Maybe try a slow cooker. If you find a few recipes you like and prepare what you can in larger batches and save some for next time (for example if it uses a collection of spices, measure out multiple recipes worth of all of the spices and store them (pre-combined) in spice jars), you can get the prep time down to a few minutes each time you want to cook it. Slow cookers have the added benefit of not having to worry about taking it out of the oven at the right time or whathaveyou - when it finishes cooking, it’ll just keep your food warm until you’re ready to eat it. This also keeps the washing to a minimum - it’s just the slow cooker insert and your bowl + utensils. As an added bonus, you’ll get multiple days worth of food out of one time cooking.
Slow cookers are terrible. The long drawn out cooking process destroys the texture and taste of food and turns everything into a homogeneous slop. So much time and energy usage for such mediocre payoff. And fundamentally not different to just baking stuff in an oven for a long time.
The real tip is to get a pressure cooker instead. Almost every slow cooker recipe can be easily adapted to a pressure cooker, for a significant savings in time, energy, and improvement in taste and texture. Even if you get anxious about pressure cookers, most pressure cookers have a slow cook function as well.
I am good at using a slow cooker to make nutritious, tasty meals, because I practiced for a long time and I had people to encourage me to keep going. Lift new cooks up, don’t tear them down.
People should learn to use the things they most probably already have in their kitchen.
slow cooker is just a tiny pot shaped low temperature oven with a timer
Air fryer is a tiny oven with a fan
Why do people get so hyped about a smaller and more limited version of the thing they already have? Just use your oven which most likely already has all these features. I haven’t seen an electric oven without a fan or without a timer in my lifetime
While you’re kinda right, you’re also kinda wrong.
I love “air-fryers” despite their stupid ass marketing buzzword. It’s, as you pointed out, a tiny version of my oven-with-a-fan. Yet it saves me a lot of time as there’s no need to wait until it’s heated, and, due to its tiny size, it’s also done more quickly. Besides having two completely separate chambers for two things needing different heat/time.
And the added bonus? Cleaned much quicker and easier.
Since we have this thing, the conventional oven wasn’t used once.
That your oven is heating slow is a flaw of your oven. You can get half height convection ovens who heat up much faster and have all the benefits of a normal oven but the convection works just as well like in an air fryer. some even have microwave functions so you save another device.
I dunno what this oven costs as I just bought the kitchen that looked best. But it sure got all bells and whistles and is a convection one. Still takes time to preheat and all that for our two tiny meals.
i value my time and whatever saves me a minute wins. We still need the big one for cooking in pans and such. So it’s not useless.
If those friers would be totally useless and redundant, they wouldn’t sell that well.
I find that my air fryer leaves things much crisper than a regular oven, even one with a fan (which my current one doesn’t have and I’m not replacing right now because I want to redo the entire soviet era kitchen with modern furniture and integrated appliances). It also heats up to 200 degrees in under a minute vs nearly 10 minutes for the big oven.
It was a great convenience buy. I barely use the big oven now, only for things that don’t fit in the air fryer. And for some things I use the wood-powered oven instead.
I have a full size convection oven. I also have a really fancy countertop convection oven I got last year for like $120. I rarely use the regular oven anymore.
Why?
For one thing my full size oven is gas, and I’d rather use electric. My stove and furnace are the only gas appliances I have, but I try to run them as little as possible. For another, I live alone and often cook smaller portions. I don’t need to heat up that much oven for just a burrito or whatever, that’s wasteful.
And finally, my countertop convection oven has a suite of settings and features my standing oven can’t remotely compete with, and it can still cook something the size of whole chicken/roast and a side dish, just like my big oven. For example it has a meat probe that automatically shuts off the heating element when the internal temp reaches whatever it needs to be for the meat type and cook level you want. Perfect every time, no hassle, no guesswork, no adhd memory wipe leading to overcooked food. It also has a bunch of preset modes, and any changes I make to them get saved in the memory until I change or reset them, so when I find something cooks better at a different temp or time I can just save that on a setting I don’t use, and have to ready for next time.
It’s not that I don’t know how to use my oven. I do. I bought it myself 12 years ago and know exactly what it’s capable of with its luxurious 6 buttons and basic features. That’s why I wanted the countertop model.
My slow cooker is the same sort of thing - it’s an 8-in-1 pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, yogurt maker, etc. it does a lot of things and I use it frequently. It’s worth the hype.
You are completely ignoring the massive energy waste that full sized ovens are. Why should I wait 20 minutes and heat up my entire kitchen, when I could use my air fryer in 7 minutes and use 1/20th the electricity? My AC also doesn’t have to work as hard to cool down the now warmer downstairs.
