The first time I heard it hiss, I thought something was wrong. A soft exhale, a curling ribbon of steam, the faint crackle of heat meeting moisture. My hand hovered above the counter, not touching—just feeling. Not the dry, almost metallic rush from my old air fryer, but something deeper, rounder. The kitchen didn’t smell like fast food this time. It smelled like Sunday. Like slow-roasted garlic and caramelized carrots and something else: possibility.
When the Air Fryer Stopped Being Enough
For a while, the air fryer felt like a revelation. It sat on millions of counters, a boxy promise that you could have “crispy” anything without the oil, the mess, the guilt. We poured in frozen fries, tossed in wings, reheated leftovers, and called it innovation. It was smaller than an oven, quicker than a sheet pan, and easier than watching a skillet.
But then something shifted.
Maybe it was the noise—that relentless fan roar that turned quiet evenings into background static. Maybe it was the texture of yet another batch of “roasted” vegetables that never quite tasted roasted, just dried-out in a hurry. Or that acrid, hot-plastic smell that seemed to linger in the air long after dinner.
Most of all, it was the realization that our cooking lives were shrinking to fit inside a loud, boxy cage with a single trick: force hot air at food really fast.
We wanted something more. More ways to cook. More ways to feel. More ways to let time, not just temperature, transform what we eat.
Meet the Device That Doesn’t Just Fry
Enter the new kind of kitchen companion—a single countertop device that doesn’t simply try to be a “better air fryer,” but something else entirely. Imagine an appliance that can:
- Slow cook a stew all afternoon until the meat sighs apart.
- Pressure cook rice in minutes, fluffy and fragrant.
- Steam delicate fish fillets without drying them out.
- Sear vegetables until they blister and char just right.
- Air fry when you actually want that crisp hit.
- Bake a small loaf of bread that crackles when you tear it open.
- Roast a chicken with glassy, golden skin.
- Keep dinner warm without turning it to rubber.
- Sauté onions low and slow until they turn to jam.
Nine methods, one device—pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming, sautéing, roasting, baking, air frying, broiling, and warming—depending on the model you choose. Its face is calm, almost serene: a few buttons, a digital readout, none of the cartoonish excitement of a “guilt-free fries!” gadget. It’s here to work, not shout.
The bowl inside isn’t a shallow drawer pulled out like a file cabinet, but a deep, generous pot. You don’t toss food into it like feeding a machine. You build meals in it—layers of flavor and time stacked gently atop one another.
The Scent of Time, Not Just Heat
The first dish I tried wasn’t wings or fries. It was a simple vegetable stew. Onions first, with a slick of olive oil, using the sauté function. They began sharp and pale, then turned translucent, then gold, then amber. The new gadget didn’t rush this step; it allowed it. I stirred slowly, wooden spoon tapping against the pot with a familiar, human rhythm.
Garlic next. Then carrots, celery, and potatoes, each cut thick enough to keep their own personality in the pot. A splash of broth, a sprig of rosemary, a bit of salt, a bay leaf. I set it to slow cook, snapped the lid in place, and walked away.
The air fryer never asked me to walk away for long. It was sprint cuisine—ten, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. This new gadget nudged me toward patience. An hour in, the house began to smell like someone had been cooking for days.
Nine Ways to Cook, One Calm Corner of the Counter
The magic of this multi-method device isn’t just that it does many things; it’s how it makes those things feel connected. Each function feels like a variation on the same theme: transforming raw ingredients into something more generous, more interesting, more alive.
Here’s what one day with it on your counter can look like:
Morning: Gentle Heat, Soft Beginnings
You wake groggy, the kitchen still dim. Instead of clatter and chrome, there’s just a quiet presence waiting on the counter. You pour steel-cut oats into the pot with water, a pinch of salt, maybe some cinnamon. You choose the “pressure cook” or “porridge” setting. While you shower, steel and steam do the work.
When you lift the lid, the oats have become something else entirely—creamy, thick, clinging gently to the spoon. Not the instant kind, not the rushed microwave slurry, but something warm and grounding. You stir in berries that bleed purple into the pale oats, a swirl of honey, and notice that your morning didn’t feel like a battle with time.
Midday: The Lunch You Don’t Have to Babysit
Later, you toss in lentils, diced tomatoes, onions, cumin, and a handful of chopped spinach. A simple pressure cook, ten to fifteen minutes. There’s no watching a pot, no hovering over a stove. You answer emails, fold laundry, scroll through messages. A soft chime reminds you that lunch is gently waiting.
