Money expert Martin Lewis has warned anyone who uses an air fryer instead of an oven – as it may be having an effect on your energy bill from the likes of British Gas, E.On, EDF, OVO or Octopus Energy.
The trendy kitchen appliance has become a bit of a sensation, almost a cliche, in recent years as people look to find cheaper ways of cooking their dinner than running a big traditional oven.
But Martin Lewis has tried to outline that it’s not always better to use an air fryer or a microwave over a traditional oven, cooker or grill.
Speaking on his BBC Martin Lewis Podcast, the finance expert set out exactly how and when you should and shouldn’t use an air fryer when cooking the dinner using his simple ‘rule of thumb’ relating to the energy cost price per unit.
Martin Lewis said: “Let me give you my simple rule of thumb.
“First of all, find the wattage of the appliance you’re using. If you’ve got a heated gilet, it might be 50 watts. When I talk about ‘heating the home’ it is a lot cheaper to have a heated gilet or something that just heats you rather than heating the whole room.”
“Then remember 1,000 watts is a Kilowatt. And you pay roughly 34p per Kw per hour.”
“So if you had a heated gilet on for an hour, it’s around a 20th of 34p which is around 1.7p per hour.”
“Now an oven is typically 1-2000w so you’re paying around 34p or 68p an hour.”
“An oven isn’t always using all the wattage as it’s heating up and then topping up.”
“A microwave is also 1000W so per minute it’s the same cost as an oven, but things done in the microwave when you’re cooking a one-off, a one off jacket potato for example, is far more efficient because it’s 10 minutes in the microwave, it might be an hour and a half in the oven.”
“So if you’ve got a turkey in there that may well be effective if you’re cooking lots of stuff in there and it’s on for a couple of hours. That may well be effective if you’re cooking lots of stuff.”
“But if you’ve got something small and simple in there, it’s probably cheaper and that’s where the microwave and also the air fryers tend to come into their own because they’re better at cooking single objects.”
He also talked about a method to cook a chicken or turkey that was outlined by a caller, called ‘spatchcocking’, otherwise known as ‘butterfly’. This is when you break the bird’s bones and spread it out instead of cooking it whole.
By doing so, you can reduce the amount of time the chicken takes to cook, thereby saving more money on running your oven (or air fryer!).
Now, energy prices per unit have changed since then – and are set to be 24.5p per unit of electricity from October 1, and 6.24p per unit of gas – so those are the figures you need to focus on in your calculations.
If your energy provider, be it British Gas, E.On, EDF or OVO, has given you a fix or a plan with a different price, or changing prices, such as an Octopus Agile Tracker, you need to use your supplier’s figures to make the comparison.