In my experience, it is not an issue. I turn the oven on when I want to start cooking and only then start gathering the items. By the time I want to stick something in the oven, it is already hot. Doesn’t work with frozen pizza tho
Why do people get so hyped about a smaller and more limited specialized version of the thing they already have?
Because they’re better and/or easier to do specific things with.
I haven’t seen an electric oven without a fan or without a timer in my lifetime
I’m 42 and have never had one WITH a timer, but congratulations, I guess 🤷
Fact is that some of us lack certain resources such as energy, attention stamina, or time to make everything using standard equipment.
I for one know I’d never get my super healthy post-workout smoothie made without my nutribullet, or eat much cauliflower and skinless chicken breast (when I can afford it) without my air fryer.
I’m not knowledgeable about air fryers, so I can’t really comment there, but slow cookers / crock pots are fantastic and in my opinion, should be in everyone’s kitchen. Maybe I’m biased, though, because I really like soups and stews and sauces and things, which they’re great for. Not things you’d cook in an oven, and my stovetop at least doesn’t have any kind of timer mechanism.
You can make stews, soups and other things one would use a slow cooker for by taking a stainless steel or some other not-made-of-plastic pot and sticking it in the oven
I support avoiding redundancy in general, but there are advantages to those that make them worth it if you get enough of a quality of life improvement for them.
I use my air fryer basically every day and really appreciate that it can finish cooking some things before my oven would even finish preheating. Cleaning is also much easier, I imagine it uses considerably less energy, and it tends to cook stuff more evenly in my experience. And it isn’t some fancy product, just the cheapest one I could find when I decided to try one out years ago. I’ve used my oven for a couple of things that wouldn’t fit in the air fryer over the years, but otherwise it’s basically been reduced to a stovetop with a clock.
I also use it for things I would otherwise microwave because it cooks it much better even if i have to deal with a short preheat. So nowadays my microwave is just left unplugged until I need a quick injection of heat, like for freezer-burnt ice cream or melting some butter or cheese.
I don’t think I’d get enough use out of a slow cooker to commit to the space, but I imagine it’s a similar story for people that would use it often. Same deal for like a rice cooker or ice cream machine. Also, my family was able to get an old toaster oven for cheap after our real oven broke, so these appliances can offer a cheaper alternative too.
Maybe try a slow cooker. If you find a few recipes you like and prepare what you can in larger batches and save some for next time (for example if it uses a collection of spices, measure out multiple recipes worth of all of the spices and store them (pre-combined) in spice jars), you can get the prep time down to a few minutes each time you want to cook it. Slow cookers have the added benefit of not having to worry about taking it out of the oven at the right time or whathaveyou - when it finishes cooking, it’ll just keep your food warm until you’re ready to eat it. This also keeps the washing to a minimum - it’s just the slow cooker insert and your bowl + utensils. As an added bonus, you’ll get multiple days worth of food out of one time cooking.
Slow cookers are terrible. The long drawn out cooking process destroys the texture and taste of food and turns everything into a homogeneous slop. So much time and energy usage for such mediocre payoff. And fundamentally not different to just baking stuff in an oven for a long time.
The real tip is to get a pressure cooker instead. Almost every slow cooker recipe can be easily adapted to a pressure cooker, for a significant savings in time, energy, and improvement in taste and texture. Even if you get anxious about pressure cookers, most pressure cookers have a slow cook function as well.
I am good at using a slow cooker to make nutritious, tasty meals, because I practiced for a long time and I had people to encourage me to keep going. Lift new cooks up, don’t tear them down.
Rant about kitchen appliances:
People should learn to use the things they most probably already have in their kitchen.
slow cooker is just a tiny pot shaped low temperature oven with a timer
Air fryer is a tiny oven with a fan
Why do people get so hyped about a smaller and more limited version of the thing they already have? Just use your oven which most likely already has all these features. I haven’t seen an electric oven without a fan or without a timer in my lifetime
While you’re kinda right, you’re also kinda wrong.
I love “air-fryers” despite their stupid ass marketing buzzword. It’s, as you pointed out, a tiny version of my oven-with-a-fan. Yet it saves me a lot of time as there’s no need to wait until it’s heated, and, due to its tiny size, it’s also done more quickly. Besides having two completely separate chambers for two things needing different heat/time. And the added bonus? Cleaned much quicker and easier.
Since we have this thing, the conventional oven wasn’t used once.
That your oven is heating slow is a flaw of your oven. You can get half height convection ovens who heat up much faster and have all the benefits of a normal oven but the convection works just as well like in an air fryer. some even have microwave functions so you save another device.
