The air fryer on your counter is starting to look nervous. It’s been loyal, sure—crisping up sweet potato fries and late-night frozen pizza slices, doing its noisy whirring best to replace a deep fryer you never actually owned. But lately, as you scroll through recipes and watch videos of people slow-braising, proofing dough, dehydrating citrus wheels, and grilling steaks indoors in the dead of winter, the air fryer feels a little… one-note. The world of home cooking is shifting again, and this time the newest kitchen gadget isn’t just about frying. It’s about doing almost everything.
The Day the Air Fryer Lost Its Crown
It usually starts quietly. A friend mentions a new countertop oven they “absolutely swear by.” Another posts a picture of a whole chicken roasted to golden perfection in something that definitely doesn’t look like a standard oven. Before long, you’re watching a video of someone baking bread, steaming salmon, and grilling vegetables—without ever changing appliances.
That’s when it hits you: the age of the single-task air fryer might be ending.
The new generation of multifunction countertop cookers doesn’t just blow hot air around food. They roast, bake, grill, steam, slow-cook, sauté, dehydrate, and yes, still air-fry. Some models even proof dough or keep sauces at a steady, low simmer. Suddenly, a machine that once felt futuristic—your beloved air fryer—starts to feel like a glorified fan oven with a catchy name.
Imagine a single, sleek appliance that can handle a Sunday roast, a tray of granola, a pot of curry, and a batch of crisp kale chips, all without demanding a complete re-learn of how to cook. That’s where we’re heading: a world where “What’s for dinner?” can be answered with, “Whatever this thing can do in under an hour.”
A Machine That Smells Like Sunday Dinner
Picture an evening at home. Outside, the light is fading; the kitchen is the warmest place in the house. You pull open a compact door on the counter, and a wash of savory heat spills into the air—garlic, rosemary, and lemon lifting from a pan of chicken thighs that look like they’ve spent hours in a traditional oven. But they haven’t. They’ve been quietly roasting, then finishing under a high fan-forced heat that crisps the skin without drying the meat.
The new gadget doesn’t just circulate air; it modulates it—shifting from slow, low warmth for braises, to sharp, assertive top heat for browning. One moment it mimics the gentle hug of an old-school Dutch oven on a back burner; the next, it becomes a roaring, concentrated oven that can finish a tray of vegetables with blistered edges and soft, sweet interiors.
You can hear the difference too. If the early air fryers always sounded like a small jet engine attempting takeoff, these newer machines hum with a more disciplined restraint. Fans ramp up, then ease off as internal sensors decide what your meal needs: more color, less moisture loss, a burst of heat or a steady plateau. Instead of acting like a single switch—on or off—they behave more like a conductor, orchestrating heat, time, and airflow.
When the timer dings, you’re not reaching into a plastic basket with a wobbly handle. You’re sliding out trays or pans like you would from a traditional oven. Only this time, dinner didn’t demand the whole evening—or the whole kitchen.
Beyond Frying: Nine Ways One Gadget Changes How You Cook
What makes this new generation of kitchen appliance so different isn’t just clever branding. It’s versatility. Instead of buying an air fryer for “healthier fries” and a slow cooker for stews and an oven for everything else, you’re looking at one machine performing nine distinct cooking methods without feeling like a compromise.
Here’s how those methods quietly expand what your kitchen can do:
| Cooking Mode | What It Feels Like | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Air Fry | High-speed hot air, like a tiny, focused convection oven | Crispy potatoes, wings, breaded snacks, reheating leftovers |
| Roast | Steady heat with fan assist, deep browning and caramelization | Whole chicken, vegetables, sheet-pan dinners |
| Bake | Even heat, gentle fan, like a smaller, more precise oven | Cakes, cookies, quick breads, small loaves |
| Grill/Broil | Intense top heat, strong Maillard browning | Steaks, fish fillets, gratins, melting cheese toppings |
| Steam | Moist heat, gentle but thorough | Fish, dumplings, veggies, reheating rice |
| Slow Cook | Low, long, unhurried warmth | Stews, braises, pulled meats, bean dishes |
| Sauté/Sear | Direct heat from the base, like a pan | Browning meat, caramelizing onions, quick vegetable dishes |
| Dehydrate | Low, dry, patient airflow | Fruit chips, jerky, herb drying, citrus wheels |
| Proof/Warm | Very gentle heat, like a sunny windowsill | Bread dough, resting batter, keeping food warm without drying |
What begins as a curiosity—“So it can air-fry and roast?”—soon becomes a quiet reorganization of your entire cooking life. Instead of juggling pans on multiple burners and rotating trays in a full-size oven, you start thinking in programs: bake, then broil; slow cook, then brown; steam, then crisp. You’re not chained to a single style of cooking anymore; you’re sequencing them.
