Three Things I Learned When I Used My Air Fryer Make a Week’s Worth of Meals

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I typically use my air fryer to cook freezer snacks or to make quick work of meats and veggies, but I most appreciate this countertop convection oven when I need an escape from the usual sink full of bowls and frying pans leftover after making dinner.

Last week, I needed that freedom more than ever, so for the first time in my air frying history, I tried preparing all of my meals in my Instant Vortex air fryer. It wasn't always great, but I ate, and I learned. 

Why I like the Instant Vortex air fryer

The Instant Vortex was my tool of choice for this challenge. It’s a basket-style air fryer, and while I’ve tested quite a few air fryers out, I reach for this one for most daily recipes. You might wonder why I don’t prefer a toaster oven-style air fryer, like my "Best Overall" choice, the Cuisinart Air Fryer and Toaster. I do like them and I think they’re great for baking, but they require a lot more counter space than I have to offer in my apartment. 

The Instant Vortex, on the other hand, is medium-sized, lightweight enough to move in and out of its storage space, and it browns and crisps evenly. 

The best ingredients for air fryer meals

Last week was hectic so my meals weren’t always picture-perfect examples of a balanced diet. Despite being a food writer, many of my meals are more like uncoordinated snacks. The week’s fare contained eggs, potatoes, mushrooms, peppers, a variety of marinated meats, sausages, dumplings, ravioli, cheese, and sandwiches. Some of these items turned out as expected because I make them all the time, while others were surprising. One of them I’d never make again.

Here's what I learned.

Meals with simple roasted ingredients are best

The Instant Vortex is great at roasting vegetables. Everything from mushrooms to sweet potatoes, to chickpeas and peppers—I’ve only had success roasting veggies in this simple basket air fryer. This week I tossed in three medium sweet potatoes at once. I had pricked them around the exterior, mostly because this helps signal when they’re done (the sugary juices bubble out and caramelize when the potato is cooked through), and I ended up eating one as a midday snack for three days running.

For dinner one night, I made roasted stuffed portobello mushrooms (basically the mega version of these stuffed mushrooms that I love so much). I tried another version with mashed potatoes as the stuffing too. The verdict: absolutely filling and flavorful, and a simple clean-up of washing out the air fryer basket with soapy water. 

The takeaway: Any meal that could consist of two or three roasted items absolutely crushed in the Instant Vortex. Dinners were easy and hands-off all week. If you're going the all air fryer route, this is my first suggestion.

What if you eat eggs for breakfast, or something else that you’d normally cook in a stovetop frying pan? This was literally my very first challenge to conquer, as I can't not eat eggs in the morning. I know that I can take the grate out of the bottom and fry my eggs directly in the basket, but I did not want to get the bottom of the basket all oily and have clean it up. I also knew I’d be putting sausage in there and making a breakfast sandwich.

Instead, I got good use out of my six-inch cake pans. A cake pan that’s small enough to fit down in the basket provided me with a small sturdy surface, with the added benefit of being metal: Even though convection ovens heat from the top I knew that the metal would conduct that heat up through the bottom eventually.

I buttered the pan, cracked my egg into it, and tossed in a couple Brown ‘N Serve sausages. I placed the pan in the basket, and since there was room left on the sides, I put my bun back there to toast up too. I checked on the sandwich’s progress after a few minutes and removed the bun so it didn’t dry out. The rest cooked up in about five minutes, and my breakfast was a runaway success.

The takeaway: If you want to faux-sauté something in your air fryer without additional mess, a small cake pan is your best friend.

The air fryer isn't a great steamer, but you can make it work

Unfortunately for me, I love soups and steamed items. Soup was clearly never going to work in the air fryer, so I did not attempt it, but I just couldn’t let steaming go. I’d tried air fryer steaming dumplings once before, and I ended up disappointed. This time, with the newfound success of cake pan cooking, I tried a different approach. 

I added about a quarter inch of water to the cake pan. Put a layer of carrots down and topped them with frozen dumplings. Then I covered the pan tightly with foil. The idea was to capture the steam as the pan and water heated up. I used the carrots to keep the dumplings out of direct contact with the water, like a steamer tray, and I figured they might cook too, and I could have nicely steamed carrots. 

Well, the dumplings did steam. However, it took longer to do it in the air fryer than in a simple stove top steamer, and the carrots didn’t cook. I tried the foil-cover method again but with no water, using fridge-cold ravioli over small asparagus cuts and leftover barley. This was much more successful, and I think that’s owed to the warmer starting temperature, along with the fact that the items were less dense and added moisture wasn’t really needed.

The takeaway: If your stove broke and your microwave were broken and all you had was an air fryer, then I would suggest trying the foil covered method for steaming—but not if the ingredients are frozen or dense. It’ll just take too long, and you risk some of the ingredients getting mushy.

My most successful air fryer dish

I roasted tons of chicken, marinated pork, and steak. Those were incredible, but I was most proud of making the entire breakfast sandwich in five minutes with barely any clean up. I also dropped slabs of queso blanco into the air fryer and it crisped and browned perfectly—a huge victory.

My least successful air fryer dish

Hands down, the steamed dumplings and carrots were inferior to any other method I’ve used to cook those items. Your air fryer simply is not a very good steamer.

So should you cook every meal in the air fryer?

While the air fryer is a versatile tool, I don’t think you’d be happy doing making every meal using it alone. While you could cook well-rounded meal after well-rounded meal in the Instant Vortex, you’d be missing out on some variety. Everything would be a version of crunchy or roasted. No soups, gently sautéd foods, steamed ingredients, and certainly no blanching can be done in the air fryer.

That said, the air fryer can significantly help streamline a good portion of meals, and you can reduce time spent in front of the kitchen sink with just cleaning up this one basket. Just keep my three takeaways in mind as you plan out your recipes.