, this is one of my favorite meals, pizza and a salad. Don't know why, but there's just not much that can beat this combination of food. It's just such a wellbalanced and satisfying meal. Now, before we move on to the next recipe, I want to tell you about today's sponsor, which is Tfel and their infrared air fryer, which is in charge of making all the delicious food in this video. And Tif was on a mission to really bring air frying technology into the next generation with

6:56 the debut of their infrared heating system. Most common air fryers cook food with one of these classic heat lamps. But this infrared heater is made of carbon fiber, which heats up to 750° F in just 45 seconds, saving you time by eliminating any need for preheat. And the infrared heat actually penetrates deeper into your food, leaving you with a juicier interior while still getting that crispy exterior. And the air fryer has a completely metal interior, eliminating any plastic odors. And the basket tray actually has a special airflow design that removes the need for shaking. And at 6.3 quarts, I think this is the perfect all-purpose size air fryer where you could cook up a nice batch of fries or even bang out an entire full meal in one go. And of course, it has that great window with a light so you can watch your food really transform right before your eyes. And

7:42 you can check out this infrared air fryer on tfel.com. All right, so we're moving on and number five and six on this list make a really simple and satisfying meal. At the number five spot, we've got air fryer baba ganoush or eggplant salad depending on how you prepare it in the end. And for this air fryer technique, I prefer using these mediumsiz eggplants which just roast up very well in the air fryer. And you just pop them right in the air fryer. No tin foil, no nothing. It's as simple as that. I roast them at 350° for 20 minutes. And after 20 minutes, I'll check the eggplants by pressing in the skin. And if it doesn't feel extremely broken down and mushy, you want to keep air frying the eggplant. Usually, they need a little bit more time. Mine needed 15 more minutes at the same temperature until the inside is

8:30 completely soft like this. That is how you get a really good eggplant salad or baba ganoush when that eggplant totally cooks and breaks down. Now, while I'm bringing this dip together, I'm going to take advantage of that time by air frying some pedo, which is coming in at the number six spot. I had some leftover homemade pas, but of course storebought works great for this as well. And I'll cut them into little triangles. I'll toss them right into the air fryer. I'll give them a spray with some oil. I'll hit them with the salt. And I had a nice little Middle Eastern spice mix. I sprinkle that on. Mix everything up. And these get air fried at 375° for 5 minutes, which should give us just enough time to finish this dip, which starts by scooping out all of that nice mushy eggplant right onto the cutting board. I'll add in some fresh parsley.

9:15 I'm going to grate in two garlic cloves and then a few spoon drizzles of some nice tahini paste, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and finally some salt and pepper. And right on my board, I'm just going to use my knife to simultaneously chop up this mixture and mix it together to get your desired consistency, which for me looks just like this. And then what's coming out of the oven at the perfect time, these beautifully browned, crispy, yet soft on the inside pita chips ready for some dipping action. Nice. >> Nice. Ooh. Chunky peach chips. >> Yeah. M. >> M. >> Wow. >> This is like a zero dish dish. You didn't use any dishes. You made it on the cutting board, right? >> That's true. >> Zero dishes. Just plating. Wow. >> This is dank. >> Yeah.

10:02 >> Wow. This is >> the best baba gush. >> Wow. Thank you. >> So good. >> All right. So, I've cooked a lot of crazy things in the air fryer and this is definitely one of them. Many years ago, I thought it'd be fun to try to make ribs in the air fryer. And they were good. Not great, but good enough to keep on trying the recipe and refining. And as air fryer technology got better and my technique got a little better, I started getting wonderful air fryer ribs. Now, of course, if you have a full rack of ribs or a few racks and cook them in the oven or throw them in the smoker, the air fryer is not the place to do it in multiple batches. But if you just have a small portion of ribs like this that can fit conveniently in your air fryer, that's when this becomes a good technique. So, what I'll do is I will dry off my ribs. I'll season them

10:48 with some salt and pepper. And I have a little barbecue spice here. And then they get wrapped in tin foil first. And I'll place them in my air fryer at 280° F. And I'll start by cooking them for 1 hour. After an hour, I'll just insert my knife to check in on them. And at this point, it was just a little bit tough. like that knife should just slide through like butter. So, they went back in the air fryer to cook for another hour, nice and low and slow. And once you see those bones at the top starting to pull away from the meat, that's a good sign. You can move on to the next step, which is why I love making ribs in the air fryer. Douse them with your favorite barbecue sauce. And you're going to throw them back in the air fryer uncovered. And I'll cook the ribs at 390° F for just around 10 minutes until you bake in that sauce until