The Silent Revolution on Your Countertop
Every kitchen tells a story about the person who cooks in it. For years, the default story has been about abundance: drawers crowded with specialized gadgets, cupboards full of things you might use “someday.” A waffle maker for Sundays. A stand mixer for holidays. An air fryer for when you remember it exists. The new nine-in-one cooker writes a different kind of story.
It’s about consolidation.
You start by moving the air fryer into a lower cabinet “for now.” Then, after the first week of using your new machine to roast vegetables and crisp tofu in the same device that made your morning granola, the slow cooker moves too. After a month, you realize your full oven has mostly handled big-batch baking or holiday feasts, but day to day, the real workhorse has been this compact machine, humming away at eye level.
You notice how it changes your behavior. Meals that once seemed like too much trouble—roasted cauliflower with tahini, a tray of herbed potatoes, a small loaf of banana bread—suddenly feel easy. You’re not waiting twenty minutes for a big oven to preheat. You’re not washing multiple pots for a simple dinner. You slide in a tray, tap a mode, twist a dial, and walk away. The overhead of cooking—the emotional friction of “Do I really want to do this tonight?”—gets lower.
And there’s something almost intimate about it. Unlike a towering oven that dominates a whole corner of the kitchen, this gadget sits where you can see it, reachable, immediate. You start to cook in smaller, more frequent bursts: a pan of nuts toasted for a salad, a handful of cherry tomatoes roasted just enough to wrinkle and sweeten, a quick cardamom-scented pear crisp for two. Instead of big, rare productions, cooking becomes a series of small, daily gestures.
From Weeknight Panic to Quiet Ritual
Under the fluorescent lights of a grocery store at 6 p.m., you feel the familiar rustle of weeknight panic: What can I make that isn’t pasta again? But now, your mental math has changed.
You think: a tray of chickpeas, a handful of carrots and onions, toss with olive oil and spices, slide into the cooker on roast. While they caramelize, you rinse some greens, whisk yogurt with lemon and garlic. In thirty minutes, the kitchen smells like cumin and roasted sweetness, and you’ve hardly dirtied more than a cutting board and one pan.
Another night, it’s slow-cooked lentils. You sauté aromatics right inside the cooker, no separate pan needed. Add lentils, tomatoes, broth. Set to slow cook before work. When you return, the house smells like you live with an impossibly competent home chef. You switch to a quick broil to brown some cheese on top, then ladle comfort into deep bowls.
The gadget becomes less of a machine and more of a rhythm—heat applied just right, in just the quantity you need, right when you need it. It feels less like you’re using a tool and more like you’re collaborating with one.
Goodbye Oil-Slick Guilt, Hello Nuanced Indulgence
The air fryer entered the scene with a promise: all the crunch, none of the oil. Reality, of course, was a little more complicated. Fries improved, sure, but some foods came out dry or uneven, like they were being punished for wanting to be fried in the first place.
The new machines don’t promise to banish oil. They do something more subtle: they help you use it with intention. A scant tablespoon brushed on chicken skin becomes enough to coax out shatteringly crisp results when fans and heat work together. Vegetables tossed lightly in olive oil brown and blister as if they’d spent twice as long in a bigger oven. A thin slick of butter under a piece of fish helps it sear beautifully before the steam mode switches on to cook it through.
You’re no longer chasing the fantasy of “fried without frying.” Instead, you’re letting the gadget do what it’s best at: precision. It becomes possible to lean into textures—crisp edges and tender centers, caramelized tops and moist crumbs—without drenching anything in oil bath theatrics.
Texture as a New Kind of Luxury
Listen closely when you crack into a roasted potato: that brittle first fracture, the soft sigh of steam, the gentle collapse into a tender center. Texture is where the pleasure lives, and this is where the new gadget quietly outperforms the air fryer of old.
Instead of blasting everything with the same unrelenting wave of hot air, it layers the experience: a gentle bake to set a cake, then a shorter blast of top heat for a golden crust; a slow braise to soften meat, then a sear to finish. Your food stops tasting “air fried” and starts tasting simply well-cooked.
