Martin Lewis warns UK households using air fryer to cook in December

Martin Lewis has explained his "rule of thumb" for using air fryers in December as we head towards Christmas. Mr Lewis discussed cooking Christmas dinners in air fryers as UK households stock up on turkey, pigs in blankets and all the trimmings.

"Let me give you my simple rule of thumb," BBC and ITV star Mr Lewis said. "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.

"Then remember 1,000 watts is a Kilowatt. And you pay roughly 34p per Kilowatt per hour. So if you had a heated gilet on for an hour, it's around a twentieth of 34p which is around 1.7p per hour. "Now an oven is typically 1-2000 W so you're paying around 34p or 68p an hour.

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"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, 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."

52-year-old Mr Lewis said: "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."