11:35 everything just caramelizes and gets nice and crispy. Now again, these ribs incredible on their own. Sometimes I just can't resist. And I just will eat a few ribs for dinner or for lunch or for breakfast, who knows? But in the theme of this video, we're grouping these meals together, which brings me into number eight, air fryer French fries, which of course you've seen me do many times on this channel, but I want to focus more on the technique I use to eat French fries all of the time. And this year, we had the biggest potatoes that we've ever grown. These are some beautiful russetss, which of course are perfect for French fries. So, I'll clean off the potatoes. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll keep the skin on, but generally I peel them because my kids like fries with the skin off. Then I'll slice them into fries. The sizing is totally up to

12:22 you. These are slightly on the thicker side, but sometimes I will go McDonald's thin with these fries. And then I'll give them a quick boil, just until they're cooked through but still holding their shape. You don't want these fries falling apart in the air fryer. Then once they're drained, I'll dump the entire batch of fries in the air fryer for their first fry, quote unquote fry. I'll give them a spray with some oil, give them a little shake, and I'll cook them at 375° for 15 minutes, which after that amount of time, they're just slightly starting to brown up on those edges. And that's all we need to get the party started. Now, this was just one batch of potatoes. Generally, I cook two batches at a time. And then I'll dump all of those into some type of food container and just store those in my fridge. So

13:07 really what I'm doing is meal prepping French fries. These fries require so little oil that I can eat them sustainably throughout the week. So all I have to do is take out that container of prepped French fries. Toss a handful in the air fryer. And the second fry is around 10 to 15 minutes until they are perfectly golden brown and crispy. And all they need is some seasoning. And I will serve these on their own for sure, but for this meal, French fries and those air fryer ribs, that's satisfying. That is an incredible air fryer meal. All right, so in my top 10 air fryer video that I put out last year, I started out by getting a whole chicken, breaking that down into pieces because I use a lot of those different pieces for different recipes. And I love making different styles of chicken in the air

13:53 fryer. But when I'm feeling really lazy, what I like doing is just roasting the whole bird in the air fryer, which again might seem a little bit crazy, but if you follow this technique, it's actually very efficient. It's a great use of space. So, I get myself a nice whole chicken. I dry it off. I season it with salt and pepper. And I do like to stuff it with some onions, whatever herbs you have lying around, and a little bit of citrus. I've got some orange here. And I'll pop that on some type of rack for airflow. I'm just using my splatter guard here. And I'll throw that in the fridge to dry brine at least overnight, which I think is essential when you're making a roasted chicken. It's just going to make your bird a little more tender, a little bit more juicy. And as a lazy cook, I'm always thinking about how I can be more efficient with my time. So, coming in at number 10, we've got air fryer roasted veggies that are going to happen right along with the

14:40 chicken. In this case, roasted beets, which I've been harvesting from my garden all season long. And I'll cut the stems off, throw them on some tin foil. I'll drizzle on a little oil, some salt, and just a little bit of vinegar. And I will wrap that up into a nice little package. And just sneak that in the side, anywhere you can fit that. And what I do is I roast this chicken at 350° F for 20 minutes. And that will get the top perfectly golden brown. And I'll flip the chicken over. I'll keep those beets in the whole time. And I'll cook it for another 20 to 25 minutes. It really depends on the size of your bird. And this will get the other side nice and golden brown. But most importantly, the chicken will be completely cooked through. And the best way to check this is just with a temperature probe. And I mean, talk about efficient use of space.

15:26 We took up that whole air fryer. We got a perfectly cooked bird that I now of course have this roasted chicken. I can bring together a bunch of meals. For this one, I just threw in some seasoned escarol into the air fryer. I just cooked that down. Chopped that up with those roasted beets. A little bit of that chicken. Hit it with some dressing. And I've got this beautiful warm roasted beet escarel chicken salad. And there you go. That is my lazy cooks guide to the air fryer. When I'm feeling super lazy and those thoughts of takeout start infiltrating my brain, there is no better tool to ward off and fight the expense of takeout that's probably just going to be all right versus a home-cooked meal that you can whip up in minutes with little effort in the air fryer. See you next time.