Battered Foods Don't Quite Mesh With An Air Fryer

Air fryers might be the greatest food trend to come out of the 2010s (no offense to the overuse of kale or the addition of avocado toast to every brunch menu). These small appliances are affordable, time-saving, and user-friendly — a trifecta of sorts.

You can cook almost anything in an air fryer, from something complex, such as marinated chicken, to something as basic as whipping up some toast. And the air fryer's claim to fame is that it allows you to "fry" foods in a new, healthier way — without the addition of fatty oil. Despite this compact machine's ability to work wonders on your weeknight meal, not everything is meant to be cooked in an air fryer.

Next time you consider tossing a homemade, beer-battered fish dish into that nonstick basket, think again. With holes in the basket's bottom, battered foods won't work in this contraption. You'll end up with very little batter on the fish, given that it all seeped through the basket, leaving your air fryer with a batter-filled bottom that's quite hard to clean.

If you've ever fried battered foods in oil, such as beer-battered fish or onion rings, the process is slightly different than when the dish is breaded. Battered foods are often slowly floated into the oil — not tossed into it in one fell swoop. That's because the batter needs a few seconds to set. Easing it in makes sure it doesn't fall off the food it's coating, and that the food doesn't sink to the bottom and stick. Thankfully, you can hold one end of the battered food and add its other end into the oil, which helps this process work.

Things aren't so simple in an air fryer because the machine is turned off when the basket is loaded; there's no way for the batter to set. As a result, the batter winds up falling onto the basket the moment the food is placed in. And to make matters worse, with so many holes in the basket (this allows air to circulate and "fry" the food), the batter ends up seeping through those holes. It gets stuck on the bottom and creates a mess. Fried food is typically either battered or breaded. For anything you plan to air fry, stick with a breaded coating.

Batter and breading both have the same end goal: to create a tasty coating around a food item before it's fried or cooked, which enhances its overall flavor and protects the food while it heats. However, there is a distinct difference between the two. Batter is often made by combining flour and some sort of liquid, whether it's buttermilk, beer, or another flavor-enhancing liquid. It results in a thick, liquid consistency that somewhat resembles the consistency of a creamy salad dressing. Then, the food is coated in the batter before being fried.

Breading, on the other hand, is made with finely ground bread crumbs (or sometimes just flour or corn starch). It is often paired with an egg wash — whipped eggs and milk that create a coating on the outside of the food to help the bread crumbs stick. The bread crumbs are crunchy and fine, whereas batter creates a smoother edge around the food. Bread crumbs can be used on foods that are air fried or baked, while batter is primarily only used when frying with oil.