This is what restaurants use to fry their food in to make fried chicken, steak, chimichanga, french fries, onions rings, apple pie, and more. These are obviously just a few of the foods that can be fried, as almost anything can be, especially with more inventions coming to the table.
Air Fryer
Air fryers are capable of frying any type of food. They are really versatile, with the ability to fry the basics, like french fries, steak, and chicken, but also able to cook rotisserie chicken as well.
However, the main reason that restaurants use air fryers to fry food is because of its health benefits and convenience. The food doesn’t have to be submerged in oil completely in order to effectively fry the food, hence the name, “air fryer”. It uses fans to circulate the heat produced by other heating elements in the fryer to air fry the food.
For foods that are usually deep fried completely in oil, the air fryer is capable of making those foods with 60% to 200% less calories than it would have had if it was deep fried. Cooking oil has a lot of calories in it, with 1 tablespoon of the most popular cooking oils being around 120 calories. Depending on the food, it soaks up a certain amount of the oils while it is being fried in it. This significantly increases its calories.
Restaurants use air fryers to fry in, because they are healthier, but also produces less of a mess compared to other deep frying ways. The air fryer uses trays, a rotisserie (on some of them), and a rack to place the food on in the air fryer while it cooks. The trays and racks are removable, so it is easy to clean.
Commercial air fryers used by restaurants to fry food is also a safer alternative. It prevents the chef/employees from easily burning themselves from hot oil like they would while using a frying pan, deep fryer, or even a grill. The air fryer resembles an oven, even though they are not the same thing, and has a door that shuts the food in while it is air frying.
The benefits of restaurants using an air fryer is its ability to reheat food too, just like a microwave, making them an excellent substitution for replacing one. However, because of their limited size, restaurants that use only air fryers to fry their foods have to buy multiple air fryers in order to keep up with the demands of their customers.
Commercial Deep Fryer
Commercial deep fryers are the most commonly used methods that restaurants use to fry their foods in. Restaurants fill them with cooking oil (usually either canola, peanut, or vegetable oil), which the deep fryer heats to high temperatures, and places the food in the baskets and then the oil to fry.
Commercial deep fryers are extremely effective at frying large portions of food really fast. They provide a lot more space than what an air fryer would, and are pretty safe to cook in as long as common sense is used. They are a bit more messy, and require additional cleaning, but restaurants buy them anyways because they are worth the time and effort.
Deep fryers deliver the best tasting foods, because they cook the foods that are frying by having them completely submerged in cooking oil. Salts and oils are the primary thing that makes foods taste better when cooking. A commercial deep fryer is able to maximize the flavor of fried foods and thoroughly cook larger portions without cutting them up to smaller pieces.
Even though the fried foods will have more calories, the food flavor is sometimes what people prefer over anything else. It is easier to produce flavorful foods when using a deep fryer to fry foods in, which could save the restaurant time and effort depending on the type of foods that they are frying.
Commercial Air Fryer Vs Commercial Deep Fryer
When it comes down to which options the restaurant decides to use when frying foods, there are some things to account for for the commercial deep fryer vs the commercial air fryer.
The main differences from the two is the texture of the food, and the flavor of the food. Because the food in an air fryer is air fried with little to no cooking oil, it is healthier but lacking in flavor. Deep fried foods will be fattier, but have a better flavor that is sometimes easily noticeable when the same food is fried using both fryers in comparison.
The texture of the foods may also be different when comparing the commercial air fryer and deep fryer for frying. The deep fryer may provide a better texture to the crisp of the fried food sometimes, while the air fryer adds a new type of crisp that makes the food crispy crunchy.
Even with these differences the air fryer rivals the deep fryer in both the texture and the taste. Some foods are completely undetectable on whether the were air fried or not when cooked, with the air fryer sometimes doing better.
Cleaning
The cleaning after the food is fried will be a lot easier to deal with in an air fryer than it would be for a commercial deep fryer. Commercial deep fryers require more than just a wipe off to keep them functioning. They have to be filtered out, and the oil has to be changed periodically. This is not the case with an air fryer.
Versatility
The air fryer is more versatile in its ways of cooking the food, because the air fryer doesn’t need oil to fry the food. To some this may seem like a disadvantage, but as mentioned, some air fryers (the commercial ones) can also make rotisserie chicken. They can slow cook, bake, reheat, grill, defrost, hot-hold, and roast food. Nearly every type of food can be made in an air fryer if you know what you are doing, and it comes out very well with a lot of positive reviews. It is capable of producing tender and juicy quality food as well.
The deep fryer only has one way of using it, which is putting the food in the oil, making it less versatile. However, its one way method is a strength since it doesn’t require extra things to be done to get the straight forward deep frying excellent results.
Efficiency
The deep fryer is more efficient at frying foods than the air fryer when it comes to large quantities. The commercial air fryer has the ability to fry a whole chicken, but the deep fryer has the ability to do two, three, or even 10 at one time, as some commercial deep fryers are very large.
The space inside of an air fryer can be offset by using two or more for large quantity frying however.
One deep fryer is capable of frying hundreds of food items at one time, while the air fryer takes only a batch at a time.
Both the air fryer and deep fryer can fry and cook foods at a faster rate than the conventional oven.