On a Tuesday night, you crisp chickpeas until they rattle in the pan, then toss them over a silky roasted squash mash. On Saturday, you dehydrate apple slices until they’re chewy and tart, then dunk them into melted dark chocolate briefly broiled to sheen. Indulgence shifts from “How much oil?” to “How does this feel in the mouth?”—and that’s a far more interesting question.
Making Room for One Gadget That Earns Its Keep
There’s a quiet, satisfying joy in giving away appliances you no longer need. The slow cooker that only left the cabinet twice a year. The air fryer whose nonstick basket coating was starting to flake. The toaster oven that always felt underpowered. They’re replaced by one machine that doesn’t ask you to adapt your cooking style so much as it offers to adapt to you.
The countertop looks calmer. The shelves feel lighter. But more than that, your decisions get simpler. You no longer stand in front of a dozen options, wondering which one is “right” for tonight’s experiment. There’s just the one, and it’s flexible enough that you can improvise without fear.
It also nudges you closer to cooking stories you might not have told yourself before. Proofing dough at a precise, gentle warmth means bread baking suddenly feels less mythical. Dehydrating herbs from your own windowsill plant reminds you that flavor can be stored, stretched, layered into future meals. Steaming fish and vegetables on a weeknight upgrades dinner from “survival mode” to something that feels intentionally nourishing.
Less Gadget, More Companion
Over time, this nine-in-one device stops reading like a gadget and starts reading like a companion. You learn its hot spots, its quirks, its sweet spots for your favorite dishes. It teaches you that a little patience—five extra minutes at a lower setting, a pause to rest meat after roasting—can transform outcomes.
Where the air fryer once dominated social feeds with its promise of shortcut dinners and guilt-free wings, this new machine operates with a different kind of allure: quiet competence. It doesn’t need to shout. It earns its place through repetition, reliability, and the small miracles of Tuesday-night meals that taste like they belong to the weekend.
The Future Smells Like Toasted Spices and Fresh Bread
The kitchen has always been a place where technology and tradition collide. Fire became stoves; ovens shrank; microwaves arrived with their humming convenience. The air fryer was one more chapter in that story—fun, flashy, extremely good at certain things. But this new multi-method cooker feels less like a trend and more like a new baseline.
It respects your instincts. If you love slow food, it’ll hold a gentle simmer for hours. If you’re thrilled by speed, it preheats in minutes and crisps in less. It doesn’t ask you to choose between being a serious cook and a busy person. It lets you be both, at once.
So the air fryer, faithful as it was, gets retired with a nod of appreciation. It taught us that hot air and good design could make home cooking faster, lighter, and more fun. But the next generation steps beyond that narrow promise. Nine different cooking methods in a single, compact body: not just a better way to fry, but a better way to live with food.
In the quiet of the evening, when the last tray has been pulled out and the last dish dried, your kitchen smells faintly of toasted spices and warm bread. There’s a new silhouette on the counter now, one that doesn’t need to shout to prove its worth. It’s already woven itself into your routines, your recipes, your sense of what’s possible in a small space with a little time.
The air fryer had its moment. The new era belongs to something braver, broader, and infinitely more generous with what it can do. And your dinners, from now on, will taste like it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a nine-in-one cooker really different from an air fryer with extra settings?
Yes. While some air fryers offer bonus modes, true multi-method cookers are designed from the ground up to handle varied heat types—moist and dry, low and high—often with better temperature control, steam capability, and larger, more flexible interiors than standard air fryers.
Can one gadget actually replace my oven?
For everyday cooking, often yes. For large holiday meals or baking multiple trays at once, a full-size oven is still useful. But many people find that for daily dinners, small bakes, and quick roasts, the multi-method cooker becomes their primary “oven.”
Will food still get as crispy as in an air fryer?
In most cases, crisping is as good or better. These gadgets typically use advanced fan systems and precise top heat to brown and crunch foods effectively, while also offering more nuance so you can avoid dry, overcooked interiors.
Is it hard to learn all nine cooking modes?
Surprisingly, no. Most devices come with presets and clear labels, and you can start with familiar modes like bake, roast, and air fry. Over time, you naturally explore steam, slow cook, or dehydrate as you get comfortable. It’s more like having extra options than extra homework.
Does a multi-method cooker take up more space than an air fryer?
Some models are slightly larger, but they often replace several appliances at once—air fryer, toaster oven, slow cooker, sometimes even a dehydrator or bread proofer. In practice, your countertop and cabinet space can feel less cluttered, not more.