From crisping up frozen foods and baking cakes to reheating pizza and even cooking full turkeys, it can sometimes feel like air fryers can handle almost anything you throw at them.
But if you want to make the most of your money-saving kitchen gadget for years to come, you’ll need to make sure you’re taking good care of it.
Ideally, you want to be giving your air fryer a quick clean after every single use, with BBC Good Food sharing: “We recommend cleaning the basket of your air fryer after every use, so that dirt and grime doesn’t become baked on.
“Small crumbs can also burn if not cleaned out, which may taint the flavour of whatever you’re air-frying.
“Give your air fryer a deeper clean (inside the unit and the coil) every few uses.”
Luckily, this doesn’t have to be as daunting as it sounds, with one cleaning enthusiast sharing her super quick and easy method for removing grime and grease.
Danielle, also known as @cleaningwithdanielled to her 1.9 million TikTok followers, originally shared her go-to hack last year.
While demonstrating the method, she said: “I just pop a dishwasher tablet in each drawer, leave them to soak with boiling water for around half an hour, and then just simply empty and rinse them. It’s as easy as that.”
Danielle also assured viewers that because the dishwasher tablets also break down grease, it is “perfectly safe” to pour the boiling water down the sink after 30 minutes, although this part of the hack has been disputed by many.
She added: “This is one of my favourite methods because it’s just so quick and easy to do.”
In the video’s caption, she clarified: “I know a lot of people on tiktok do this method and also ‘cook it’ please gosh do not do this!!”
Several viewers were impressed with the air fryer cleaning hack, with TikTok user Tias Cookbook writing: “i needed thissss”, and Lynsey commenting: “love this thanks so much as mine is in need of a good wash.”
Not everyone was convinced though, with Courtney commenting: “So much easier to just wipe it after use each time.”
Emma said: “Or just stick in your dishwasher and only use one dishwasher tablet.”