[CounterPressure]

So about 6 months ago I finally bit the bullet and bought an air fryer. I had resisted for well over a decade. Immediately I was convinced that I had lost out on a decade. So I started cooking everything in this thing. Tonight I decided that's it, I had gone to the store and bought a strip loin, 16 lb of choice strip steaks. And I'm going to make steaks, but I've been frying them outside on cast iron. I'm ready to try my first ever air fryer steak and it is in there waiting for evaluation. If it's as good as the hamburgers, I may never fry a steak again.

[CounterPressure]

Well that was anticlimactic. Not to say the steak was bad, it was excellent. It was definitely easier to clean up, but it was certainly not as good as Pittsburgh'ed on cast iron. I would say chicken wings are unsurpassed in the air fryer, but if you have quality steaks, you're probably better off cooking them by old conventional ways.

[Bob357]

No way to replace the flavor and texture of a steak cooked over a wood fire. Charcoal comes in a close second. I will say that, in a pinch, an air fryer does a pretty good job if you can get the meat close enough to the heat source when it's time to sear. Same holds true with a gas grill.

Admittedly, any opinion of how to best cook anything is subjective.

[Drewch]

Never tried it in an air fryer.  But I like the J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's reverse sear option.  If you can do the low-n-slow part somewhere smokey, so much the better.

[CounterPressure]

Never tried it in an air fryer.  But I like the J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's reverse sear option.  If you can do the low-n-slow part somewhere smokey, so much the better.

Yeah, that's more perfection. If you have ever tried that method you certainly don't want to waste your time with the air fryer. And yeah I only tried it one time but I can tell you, it's not the same thing as searing a steak.


Early in the video he mentions that process borrows a page out of the sous vide book, and that's about it. I've been doing steaks sous vide for about 30 years and had a machine for doing sous vide for about the last 15. There's time involved and while it's ok for a lot of steaks, it's too much work for just a few.  I'm always happy to try something new so I figured I would give the air fryer a try. I've had all kinds of stuff I've done in the air fryer where I was pleasantly surprised it is a superior method. This is not one of them.

[CounterPressure]

No way to replace the flavor and texture of a steak cooked over a wood fire. Charcoal comes in a close second. I will say that, in a pinch, an air fryer does a pretty good job if you can get the meat close enough to the heat source when it's time to sear. Same holds true with a gas grill.

Admittedly, any opinion of how to best cook anything is subjective.

Due to the time involved I never do them over wood or charcoal, and I virtually never use my gas grill. I agree with you though, there's something pretty special about steak over a real fire.


Maybe the air fryer would have done a nicer job if I had not preheated the steak. I've been doing that for so many years I don't even know any other way, but it's possible the center should have been cold in order to keep it from over cooking, which is what mine did today.


My typical method is to basically pre-cook the steak either in a plastic bag in a pan of water or using my sous vide machine. Then simply to blot them dry with paper towels and sear them in a cast iron pan over my brewing burner. I've done hamburgers before in the air fryer and they have been perfect, but clearly steaks are not the same thing.

[Bob357]

There is definitely a decision to be made. Do you want quality, or convenience? I'll take quality every time and sacrifice no more than a few minutes.