why don’t restaurants use air fryers

In recent years, air fryers have become an indispensable cooking tool in many home kitchens. As a healthy and quick cooking method, it can not only help people reduce oil intake, but also maintain the deliciousness and taste of food. So why is it difficult to see chefs using air fryers in restaurants?

How Air Fryer Cooks

Air fryers do not need to add additional oil during the cooking process, but directly use high-speed circulating hot air to cook food. First, the internal air is heated to a high temperature, and then the hot air is quickly circulated to the surface of the food through a fan. Combined with the oil contained in the food itself, a layer of crispy skin is quickly formed on its surface, thereby achieving an effect similar to fried food.

Photo from Wind, Tianfeng Securities Research Institute

How oil fryer works

Oil fryer uses a lot of oil to cook food. Its working principle is to heat the oil to a high temperature, and then fry the food in the oil, so that the surface of the food forms a golden crispy skin, while keeping the inside of the food moist and tender.

Why home kitchens prefer to use air fryers

1. Health: Air fryers reduce the intake of oil in food and are more suitable for the needs of modern people pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

2. Convenience: The air fryer is easy to operate. You only need to set the time and temperature, and then put the food in, which saves time and effort. Traditional fryers require tedious steps such as preheating oil, controlling oil temperature and flipping, and how to deal with the remaining oil is also a headache for most families.

3. Multi-function: The air fryer can not only fry food, but also bake, grill meat, grill fish, grill vegetables and other cooking methods. The functions are more diverse and meet the needs of daily family cooking.

4. Safety: The air fryer uses high-temperature hot air in a closed space to cook food. It is safer than traditional fryers and reduces the risk of accidental fires and burns.

So why don’t restaurants use air fryers?

Air fryer has limited capacity

The internal space of air fryer is limited, and the common size range is 1L-6L. Moreover, it cannot hold plates and can only cook one kind of food at a time. Oil fryer has more size options, ranging from 4L-40L capacity, and can cook multiple kinds of food at a time

Air fryer takes a long time

It takes about 15 minutes to fry French fries in air fryer, while it only takes about 3 minutes in deep fryer. The efficiency of air fryer is too low, far from meeting the restaurant’s food delivery speed requirements. Maybe your French fries are not hot yet, and the guests have already left impatiently.

Poor taste of air fryer

The restaurant needs to ensure the taste quality of the food. Although air fryer is healthy, its taste is closer to the taste of oven baking, and it cannot replace the crispy taste of traditional fried food, which may affect customers’ satisfaction and reputation with the restaurant’s dishes.

Air fryer is more suitable for cooking oily ingredients

In addition, air fryer also has certain limitations in cooking range and menu selection. Although air fryers can make a variety of foods, some dishes may not be suitable for air fryers, such as foods that do not contain any oil or foods with less oil. Ingredients such as breaded fried chicken taste dry and hard when cooked in an air fryer, and are not as tender and juicy as fried chicken.

Air fryers are expensive

Of course, some large-capacity commercial air fryers have appeared on the market in recent years, but they are expensive. It is more than enough to add a fryer and air circulation oven to your restaurant for the same price, and they support more dishes.

In summary, although air fryers are popular in families, restaurants do not use air fryers due to factors such as cost, the dominance of traditional cooking methods, the limitations of menu selection, and taste. However, with people’s emphasis on healthy eating and continuous exploration of new cooking technologies, perhaps in the future, there will be machines that combine the advantages of air fryers and deep fryers. So do you prefer to use air fryers or deep fryers? Leave your comments in the comment section!