In addition to its versatility and convenience, one of the air fryer’s great benefits is cooking food with significantly less oil, which means air-fried food is healthier and has fewer calories than foods cooked in other ways.
Air-fried French fries
You can turn two russet potatoes into a single serving of French fries that have fewer calories and less fat than traditional deep-fried French fries. You’ll still taste that delicious potato flavor and enjoy a crisp, crunchy, golden brown texture, but you won’t consume the excess fat or calories that come from deep frying.
Air-fried French fries contain as much as 70–80% less fat than those sold at your local fast-food place.
A large serving of French fries deep fried in oil can contain more than twice as many calories and almost five times as much fat as air-fried French fries. This means that roughly 220 of the calories come from fat, which equates to almost 40% of your daily value of fat in one meal. That’s nearly five times the amount of fat compared with a serving of air-fried French fries!
Healthier Options
Olive and canola oils: Some recipes in this book do call for added oil. In most cases, it’s either olive or canola, which are high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. You won’t find any vegetable oil in this book, which means you’ll avoid unhealthy trans fats.
Butter and buttery spreads: Some recipes also call for small amounts of a buttery spread. Use one made with plant-based oils and without trans fats. It typically contains up to 60 percent less saturated (unhealthy) fat compared with butter and can help lower cholesterol and improve heart health. And used in moderation, butter can still be a part of a healthy diet, particularly for baked goods, where the flavor of real butter is desired.