What’s the best fake frying method, oven or air-fryer?

You won’t fool guests into thinking it’s the real thing, but one method does better at crisp-juicy combo

Fried food is the bad houseguest of cooking techniques: It’s a crowd-pleaser, but behind the kitchen door it’s messy, temperamental and leaves a foul stink. We wondered if there was a better way to indulge our fried fetish at home, so we bought an airfryer and cranked up the oven to see whether we could fake it using either appliance.

First, for those who think a good knife and pot are the only things you need to cook: An air fryer is a kitchen appliance the size of a large coffee maker — our GoWISE 5.8quart model cost a little over $100 — and it essentially combines a small convection oven with a fry basket.

We were curious to see whether it would perform better than a conventional oven — a gas one, operated at temperatures ranging from 375 degrees to 450 degrees. We tried rimmed and unrimmed cookie sheets, with and without parchment paper to prevent sticking.

We breaded chicken — bone-in and boneless using two different techniques — chopped up sweet potatoes, sliced onions, mandolined regular potatoes and ripped open boxes of frozen samosas and cheese sticks. The results? The air fryer reliably produced crispier surfaces and did a much better job replicating that special feat of frying: creating food with a dry crust and a moist center.

In the oven, breaded items fared worst, with the coating occasionally sloughing off before we got food to the plate. Even when food came out well, no one would have mistaken it for fried.

Both options require substantially less oil, offering more-healthful alternatives to deep-fat frying.

So, should you buy an air fryer? It was relatively simple to use, requiring food to be occasionally tossed or turned; typically took much less time than the conventional oven; and was easy to clean.

It depends on how much you crave fried food and whether you have a spare chunk of change and kitchen space. In my house, it would likely end up in my pantry, aka the appliance graveyard.

When I want to indulge in something fried, I’d rather dine out.

Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune Chicken fried in oil in a skillet, left, was more crispy than pieces cooked in an air fryer, right. But some tasters found the air-fried more juicy.