Does anyone own an air fryer? (reheating option)

[tkamiya]

Does anyone own an air fryer?  If so, does it tend to dry out food when reheating?

The reason I ask this....  Let's say I have some frozen or cooled down tater tots, fried shrimp, etc.  If I use a microwave oven to reheat these, they get soggy and rubbery.  If I use a toaster oven, it tends to dry it out and edges get burned.  What about an air fryer?  Does it keep foods at proper moisture content and texture? 

Thanks

[Mr.B]

I have never used our air fryer to reheat food, but I suspect the results would be similar to your toaster oven.
If you were to cover the food with foil the results would be improved, but reheating would likely take longer.

[Halcyon]

All foods lose moisture through reheating, whether it's via a convection oven, microwave, air fryer, toaster, leaving it on the countertop etc...

Depending on the dish, you could reheat in a microwave in an mostly sealed container to help keep most of the moisture in or using a steam oven to replace moisture that is lost.

Temperature and time are also a factor. People tend to want food quickly, so they blast it in the microwave for a few minutes at full power as opposed to a longer time at significantly lower power levels. Have you tried some of the automatic functions that are built into your microwave? Some of them are actually quite good and are designed specifically for your purpose.

[Jeroen3]

An airfryer is basically a small forced air oven.

You can get ovens with steam to prevent drying the food. The new kitchen at my parents got one and it work amazing for reheating food.
It's expensive though.

[tszaboo]

I have one, it's great addition to the kitchen. Tefal actify. I used it to heat up chicken, not the food that you describe, it worked great. Plus, you can just put the parts into the dishwasher, it saves a lot of time and oil.
But TBH you shouldn't freeze fried food, frying should be the last step before serving.

[coppercone2]

Well I noticed a microwave does a wonderful job 'softening' bread, so my usual strategy was to on low inverter  microwave frozen bread a little then toast for sandwiches.

But, recently I have fixed a steam oven, its like a toaster oven with a little pump to put steam into the chamber. Anyway, when I cooked bread on the crisper tray with cheese on it (maybe 3 day old refrigerated bread), it got ALOT softer, the bottom of the bread was lightly crunchy (very slight) and the cheese was gooey and pliable. For a round bottom sous vide sandwich (like roast beef), it had the ideal texture that I wanted. AKA au juce or philly cheese steak was close to ideal. But if you want to put sous vide meat on it (i specifically mean like steak, roast beef... not pepperoni or something), I still suggest heating that in inverter microwave set to 1 (lowest power) or water bath and putting it on the sandwich afterwards., the steam cooks it too fast for it to be authentic (not a huge deal)

For any sandwiches with sauce like meatball parm, philly, au juce, chicken parm, etc.. its my machine of choice right now. It cooks well and the bottom of the bread gets like a egg shell of slight crisp, but if you want the top browned good you would need to follow up with a torch or fast totally preheated close broil.

I did not try fries yet

[cdev]

It doesn't really dry out foods, with most foods.. Less than I would expect..Its fast, too. It gets used a lot.

[cdev]

It also makes very good cheeseburgers.. we use top qualiy cheddar cheese, two slices.. this is really good..too good..  makes me almost addicted to them.. And I had almost quit meat.. ha ha...

[Marco]

You can get ovens with steam to prevent drying the food. The new kitchen at my parents got one and it work amazing for reheating food.

There's steam airfryers. Though they are pure steamers, no humidity settings and no steam above boiling.

Though I'm unsure how useful steam above boiling is ... it looks nice when you open the door, but the oven is not a pressure vessel. It can never build up sufficient vapour pressure to prevent water from evaporating from the food pretty much as fast as usual AFAICS.

[tkamiya]

Thank you for all the responses.

[Stray Electron]

  My wife uses an air fryer to re-heat french fries, tater tots, and similar food that would turn mushy in the microwave. The air fryer works GREAT for those. MUCH better than a microwave.   Now we don't even deep fryer tater tots, etc to start with; the air fryer makes them ever crisper than a deep fryer and there is no added oil.

  No the air fryer doesn't dry out the food at all, even less than a microwave.  I think that's because the air fryer is sealed and moisture can't escape. it works like the old time pressure cookers but heats up and cools off much faster and is simpler to use.

   We cook chicken and pork in the air fryer and it always comes out more moist than if we cooked it in the oven.