When the lid opens, steam rises with a sigh, carrying the scent of earth and spice. The lentils are tender, but not mush, holding their shape in a thick, fragrant stew. It tastes like care—even if you barely touched it.
Evening: One Pot, Many Personalities
This is where the old air fryer would have taken center stage—frozen nuggets, breaded fish, a tray of fries. Quick, crunchy, forgettable. Instead, tonight, you decide to give this new gadget a bigger story to tell.
You start by sautéing chicken thighs in a bit of oil until the skin picks up a little color, the edges turning crisp around the bone. You lift them out, pour in sliced mushrooms and onions, let them soak up the golden fond stuck to the bottom. A splash of wine hisses loudly, pulling up those browned bits, turning them into a sauce-in-progress.
The chicken goes back in, a ladle of broth, thyme, a scattering of salt and pepper. You snap the lid on and let the pressure cook mode carry everything into tenderness. Fifteen, twenty minutes later, you lift the lid. The meat is no longer clinging to the bone; it’s draped around it, barely held together, surrounded by a glossy, savory sauce. If you want, you can finish under an air-fry or broil-style setting to re-crisp the skin, letting it blister and deepen.
One device: sauté, pressure cook, then high, direct heat to finish. A choreography of textures the air fryer alone could never dream of.
The Quiet Power of Real Versatility
Versatility isn’t just about having nine buttons. It’s about how those buttons change your relationship to food and time.
The air fryer promised speed. This new gadget offers options: to move fast when life demands it, or to move slowly when your soul does. It can flash-cook a bowl of vegetables into a crisp-edged side dish, or it can spend six slow hours coaxing flavor from a cheap cut of meat until it tastes like a secret.
Instead of being trapped in one mode of thinking—“What can I air fry tonight?”—you start to ask a better question: “What do I want this meal to feel like?”
| Feature | Typical Air Fryer | New 9-in-1 Multi-Cooker |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking Methods | Air fry, reheat, limited bake | Air fry, pressure cook, slow cook, steam, sauté, bake, roast, broil, warm |
| Best For | Frozen snacks, quick sides | Full meals, batch cooking, stews, breads, meats, grains, and snacks |
| Texture Range | Mostly crisp/dry | Crisp, tender, saucy, moist, flaky, chewy |
| Noise Level | Loud fan | Quieter, varies by mode |
| Counter Space | One-purpose footprint | One footprint, many tools replaced |
On a small kitchen counter—maybe in a city apartment, a shared house, or a camper van—that difference matters. One device that can replace the slow cooker, the rice cooker, the air fryer, the basic oven, and even a few pots and pans means more space for cutting boards, mixing bowls, and, yes, a vase of herbs by the window.
Texture, Aroma, and the End of “Just Fine” Food
Think about texture for a moment. Air fryers excel at “crunch.” Crunchy potatoes, crunchy wings, crunchy cauliflower that masquerades as something less virtuous. But what about the silky texture of a custard steamed gently, the falling-apart shreds of pork that have relaxed into fibers, the soft, pillowy give of a dumpling that’s been steamed just long enough?
This is where the nine-in-one device quietly outpaces its single-minded cousin. It doesn’t chase only crispness; it respects the spectrum:
- Steam protects fragile proteins like fish and delicate vegetables, preserving color and softness.
- Pressure transforms tough cuts and whole grains into tender, deeply flavored dishes.
- Slow cook allows herbs and aromatics to unfurl themselves completely, threading their essence through every bite.
- Roast and bake give you crusts and crumb, golden edges and soft centers.
- Air fry and broil finish things with that familiar, satisfying crackle when you need it.
Suddenly, your usual rotation of weeknight meals doesn’t feel like a rotation anymore—it feels like a small, evolving landscape.
The Sensory Difference
With the air fryer, most meals begin the same way: open drawer, dump food, push time and temperature. There’s a certain sterility to it—efficient, yes, but distant.
With this new gadget, the process tugs you closer to the ingredients. You hear onions hit hot metal. You smell toasted spices blooming in oil. You watch steam bead on the underside of the glass lid, then roll back into the simmering sauce. You stir, you taste, you adjust. The machine assists, but doesn’t own the experience.
That matters. Not just for flavor, but for how cooking feels in your life: less like chore, more like small ritual.
