Why Your Air Fryer Is Useless When Whipping Up A Stir Fry

Ah, the air fryer — what can't it do? Sales of this must-have kitchen gadget have been on the rise since 2017 (via CNBC), but as handy as air fryers are, everything has its limitations. Stir fry is something you should never cook in an air fryer. Sure, you can cook your stir-fry ingredients in it if you insist, but the soggy result won't really be a stir fry. This is because the art of stir-frying is in wok hei (meaning "the breath of a wok" in Cantonese), which requires a combination of high heat, strategic cook times and temperature zones, and, of course, stirring.

Stirring food at high heat is a major element of stir-frying (hence the name), and it's nearly impossible to recreate with an air fryer. While an air fryer can get quite hot, you can't continuously stir the food inside. On top of that, any overcrowding will steam the ingredients rather than make them crispy. This is because an air fryer works by circulating hot air around the food. Additionally, the ingredients for stir fry vary in cook times, which can be anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes. Considering this, you won't really save time if you make this dish in the air fryer because it's typically recommended that you preheat your air fryer anyway. A wok, on the other hand, is meant for stir-frying.

A wok is an ideal setup for stir fry, as it's designed to maintain high heat. It also allows you to continuously stir the ingredients, and the food's contact with the hot surface creates the Maillard reaction, which occurs between amino acids and sugars and helps the food brown while developing tasty flavors and aromas. The wok holds the most intense heat in the bottom of the pan, so you can move partially cooked ingredients out to the sides — and into a lower temperature zone — as you add new items. Adding foods with different cooking times one by one means everything ends up cooked to its perfect temperature and texture in one pan. You can also add liquids to the wok to create a sauce for your stir fry, which is a big no-no in an air fryer.

Even when using a wok, there are still some mistakes everyone makes when preparing a stir fry. To get the best results, cut your ingredients into similar shapes and sizes so they cook evenly, and make sure everything is ready to go before you get your wok ripping hot. Be sure to use oil with a high smoke point, don't overcrowd the wok, and add ingredients in order from the longest cooking time to the shortest. If you aren't sure what flavor combinations work best, start with some tried-and-true stir-fry recipes for inspiration.