I dunno what this oven costs as I just bought the kitchen that looked best. But it sure got all bells and whistles and is a convection one. Still takes time to preheat and all that for our two tiny meals.
i value my time and whatever saves me a minute wins. We still need the big one for cooking in pans and such. So it’s not useless.
If those friers would be totally useless and redundant, they wouldn’t sell that well.
Buying a more expensive oven seems like a bit of overkill, as far as advice about ADHD-friendly cooking goes.
I find that my air fryer leaves things much crisper than a regular oven, even one with a fan (which my current one doesn’t have and I’m not replacing right now because I want to redo the entire soviet era kitchen with modern furniture and integrated appliances). It also heats up to 200 degrees in under a minute vs nearly 10 minutes for the big oven.
It was a great convenience buy. I barely use the big oven now, only for things that don’t fit in the air fryer. And for some things I use the wood-powered oven instead.
I have a full size convection oven. I also have a really fancy countertop convection oven I got last year for like $120. I rarely use the regular oven anymore.
Why?
For one thing my full size oven is gas, and I’d rather use electric. My stove and furnace are the only gas appliances I have, but I try to run them as little as possible. For another, I live alone and often cook smaller portions. I don’t need to heat up that much oven for just a burrito or whatever, that’s wasteful.
And finally, my countertop convection oven has a suite of settings and features my standing oven can’t remotely compete with, and it can still cook something the size of whole chicken/roast and a side dish, just like my big oven. For example it has a meat probe that automatically shuts off the heating element when the internal temp reaches whatever it needs to be for the meat type and cook level you want. Perfect every time, no hassle, no guesswork, no adhd memory wipe leading to overcooked food. It also has a bunch of preset modes, and any changes I make to them get saved in the memory until I change or reset them, so when I find something cooks better at a different temp or time I can just save that on a setting I don’t use, and have to ready for next time.
It’s not that I don’t know how to use my oven. I do. I bought it myself 12 years ago and know exactly what it’s capable of with its luxurious 6 buttons and basic features. That’s why I wanted the countertop model.
My slow cooker is the same sort of thing - it’s an 8-in-1 pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, yogurt maker, etc. it does a lot of things and I use it frequently. It’s worth the hype.
Alright, now you tell me how I’m supposed to put a fan of my oven and how I’m supposed to make it preheat 10 times faster.
If you don’t have an oven with a fan/convection, then sure, get an additional appliance.
You are completely ignoring the massive energy waste that full sized ovens are. Why should I wait 20 minutes and heat up my entire kitchen, when I could use my air fryer in 7 minutes and use 1/20th the electricity? My AC also doesn’t have to work as hard to cool down the now warmer downstairs.
And the second thing?
In my experience, it is not an issue. I turn the oven on when I want to start cooking and only then start gathering the items. By the time I want to stick something in the oven, it is already hot. Doesn’t work with frozen pizza tho
Because they’re better and/or easier to do specific things with.
I’m 42 and have never had one WITH a timer, but congratulations, I guess 🤷
Fact is that some of us lack certain resources such as energy, attention stamina, or time to make everything using standard equipment.
I for one know I’d never get my super healthy post-workout smoothie made without my nutribullet, or eat much cauliflower and skinless chicken breast (when I can afford it) without my air fryer.
I’m not knowledgeable about air fryers, so I can’t really comment there, but slow cookers / crock pots are fantastic and in my opinion, should be in everyone’s kitchen. Maybe I’m biased, though, because I really like soups and stews and sauces and things, which they’re great for. Not things you’d cook in an oven, and my stovetop at least doesn’t have any kind of timer mechanism.
You can make stews, soups and other things one would use a slow cooker for by taking a stainless steel or some other not-made-of-plastic pot and sticking it in the oven
I support avoiding redundancy in general, but there are advantages to those that make them worth it if you get enough of a quality of life improvement for them.
I use my air fryer basically every day and really appreciate that it can finish cooking some things before my oven would even finish preheating. Cleaning is also much easier, I imagine it uses considerably less energy, and it tends to cook stuff more evenly in my experience. And it isn’t some fancy product, just the cheapest one I could find when I decided to try one out years ago. I’ve used my oven for a couple of things that wouldn’t fit in the air fryer over the years, but otherwise it’s basically been reduced to a stovetop with a clock.
I also use it for things I would otherwise microwave because it cooks it much better even if i have to deal with a short preheat. So nowadays my microwave is just left unplugged until I need a quick injection of heat, like for freezer-burnt ice cream or melting some butter or cheese.
I don’t think I’d get enough use out of a slow cooker to commit to the space, but I imagine it’s a similar story for people that would use it often. Same deal for like a rice cooker or ice cream machine. Also, my family was able to get an old toaster oven for cheap after our real oven broke, so these appliances can offer a cheaper alternative too.