How to Use the Instant Pot Air Fryer Lid | A First Time User’s Guide and Review | MyRecipes

- Is the Instant Pot

fryer

lid a solution to not having two large appliances on the counter? Possibly, but check out my thoughts and judge for yourself. (orchestral hit) First of all, this air

fryer

lid was only designed for the six-quart Instant Pot. So if you have an eight-quart Instant Pot, there is no lid available for you, but they have a solution for that. The Instant Pot Duo Air Crisp. We'll get to that another

time

, but this was designed to eliminate the need to purchase an air fryer separately if you've already purchased an Instant Pot. If you compare it to a full-size deep fryer, it definitely takes up a lot less counter space.

So that's good. Let's start by talking about some of the features of the Instant Pot lid. Firstly, the lid itself is quite heavy. I'd say it weighs about 11 pounds. Below is the heating element and fan. It also comes with a storage tray to protect all this valuable piece. You place the top on the tray, twist it and it locks into place. So, that's a great feature. Plus, if you turn it over and place it on the counter, it acts as a base for when you put the lid on and off the Instant Pot. Then, it just sits there, so you have a safe place to put it without destroying your countertops.

It also comes with the fryer basket. Therefore, it fits perfectly. To add extra airflow, it comes with this small base to place the basket on. And with that, comes this stainless steel plate that is great for the dehydrator function and the roasting function. There is a slot in the center here of this basket that allows the rack to sit. Now you have two layers that you can air fry. So let's try it. In an effort to show you the functionality of the air fryer lid as well as compare it to a deep fryer, I will fill the air fryer basket and just show you how the Instant Pot air fryer lid works.

With limited foods available, I'm going to make a combination of potatoes and fried okra. Alright, the

first

thing to remember, and your biggest area of ​​concern, is to make sure the Instant Pot base is unplugged from the wall. The lid of the fryer has its own plug and both cannot be plugged in at the same

time

. So, they've created this mechanism in your plug that doesn't allow you to plug anything above or below it. So, that's a good security feature. Well, I have my... attached to the bottom of my air fryer basket and I'm going to fill it halfway with a combination of okra and potatoes.

So there you have it. Definitely enough for... I mean, maybe even three or four people as a side dish. Well, place it right inside the Instant Pot and place the air fryer lid on. I'm going to go ahead and plug it in so you can hear the sound it makes. We all love that reliable sound the Instant Pot gives us when we know the lid is on correctly. Okay, so you just put it on top (incremental beep) and there's that sound that we love. Some people like to preheat their air fryer and some don't. What I like about this Instant Pot air fryer lid is that it preheats for you without having to make that decision.

So, once you set the time, it doesn't start counting down until it reaches its ideal temperature. Alright, here is your control panel with all its functions. Let's air fry. So you just select the function and I actually wanted to do about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. If you wanted to adjust that, just do it with the plus and minus, and then you can adjust the temperature here. I like that it comes in five degree increments instead of 10. We'll go up to 400 and then you press start. (bleep) It's as simple as that. So it's super easy to use and one thing it will do about halfway through is indicate at the top that you can flip the food.

Like the other air fryers, when you remove the lid or when you open them, they stop automatically, so you can put the lid on the base and shake it, or stir it if you want, and then put it back on. Then you can do it when the indicator lights up. It will continue beeping for about 10 seconds or so and then stop. Then you don't have to turn things around. There are times when I want to leave it like this so it's nice and crispy. So, that turn indicator is just a tip, but it's nothing you have to do.

So, we'll let it slide and at the same time compare it to a traditional air fryer. So I'm going to fill this basket the same way. Well, in the air fryer basket, I have about twice as much potato and okra. I like that there is more surface area, so everything is not completely stacked on top of each other. I think it will work better, but we'll see. Well, I'll put this batch in the regular fryer and then we'll compare its functionality and performance. Come on. Another thing I'd like to point out, since they're both cooking in the background, is that the air fryer lid is a little quieter than most air fryers I've worked with.

So, that's another advantage of the air fryer lid. Alright, we're halfway there, so I'll show you where we are. Simply lift the lid and place it on the base. (beep. And it just reminds you that the lid is off. Let's see what's going on here. It looks pretty good. I'm going to shake it a little. This basket is hot inside, so you have to use something and give it a little shake. No I know if the okra was my best decision. I could use a little spatula. It's not bad. We'll put it back on the lid (incremental beep).

