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Grilling is great -- until it's 90 degrees outside and you're standing over an open flame. Cooking indoors isn't always the better option: the oven turns your kitchen into a sauna and running the gas range with the windows closed can hurt indoor air quality.
The mighty air fryer sidesteps both problems. These compact appliances cook fast, use less energy than a conventional oven and generate a fraction of the heat -- meaning you spend less time in a hot kitchen waiting for dinner.
To see just how much of a difference it makes, I tested an air fryer head-to-head against an oven, cooking the same food, and measured how much each warmed my kitchen. The results weren't close, and they confirmed what I suspected: the air fryer is one of the best tools you can own in summer, right alongside ice makers and blenders.
I ran the numbers, and the air fryer wins
A heat wave requires creative thinking to keep the home cool and an air fryer is my ticket to getting through those sweltering summer spells without starving. To see if air fryers belong in the summer cooking hall of fame, I ran tests to measure how much the oven heats up the kitchen compared to an air fryer.
Trendy air fryers are all they're cracked up to be, especially when it's hot out.
David Watsky/CNETHere's how much hotter the oven made my kitchen
The air fryer turns out juicy chicken thighs in under 20 minutes.
David Watsky/CNETTo find real-world differences, I roasted chicken thighs in my KitchenAid wall oven (less than 10 years old) and in a 4-quart pod-style air fryer, following two popular recipes from a well-known cooking site. I tested the temperature before, during and after to see how much of a difference each machine makes.
My Brooklyn apartment kitchen is on the small side, but it's not enclosed and opens up to the rest of the apartment. I kept the windows closed for the test, although recent studies show that cooking with natural gas in an enclosed kitchen can pose a health risk.
I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons to turn on the big oven these days.
Joey Skladany/CNETThe standard oven recipe called for the chicken to be roasted at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Because of its smaller chamber, the air fryer recipe only required 20 minutes of cooking at the same temperature. The air fryer takes only about a minute to reach temperature, while the oven takes more than five minutes.
An ambient thermometer is all I needed to test how much hotter a gas oven can make the kitchen.
David Watsky/CNETI placed a standard ambient thermometer in the middle of the kitchen -- about 5 feet from the stove -- at counter height. I took a reading before the oven or air fryer was turned on. I took another reading halfway through the cooking time and the final one at the end. Between the two sessions, I waited for the kitchen to return to a resting temperature before starting the next one.
Ovens may have more capacity than most air fryers, but they also warm the kitchen at a higher clip.
Kate Wieser/Getty ImagesThe oven made my kitchen 10 degrees hotter than the air fryer
Midway through the recipes (15 minutes), the oven raised the temperature of my kitchen by 15 degrees from 71 F to too-hot 88 F. After 10 minutes of cooking with the air fryer on 375 F, the temperature in my kitchen had gone up only 5 degrees F, from 72 F to a pleasant 77 F. You can feel heat emanating from the air fryer if you stand close enough, but it's not enough to significantly change the temperature of the kitchen.
Read more: Here's How to Keep Your Kitchen Cool (and Lower Your Energy Bill) During a Heat Wave
Not only did the air fryer cause a smaller temperature spike, but I also only needed to run it for roughly 20 minutes, with one minute of preheat time. The oven took 30 minutes to cook the chicken and 6 minutes to preheat.
Using the air fryer will cut down on energy bills
Even modern ovens use significantly more energy than an air fryer.
Mary King/CNETDuring a heat wave, your air conditioner is already working hard. Heating the kitchen with your oven will only make them work harder, using more energy to bring the room back down to your desired temperature. For the AC to make up the difference for one 20- or 30-minute oven cooking session, it may not be a total budget-buster. Spread that out over time or for longer cooking sessions and using the oven during hot months can have real fiscal ramifications. For more on this, read my breakdown of exactly how much more an oven costs to run than an air fryer.
What can you make in an air fryer?
Roasted chicken in the air fryer is dynamite and takes less time than in the large oven.
David Watsky/CNETAn air fryer can do almost any cooking job that an oven can, although air fryers are typically smaller than wall ovens so you can't cook as much in one go.
I've been tinkering with the air fryer a lot this year. I discovered the joy of cooking whole chickens in the air fryer, filets of salmon and even bacon cheeseburgers. The air fryer goes well beyond its reputation for cooking crispy wings and french fries. You can make dinner party-level recipes in the air fryer without breaking a sweat, literally.
Hungry for more? Learn how to deep-clean your air fryer in three easy steps and see how much less energy it uses than a wall oven.
Steps You Can Take Right Now to Avoid an Overheated Phone
See all photosFAQs
How much energy does an air fryer save when compared to a wall oven?
Can an air fryer make any recipe an oven can?
An air fryer can make almost any recipe that a wall oven can, although it may not make the same serving size. Air fryers are smaller than ovens and therefore need to cook smaller batches of food -- but they still contain more heat and use less total energy than ovens when accounting for the same serving sizes.
