Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has offered a helpful tip for anyone looking to save money when cooking their dinner rather than firing up a big oven
Martin Lewis, the go-to guru for financial tips, has issued a word of caution to those swapping out their ovens for air fryers in a bid to cut costs.
The nifty kitchen gadgets have soared in popularity as households seek more budget-friendly options for rustling up their meals.
Despite the hype, on his The Martin Lewis Podcast— available across BBC Sounds, Spotify, and Apple Music — the money maestro shared his insight on when it’s actually cost-effective to use an air fryer over a standard oven with a handy ‘rule of thumb’.
On the podcast, Martin Lewis advised: “Let me give you my simple rule of thumb.”
Elucidating further about energy consumption, he explained: “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.
He broke down the costs saying: “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.”, reports the Express.
When comparing this to traditional ovens, Lewis detailed: “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 mentioned a technique for cooking poultry known as ‘spatchcocking’, or ‘butterfly’, which involves breaking the bird’s bones and flattening it out before cooking. This method can significantly cut down the cooking time, thus saving money on energy costs whether you’re using an oven or an air fryer.
