Can Jamie Oliver's air fryer recipes REALLY transform your meals? Our writer's ... trends now

Let’s be honest, it was only a matter of time before king of the TV kitchen Jamie Oliver got on board with the air fryer craze. 

Unlike any that have come before, air fryers have seemed to stay top of the list of must-have kitchen gadgets for some time now.

Most of us are likely pretty good at air fryer cooking these days, making use of the many recipe books that have been published, not to mention tonnes of TV segments and literally millions of hacks broadcast across TikTok and Instagram.

Their popularity means it’s perhaps not unsurprising that Jamie Oliver failed to impress with his new series about cooking with air fryers. 

From the list of ingredients and associated cost, to his techniques that don’t seem to allow for having to clean your own air fryer, plus the clear product placement, reviews of the first episodes of Oliver’s episodes - in which he promised to show that air fryers are about 'so much more than nuggets and chips' - were scathing. 

An air fryer fan myself (I cooked a whole Christmas Party in one once just to see if I could), I’m always up for a few new recipes, so decided to try some of Oliver’s creations myself and see how easy they are.

A quick look through the collection (which you have to sign up for to gain access to some of the recipes, and swerve the many Tefal adverts along the way - one of the sources of criticism of the new series) and there’s a nice enough selection, from a strange-sounding ‘gnarly pork and pineapple noodles’ to ‘Kerala-style roast chicken’ and ‘Prosciutto baked fish’ which sadly looks slightly unappealing thanks to the image. 

I opt to try a selection. Air fryer barbecue chicken thighs, because who doesn’t love barbecue chicken. Salmon with crispy potatoes, because it’s more like a ‘proper meal’ than some of the other recipes on there. 

Then a few baked goods - air fryer oat cookies, and cheese and chive scones - as I’m still not quite sold on the idea of baking in an air fryer, so maybe Jamie Oliver will be the one to convince me.

Predictably, the ingredients lists require a trip to the local Co-op with the hope they’ll have everything I need. 

To be fair to Oliver, the list isn’t too far out of the ordinary and is fairly bog standard, though I might have helped him out with my recipe choice. 

Herbs is where I’m let down, but I decide I can make do, and commit to my cheese scones being chive-less - but hopefully still tasty.

The shop for the main ingredients for the four recipes - bearing in mind I’ve got a few staples like flour and other spices in my store cupboard already - comes to just over £20. 

It doesn’t seem unreasonable for two meals for two, plus endless baked goods that will see us through a couple of days of snacking (unless they’re awful of course), compared to some ingredients lists. 

But given the fact food bills are still problematic for many people, hence so many of us turning to air fryers as a cost-saving option, forking out £20 for essentially four meals and some treats may be seen as a step too far compared to some of the other air fryer and one-pot options out there.

I start with the chicken, figuring that cooking salmon first will mean I definitely have to wash the air fryer between recipes, whereas this way round I can probably cook it afterwards. 

The recipe is easy enough - essentially coating chicken thighs in a barbecue rub along with breadcrumbs, which I make thanks to a rogue piece of bread from the back of the freezer, then air fried, with corn on the cob added on top after the chicken’s had a head start. 

The corn comes out nice and golden (thanks to a liberal spray of olive oil spray on my part) and while some of the chicken does, some breadcrumbs still look a bit anaemic at the end of the cooking time. 

I’d love to trust Jamie Oliver, but instead I choose to trust my temperature probe and it confirms that yes, the thighs are indeed cooked. 

I serve it all with a pot of barbecue sauce, because I can’t be bothered with Jamie’s suggested ‘crunchy slaw’, and to be fair it looks pretty good. 

As appealing as a golden, crispy pile of fried chicken? Maybe not, but we knew that wouldn’t be the case. 

It’s a crowd-pleaser, though, and one you could easily serve up for friends. But is it doing anything we haven’t been doing with chicken in air fryers for a few years now? Not really. 

Annoyingly, though, my air fryer is now full of breadcrumbs so my plan to be able to re-use it without washing it is ruined. Off I

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