Now, I'll shake the fryer. handle is not too hot. I also stir it a little. Okay, we're halfway there. Alright, we're almost done with both and let's do our side-by-side comparison. The large fryer finished

first

, because it continued to run the entire time. I was

review

ing the first one. So, this is what we have. (rattling) You can hear the crunchy (beeping) Now, let's see how our fryer lid worked. Also, it sounds surprisingly crunchy (racking). side by side on a plate, so we can really make a comparison, but overall, even having to stack the ingredients in this basket, I'm surprised at how crispy they turned out.

So that's good. Come on, fryer lid. You impressed me. Well, I'm actually very pleasantly surprised with the air fryer lid attachment. I put less ingredients in there, but they were piled high, but they still turned out nice and golden. You can see that this okra turned golden brown and crispy. You can hear that. The okra on the air fryer lid turned more golden brown and crispy than the one in the traditional fryer, which tells me that even though I had more space, the air fryer's motor and fan are quite powerful. So, I really like how they performed.

The potatoes are more or less the same. Again, I put twice as many in the air fryer, but I generally like them side by side. I could say that the Instant Pot air fryer lid outperformed the traditional air fryer, because I think the fan and power behind it is a little stronger than the air fryer I have. Even having to pile the food up there, I was still able to circulate the air around it fairly evenly, I guess coming from the bottom and the top. So, they were all uniformly crispy. Let's give it a try. It's great.

So again, probably the biggest difference is the amount of food you can make in the Instant Pot with the air fryer lid attachment versus an extra large air fryer or most air fryers, but I was actually able to make this side dish. which will probably feed two to four people. The other would feed between four and six people. I just need to work on cooking times. So, overall, the performance and functionality of the Instant Pot air fryer lid works very well for basket-style fried foods. Now, let's try a larger batch of breaded items that we need to place in a single layer.

So I'm going to air fry some breaded chicken tenders and use the rack so we can create two different layers and see how that works. So, you'll want to grab your air fryer basket again with the rack placed on the bottom. We'll go ahead and put a layer of food on the bottom, then we'll insert our metal rack, then we'll put the second layer of food on it, and then we'll set it up for air frying just like that. Well, when you have breaded foods, it is good to give the fryer basket a little spray. Okay, I'm going to place a layer of breaded chicken wings.

Okay, so I'm going to insert the metal grille. It sits right in that groove. I'll also spray that layer and then place the rest of the chicken. Okay, so we're going to put them inside the air fryer, the Instant Pot, and we're going to put the lid on top. (incremental beep) Okay, I'm going to choose air fry. Again, 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I'm going to increase it to 25 minutes and then we'll hit start. (beep) Well, the fryer just told me to turn the food inside, so I'll do it. Just remove the lid. (decreasing beep) Leave it. Well, when it's time to flip, you'll want to remove the top layer.

This is a little more cumbersome, but it may be worth it for the space you're saving. This is the most difficult part. When saying this, you must be very careful. You might want to use a potholder or a dish towel, and then tongs are great, because they can go in a little bit better. You have to get that out and then you'll also want to, instead of just flipping them at the bottom, take them out completely, so you're alternating layers and flipping them. So, let's move the bottom ones up and the top ones down. Therefore, you should flip and rotate for best results.

Again, this is the hardest part. And then we'll turn them around. Ah! And then continue the cooking process. (incremental beep) (beep) Okay, once the cooking process is finished, the fan will stay on and cool down a bit. I like to go ahead and remove the top. (decreasing beep) To make it stop completely. Now we can check our food. Looks really good. Well, here are our delicious air fried chicken nuggets in the Instant Pot with the Instant Pot air fryer lid. Perfectly cooked inside. (crunchy chewy) Crispy, tastes like fried food. At the end of the day, I think the Instant Pot air fryer lid is a great purchase.

It works very well. You get the great quality that Instant Pot always offers. I think this is ideal for someone looking for an air fryer who already has an Instant Pot and isn't looking to prepare large quantities of food. I love its size compared to a traditional deep fryer. So, it's very convenient in that sense. Price-wise, it's about the same price as a really good air fryer. So, it's not the cheapest on the market, but I think it's worth it. There were only a couple of negative points. One is its size, on a different note, because you can't prepare a large amount of food in the air fryer and then the chaos of trying to flip the food when you're frying in larger batches, but if you're willing to sacrifice a little effort for the amount of space you are saving, then do it.

I almost forgot my favorite part. Cleaning. Well, the lid is obviously not dishwasher safe. You'll need to wait until it cools completely and if there's grease or residue you can take a damp cloth and wipe the edges, but the lid itself stays pretty clean. You'll want to check the storage portion of the lid. From time to time, it would need to be cleaned, but you can just put it in the dishwasher. and I love that all the air fryer components can go directly into the dishwasher. Cleaning is very simple. That's an advantage. If you have a product you would like me to try before purchasing, leave it in the comments below.

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