“I made Christmas dinner in an air fryer – here’s what happened”
I love Christmas, but honestly, I’m not a fan of cooking Christmas dinner. The hours spent juggling bubbling saucepans while cramming the oven to the brim and constantly basting an oversized turkey, not to mention politely shooing away hovering guests while you cook, isn’t something I look forward to.
In fact, these days I usually leave the task to my partner, helping where I can – I do the washing-up in return. But it seems no matter how prepared we are, cooking what we can the night before and marking down our timings in advance, it’s still inevitably stressful and never gets served up on time.
So, when GH’s cookery team told me that you could cook an entire Christmas dinner in an air fryer, I had to give it a go; anything to speed up and simplify the process, right? But how would the results compare to the oven, and would I want to take the plunge and switch to an air fryer on the big day? Here’s what happened…
The air fryer we used
Naturally, an air fryer is much smaller than an oven, which affects the size of what you can cook. As you’d expect, a full-size turkey won’t fit in a standard air fryer – the first hurdle I faced. I decided to swap the turkey out for a smaller chicken for the best chance of fitting it in.
Initially, I didn’t think a two-basket model would work; while these are brilliant for cooking multiple courses at once, they technically cut the total capacity in half per basket, making fitting even a small chicken unlikely. But when I came across the Philips 3000 Series Dual Basket Air Fryer, with one basket slightly larger than the other (9 litre capacity in total), I realised it offered the best of both worlds.
I was admittedly a little sceptical about the size of the smaller basket, especially as I’d have to use this to cook the roast potatoes alongside the chicken. But cooking two dishes at once (at different temperatures) would definitely save time and make the air fryer twice as useful.
Philips 3000 Series Dual Basket Air Fryer
Here’s what happened
The first thing I did was chop and parboil the potatoes. While this step isn’t included in our Air Fryer Roast Potatoes recipe, I wanted to give the potatoes the best chance of tasting as if they’d been prepared in the oven. And this step makes them all the more fluffy and crispy! I will mention here that it’s best to chop the potatoes into smaller chunks to make the most of the space in your air fryer.
While those bubbled away, I prepped the chicken by melting some butter and basting it all over. Little other preparation was needed here. The chicken fitted in the larger basket with ease, although I pressed it down to make sure it wouldn’t make contact with the heating element above.
According to Emma Franklin, our cookery editor: “It’s important that no part of your chicken makes contact with the top of the air fryer, so do pop it in the air fryer basket to check before starting any prep/cooking. If it does touch the (inside) top, you’ll need to flatten the chicken slightly first. Place on a board, breast-side up. Using the heels of your hands, press down hard on to the centre of the breast to flatten. Then you’re good to go.”
Before cooking, I flipped the chicken breast-side down, taking inspiration from the Marmalade, Thyme and Sherry-Glazed Roast Chicken recipe, set the time and temperature, then pressed go. The chicken first needed 30 minutes at 170 degrees before being flipped. I basted it after 10 minutes to make the skin crispier.
While this was cooking, I finished boiling the potatoes, dunked them into heated goose fat and loaded them into the smaller basket. It is possible to preload both the baskets and have them synchronised to finish at the same time, but I decided to time this myself and load the potatoes while still hot, so they didn’t have a chance to cool – as I would if I was cooking them in the oven.
I could only fit about 2-3 potatoes in the smaller basket, as they needed to sit in a single layer and couldn’t overcrowd the floor to ensure the air can flow around and cook them evenly. That’s fewer than you could fit in the oven, but still enough for 1-2 people, so I persevered.
The potatoes were set to cook for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, and I made sure to rotate and baste them halfway through. During this time, the chicken also needed flipping. Even though it was just a small chicken, that turned out to more difficult than I’d thought without tearing it or burning myself on the walls of the basket! In the end, I used a pair of tongs to do the trick and gave it another basting. Just another 15 minutes or so and it would be ready.
While the chicken and potatoes cooked, I started peeling the parsnips and carrots. These just needed chopping up and coating with oil and they were set to go. As for the stuffing and pigs in blankets, these were the easiest to cook. I checked the instructions on the pack when shopping and noticed they already had guidance for cooking in the air fryer (12 minutes at 180 degrees for both), so they just needed lining up once the basket was free.
Then the timer went off for the chicken and roast potatoes. I’d seen the progress halfway through cooking but still wasn’t sure what to expect. As I slid the drawers out, both looked crispy and browned, as if they’d been painstakingly basted. And the smell was mouthwatering! They looked no different to oven-cooked, although the potatoes might have appeared slightly less crispy (but that’s being picky).
I moved them to a hot plate to keep them warm. The meat sides and vegetables would only need about 10 minutes, so not long to go. The potatoes were exchanged with the carrots and parsnips, and the chicken was swapped for lines of stuffing and pigs in blankets. In both cases, the basket capacity was generous. I gave the vegetables 10 minutes at 200 degrees, while the meat had 12 minutes at 180 degrees. No basting or shaking required here, so I focused on carving the chicken and plating up.
The sides were ready before I knew it. They sizzled as I dished them out; the stuffing and pigs in blankets had a crispy finish, and the skin of the veg was evenly browned. The dish looked incredible – and all this took less than an hour!
How did it taste?
The chicken skin was indeed crispy – in fact, more so than you’d likely get from an oven. The meat was soft, moist and succulent and cooked through in 45 minutes. While it was just a small chicken, that’s still speedy.
The potatoes were crispy, but not quite as crispy as the oven. They also didn’t have as much flavour as you’d get from them sitting in goose fat. However, they were still soft and fluffy and did feel lighter – I could probably eat a lot more of them compared to typical oven-cooked roasties!
The meaty sides were cooked just as you’d expect from the oven. Meanwhile, the parsnips were soft and full of flavour, while the carrots still had some crunch to them – they could perhaps have done with a little longer, but the results were still delicious.
Verdict
Ultimately, this two-basket air fryer did the job for a two-person Christmas dinner. If you’re preparing for a larger party, you’d almost certainly have to make use of the oven for your mains and use the air fryer for the side dishes – in fact, it would be ideal for that as the oven often gets so full.
But I still made a full roast to feed two in less than an hour! And with dishwasher-safe baskets, cleaning up was much easier compared to scrubbing greasy roasting trays by hand. The oven-roasted roasties were the only thing my partner missed – so much so that he still wants to do these in the oven – but he concedes that the air fryer is indeed the easier and quicker way to go. So from now on, we’ll be cooking our usual Sunday roasts in the air fryer and using it for our sides at Christmas, too.
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