Warning to those who fry bacon in an air fryer

If you’ve been browsing the internet in the last two years, you’ve probably come across an air fryer in one form or another.

These devices have been hailed as a godsend to humanity in the kitchen, even though they are essentially just a miniature convection oven that plugs into the wall.

There are enough cookbooks out there to fill a small library, enough to teach you how to use these viral gadgets.

And that’s before we get to the online videos, which feature everything from recipes to Warhammer 40,000-themed sketches featuring the air fryer.

The air fryer has been praised for being able to cook almost anything in it, similar to a regular oven or grill that comes pre-installed in most homes and is suitable for cooking most foods.

However, there are a few things that air fryer enthusiasts should avoid if they want their appliance to last a long time and stay properly clean.

Of course, if something is too large to fit in your air fryer, it’s best to avoid it.

But there are some things that, while they may fit, have other properties that make them unsuitable for this gadget.

Nutritionist Brenda Peralta warns that frying fatty foods in an air fryer can have a negative impact on the life of the appliance.

These include the basic ingredient of the English breakfast – bacon.

Brenda told the Huffington Post: “It’s a fatty food, and when you fry it in an air fryer, the fat can drip out and cause smoking or splattering.

“This can make it difficult for the bacon to cook evenly and can also cause a lot of smoke and odors to be released.”

Therefore, bacon will not cook evenly in an air fryer, which can negatively impact both taste and safety.

After all, who wants a piece of bacon that’s burnt on one side and rubbery on the other, and the less said about the horrors of food poisoning, the better.

But that’s not all, as Brenda added, “A strip of bacon is a small, delicate food that’s difficult to flip or remove from the fryer basket without damaging it.”

What’s more, you can’t cook that much bacon at once. Brenda notes, “The fryer basket may not be big enough to handle a large amount of bacon.

“This can make it difficult to fry a lot of bacon at once, which can be inconvenient if you’re cooking for a group.”

So yes – when it comes to bacon, using a traditional frying pan may be the best option.

Still, it pays to exercise caution when handling hot fat, whether an air fryer is in use or not.