Please Do Not Use Cooking Spray on the Air Fryer
One of the things that everyone loves about an air fryer is how it can make food crispy without using a ton of oil. However, this does not prevent people from adding some oil to their food. After all, fat is taste, and there may be some concern about things stuck to the basket tray.
Adding fat to the cart is okay, for the most part. (For example, I used bacon fat for air-fried eggs .) There are some rules, however. Do not add too much oil, as this may result in splattering and splashes may hit the heating element and cause smoke. You also don’t want, under any circumstances, to hit the basket with a quick hit of non-stick cooking spray. This can ruin the coating, making it difficult to use less oil for future air frying.
So why is one okay and the other not at all? The difference lies in the recipe for the cooking spray. As we said earlier , most cooking sprays are not made from pure oil:
PAM and similar enemies of non-stick cookware due to the presence of an emulsifier called “lecithin”. According to Real Simple , lecithin will “cook on the surface of your pan, build up, and be nearly impossible to remove.” Anolone also cautions against cooking sprays, noting that they burn “at lower temperatures and can damage your product’s non-stick coating.” All this will turn your non-stick pan very sticky; using cooking spray may even void some brands’ warranties .
There are very few cases where you need to add oil to prevent sticking, because the insides are (as far as I know) always treated with a non-stick coating. If you’re worried about your food sticking to the fryer basket, you can drizzle it with clean oil (buy a specialty bottle and fill it yourself) or toss your food into a separate bowl with a little fat to coat it lightly. Lubricating the food instead of the basket ensures that there is no excess buildup or splatter and also prevents the basket from sticking horribly.