Martin Lewis shares message to anyone who has ditched oven for air fryer

Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has issued a note of caution to individuals utilising air fryers as an alternative to conventional ovens. Amidst the rising popularity of air fryers as a cost-effective substitute for the classic, larger oven, Martin Lewis has raised points that it might not always be more economical to default to an air fryer or a microwave instead of a traditional oven.

During his segment on The Martin Lewis Podcast, which listeners can find on platforms such as BBC Sounds, Spotify, and Apple Music, the financial guru delineated the conditions under which one should or should not rely on an air fryer for meal prep through what he refers to as his 'rule of thumb'.

Martin Lewis offered guidance, saying: "Let me give you my simple rule of thumb." He advised, "First of all, find the wattage of the appliance you're using. If you've got a heated gilet, it might be 50 watts. When I talk about 'heating the home' it is a lot cheaper to have a heated gilet or something that just heats you rather than heating the whole room," reports the Express.

He went on to elucidate: "Then remember 1,000 watts is a Kilowatt. And you pay roughly 34p per Kw per hour. So if you had a heated gilet on for an hour, it's around a 20th of 34p, which is around 1.7p per hour." Lewis further explained, "Now an oven is typically 1-2000w, so you're paying around 34p or 68p an hour. An oven isn't always using all the wattage as it's heating up and then topping up."

"A microwave is also 1000W, so per minute it's the same cost as an oven, but things done in the microwave when you're cooking a one-off, a one-off jacket potato for example, is far more efficient because it's 10 minutes in the microwave, it might be an hour and a half in the oven."

"So if you've got a turkey in there that may well be effective if you're cooking lots of stuff in there and it's on for a couple of hours. That may well be effective if you're cooking lots of stuff. But if you've got something small and simple in there, it's probably cheaper and that's where the microwave and also the air fryers tend to come into their own because they're better at cooking single objects."

He also talked about a method to cook a chicken or turkey that was outlined by a caller, called 'spatchcocking', otherwise known as 'butterfly'. This is when you break the bird's bones and spread it out instead of cooking it whole.

By doing so, you can reduce the amount of time the chicken takes to cook, thereby saving more money on running your oven (or air fryer!).