Air Fryer Roasted Baby Carrots

I will admit it – I have been on the fence about buying an Air Fryer. My thought process was this… Do I NEED one? How much stuff do I really FRY anyway? Will I end up hating it? Will this be a gigantic waste of time?

And then I did it. I bought one, And it arrived in a giant happy Amazon box and I wondered what I had done. When I took it out I realized that it was pretty big, although I had gotten a 5.8 quart one which didn’t seem that big for a family of four. I took it out and I looked at it. I texted my neighbor and I looked at hers and then I talked to my other neighbor and …well, they ALL seemed to love theirs. So I put it on the counter and recycled the box, accepting that there was no going back now.

I bought a little accessory kit on Amazon that had a divider, a couple of racks, some skewers and a cooking pot and a little pan that all fit inside of the air fryer. I even bought a cookbook. I was READY!

I didn’t want to start with French Fries (but I did anyway) and when they turned out okay I moved on to chicken tenders. Those things are fine but not our usual fare so I decided to push the limits just a teeny bit and I turned my attention to other things that I could experiment with.

We like veggies and the air fryer allows you to use less oil for roasted veggies than you would in the oven. I decided to try to roast carrots because it I knew it would be fast and it was something my kids would eat. I put a pound of baby carrots into a medium bowl and added olive oil, minced garlic, kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. I tossed them around until they were well coated, turned the air fryer to 400 degrees (which is the hottest mine will go) and put them in for 10 minutes. I didn’t put them directly into the basket but instead into the little cooking pot that sits in the basket that was part of the air fryer accessory kit that I bought.

After the 10 minutes were up I pulled out the basket to take a look and give them a stir. They were still shiny and although they were softer, they were nowhere near done. So I put them back in for 8 more minutes.

After a total of 18 minutes in my air fryer, they were ready. They were not soggy, floppy or mushy by any means. I stirred in some dried dill and they were actually pretty delicious, even without any butter. They were like restaurant roasted carrots and they were devoured by my kids.

So far the air fryer experimentation is a success so far. I am not finished trying new things in it. I’ll keep you posted!