Goodbye Gadget Guilt, Hello Everyday Ritual
Many of us bought air fryers in a burst of optimism, only to feel a dull, familiar guilt when they became another appliance gathering dust. The novelty faded. Fries were fries. Reheated pizza was reheated pizza. We craved something else, but the machine never learned a new trick.
A nine-method multi-cooker doesn’t stand a chance of becoming a one-trick pony because it’s baked into its DNA to do many things. The same pot that makes Sunday stew also steams Tuesday dumplings and bakes Saturday’s banana bread.
Over time, it stops being a “gadget” and becomes something more like a part of the kitchen’s architecture—a companion that quietly shows up in almost every meal. Instead of reaching for whatever is fastest, you start catching yourself thinking, “What can I let simmer while I do other things?” or “What can I cook once and eat for three days?”
And that’s where its true superpower emerges: not just saving time, but stretching it—letting your future self benefit from the care your present self is willing to give.
Batch Cooking Without the Burnout
On a Sunday afternoon, you can pressure cook a pot of beans, slow cook a batch of vegetable soup, and roast a tray of root vegetables in sequence—all in the same device. The kitchen doesn’t feel like a production line of pots and pans and chaos. It’s just one calm hub of heat, doing different things at different hours.
You portion everything into containers, stack them in the fridge, and suddenly your weeknight dinners feel less like improvisation and more like curation. The air fryer could re-crisp leftovers; this device helps you create them with intention.
Why “Goodbye Air Fryer” Feels Less Like a Loss and More Like Relief
If you’ve grown attached to your air fryer, letting it go (or at least demoting it) might feel a little disloyal. But this isn’t about turning on a beloved gadget; it’s about outgrowing a phase of cooking that was more about speed and spectacle than depth.
Beneath the trend and the hype, your kitchen is still a place of quiet alchemy—a room where scent and sound and patience conspire to feed you and the people you love. A device that acknowledges that complexity by offering nine ways to approach a single carrot, a single chicken thigh, a single pot of rice—that’s not just a “replacement” for an air fryer. It’s an invitation.
An invitation to cook more slowly when you can. To cook faster when you must. To reclaim the textures and techniques that make food feel like it’s really yours, not just output from a black box.
So, yes: goodbye, air fryer. Or, at least, goodbye to the idea that you are the pinnacle of countertop cooking. There is something newer and gentler in the kitchen now—something that doesn’t shout about being healthy or fast or trendy, but simply stands there, ready, while you decide what kind of meal, and what kind of evening, you want to have.
When you close the lid and hear that soft click, when the first curl of scented steam escapes the valve, when the house begins to fill with the smell of something becoming dinner—you’ll understand. This isn’t just about frying, or not frying. It’s about a kitchen that finally keeps pace with the way you really live.
FAQ
Is this new multi-cooker actually healthier than an air fryer?
It can be, depending on how you use it. Because it supports steaming, pressure cooking, and slow cooking, you can make flavorful dishes without relying on added fats or heavy breading. Air frying is still available when you want crisp textures, but you’re no longer limited to that style of cooking.
Will it replace my air fryer completely?
For most people, yes. The air-fry and broil-style functions in a 9-in-1 device can usually handle anything a standalone air fryer does, from fries to wings. The advantage is that you also gain many other cooking methods in the same footprint.
Is it complicated to learn all nine cooking methods?
Not really. Most models come with presets and clear labels. You can start with one or two modes—like pressure cook and sauté—and slowly explore the others. Over time, they become as natural as turning a burner from low to high.
Does it take up more space than an air fryer?
The footprint is often similar or only slightly larger, but the payoff is that it can replace several other appliances: slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, and sometimes even your need for a second oven. On a small counter, that’s a major win.
Can I still get food really crispy?
Yes. The air fry or broil-style settings circulate hot air over the food much like a traditional air fryer. If you want extra crispness, you can combine techniques—pressure cook or steam first for tenderness, then finish on high heat for a crisp exterior.
Is it suitable for beginners in the kitchen?
Very much so. Beginners benefit from presets and one-pot cooking, which reduces the chances of burning food or undercooking. As confidence grows, you can experiment with layering techniques and timing for more complex meals.
What kinds of meals work best in a 9-in-1 multi-cooker?
Soups, stews, braises, rice and grain dishes, beans, whole chickens, roasted vegetables, simple breads, yogurt, and, of course, all the usual “air fryer” favorites. It shines most when you want complete meals from a single pot with minimal hands-on time.