Happy day friends! My very thoughtful husband bought me an air fryer for my birthday last week and it has quickly become my favorite kitchen gadget! I have already used it a bunch and can’t wait to create and share more easy air fryer recipes with you on the blog! So far my most favorite thing to cook in it is chicken thighs. The skin gets nice and crispy without having to use a ton of oil and the insides stay juicy. I have cooked chicken thighs, chicken breasts, salmon, sweet potato fries, baby red potatoes, carrots and now broccoli. I have so many other things I want to cook in it too!
I have the Ninja 4-quart Air Fryer. I was always worried about the size of air fryers and not having a place to keep it, but I found a place for it and all is well in the world. There are so many things I love about the air fryer, but what I love most is that I don’t have to wait for my oven to preheat to cook or roast vegetables. Our oven takes 6 years to preheat and usually I roast vegetables for a good 40-45 minutes. With the air fryer, it preheats in 3 minutes and most items only take 15-20 minutes to cook. It’s wonderful! Plus, you still get the crispiness and taste of roasted vegetables and all of my meat and protein has turned our wonderfully too. Some other things I love about it are:
- use less oil
- taste of fried food
- doesn’t heat up the house like an oven
- less baking time
- easy to clean
- not too big or too small
- can cook a meal for 1 or for the entire family
Do yourself a favor and buy an air fryer! It will save you a ton of time cooking dinner for yourself or the entire family. It would also be great to utilize during your weekly meal prep because you can cook a ton of vegetables in a short amount of time.
If you are new to the air fryer game, here is an incredibly easy recipe to start with. Heck, you wouldn’t even have to do the bacon or sunflower seeds and it would still taste good! If they aren’t crispy enough or too crispy for your liking, modify the cook time.
- 2 heads broccoli, cut into florets
- 6 pieces of bacon, chopped
- 2 tbsp sunflower seeds
- 2 tbsp avocado oil
- juice of 1 lemon
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- dash of red pepper flakes
- Place all the ingredients in a large Ziploc bag. Seal the bag and shake until the broccoli is coated.
- Set the temperature to 390 on your air fryer and set the time for 21 minutes. Let the air fryer preheat for 3 minutes. Once the time reaches 18 minutes pause the time and add the broccoli to the air fryer basket. Start time. At 12 and 6 minutes pause the time and toss the broccoli.
- Enjoy with your meal!