Is the heat blasting in your home? Probably, Is the Christmas tree lit up? Probably. This is an expensive time of year. So should you really be cooking your Christmas dinner in the air fryer to save money? Professor in energy economics in the School of Economics at UCD, Lisa Ryan joined RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime to talk us through it.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, Prof Lisa Ryan from UCD on cooking your Christmas dinner in the air fryer to save money
First of all, cooking your Christmas turkey in an air fryer is probably going to be a "size issue" for most people, says Ryan. "There's no doubt that air fryers are more efficient than ovens, but partly it's because they are smaller than an oven. if I talk to my engineering friends in the UCD Energy Institute they'll say 'well it's just a question of how many watts of power do you have in each'.
"But if you look at it from a lay person's perspective, an oven is a lot bigger. So if you think of that big box in front of you, how much air has to be heated just to heat your chicken breast, or your roast, or whatever's in it? So if you're putting a whole roast in [the oven] then it is much more efficient overall. But if you're just cooking one chicken breast in your oven then there's no doubt that an air fryer is going to be much more efficient."
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What do the numbers tell us? Using figures from the comparison website Which?, Ryan explains there can be quite a big difference in cost between an oven and an air fryer depending on what you're cooking. Using the chicken breast as an example, it would take three minutes to heat up the air fryer, versus 10 minutes for the oven, and it would take 28 minutes to cook it in the air fryer versus 40 in an oven.
"That means it's going to cost you €0.15c in an air fryer versus €0.35c in your oven. So it's quite a big difference," she says. "But if you're doing a big roast, the times become a lot more closer, because you're going to have to do it bit by bit in the air fryer. Some air fryers come with multiple chambers, normally two chambers, so if it's just potatoes and then your Turkey on the other side you could do them at the same time."
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Ryan also points out that as we're talking about money saving measures, if you don't already own an air fryer, you'd need to do the maths on the price of buying one and your savings in the long run.
Similarly, a slow cooker "would be more efficient if you're leaving it on all day compared with an oven. It depends what size of oven you have, what type of fan you have in your oven, so we're getting into the nitty gritty here. But if you think of a big oven, and you're putting it on all day long like you would if you wanted to cook something for hours on end, then a slow cooker is going to be more efficient."
