Cooking and energy use - best methods to reduce costs?

Northern_Wanderer

Chloe_G said:

My Tower air fryer takes up a lot of space on the worktop but you can only cook a portion of chips in it for one person.  I wouldn't have room for a larger one!

The size of the unit, the space you have for it and if it is big enough for one's needs in a important consderation when buying these gadgets. If it just does one portion of chips it might not be an energy saver.

adindas

Northern_Wanderer said:

Hi,

Looking for suggestions of how to reduce energy use/ costs for cooking please.  Planning a kitchen refurb soon. Currently using an electric hob, table top oven and microwave.

Getting quite p'd with the oven as it is fine for small items but takes longer time than it should to cook bigger things and suspect costs far more to cook than it should. I will get an induction hob with new kitchen. Am considering to buy one of the multi-cooker/ air fryers now which have slow cooker and pressure cooker included. I'm considering what sort/ size of electric oven I should get for new kitchen as I probably won't require a large oven very often.

What is the cheapest way to cook in terms of energy use? Is a multi-cooker a cheap way to cook? Does a slow cooker/ pressure cooker use less energy for a meal than the hob? How do I calculate energy usage of an appliance for a meal? I prefer to only use microwave for defrosting or heating, not cooking. Am trying to defrost in fridge as well.

Any tips appreciated. Not sure if this is correct forum.

The most efficient way saving energy cost in cooking in my opinion is to just buy a ready meals from the supermarket and put it in microwave. Say the electricity cost is 20p per KWH you are using 1KW microwave to warm up the meals for five minutes you are only paying 1.67p (e/g 2p rounding up) for that. You could put two meals at the same time in microwave.

But life and cooking is not just about energy. Some people see cooking their own meals as a hobby. Also many of ready meals are unhealthy with a lot of preservatives, colourants, etc.

Northern_Wanderer

Effician said:

littleteapot said:

Mstty said:

Percypeeved said:

If I am doing something like a stew, pasta dish, cottage pie or a dish that can be reheated in the microwave, I make double, chill and refrigerate half and have it the next day or day after. Saves on energy and washing up.

Skills that I fear the deliveroo generation never had and need quickly 

Going back on topic, whilst cooking some chicken and roast potatoes in the combination microwave yesterday evening I was thinking about the vast amount of heat radiated by this device into the room.

We have a Sharp 40l combi & using the poultry setting for a 1.8kg chicken it uses ~1.5kWh. Cooking the same size chicken in the pressure cooker & then crisping the skin in the air fryer uses ~0.6kWh. The taste & texture are close but different  in a good way though & i must add that we normally inject the flesh with a garlic & ginger infused olive oil as this makes for better cold cuts.

That's good to know re kwh used. I did a whole chicken in my foodie, it took was so much quicker than my rubbish table top oven and was really succulent. I used the steam air fry option and in total took me about an hour to make from prep to plate.

Northern_Wanderer

Ant555 said:

ref air fryers - im seriously considering an air fryer as an alternative to using the oven and have watched a handful of youtube videos but many of them seem to involve cooking stuff, putting it to one side then cooking something else.  My immediate thought is that I would put the oven on to keep that first lot of food warm whilst the second lot cooks   

I am going to watch a few more tutorials but is that a general feature of cooking using an air fryer that people just adapt to, or is is just that you need to get a larger one if you want to cook more stuff to be ready at the same time?

Some air fryers have two bins and you have two cooking temperatures. I'm finding the air fryer part of my multi-cooker ninja quite a challenge. It's so poweful that stuff cooks very quickly and you have to learn how much to lower the temp/ cooking time by. I get on better with the basket compared to the rack which is higher up and closer to heat element. I'm still learning though but cooking many things at once is a little bit of a faff. Good idea to watch youtubes to see if it's for you.

adindas

Northern_Wanderer said:

Effician said:

littleteapot said:

Mstty said:

Percypeeved said:

If I am doing something like a stew, pasta dish, cottage pie or a dish that can be reheated in the microwave, I make double, chill and refrigerate half and have it the next day or day after. Saves on energy and washing up.

Skills that I fear the deliveroo generation never had and need quickly 

Going back on topic, whilst cooking some chicken and roast potatoes in the combination microwave yesterday evening I was thinking about the vast amount of heat radiated by this device into the room.

We have a Sharp 40l combi & using the poultry setting for a 1.8kg chicken it uses ~1.5kWh. Cooking the same size chicken in the pressure cooker & then crisping the skin in the air fryer uses ~0.6kWh. The taste & texture are close but different  in a good way though & i must add that we normally inject the flesh with a garlic & ginger infused olive oil as this makes for better cold cuts.

That's good to know re kwh used. I did a whole chicken in my foodie, it took was so much quicker than my rubbish table top oven and was really succulent. I used the steam air fry option and in total took me about an hour to make from prep to plate.

For some people with an opportunity cost that one hour cooking and  prepping might cost them £50 (say)

For this it it cheaper if they just buy a whole roasted chicken from take away shop or big supermarkets..

Northern_Wanderer

EssexHebridean said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

Thanks for the comments so far.

The Ninja Foodi does look quite big, but I'm very tempted because it has air fryer/ steam/ slow/ pressure cooker in one. I'm not sure which size to go for as it's just 2 of us but I do tend to cook more than needed and freeze it. There's a 11-in-1 6L 1460W and a 14-in-1 7.5L 1760W (which is cheaper on offer just now) - anyone using either of these? Is it going to cost a lot more to run the 7.5L?

I'm currently deliberating over one of the Ninja Foodi's too - the 6l model which would be plenty big enough for us. My dilemma is because we currently cook mostly on gas - with occasional use of a combi microwave or a slow cooker. As someone else said above, if we use the main oven rather than the smaller top one, we try to fill it, so I have the feeling that the ninja would  actually increase our costs, even once the not inconsiderable purchase cost is removed from the equation. I'm unconvinced it would do the slow cooking thing better than our existing large crockpot style one, it *might* cut down on the use of either just the combi or the microwave plus small oven for things like jacket tatties - but overall I'm unsure whether this is "enough" to justify it. Realistically we're not going to be replacing the gas cooker with electric - it's only 5 years old, we like it, it does a good job and we both prefer using gas hobs, in particular. Possibly the 11-in 1 could replace the combi microwave - but realistically - would it?  

I'd be really interested to hear anyone else's take on this as frankly I've reached the point of total indecision! 

As you already have a decent hob/ combi oven/ slow cooker it's a harder decision. I was struggling with an ancient ceramic hob with poor temp control (which was tricky with the stove top pressure cooker) and a rubbish mini oven plus I wanted to a slow cooker and air-fryer. So for me it was a no brainer as it adds a lot of value for me. I love the pressure cooker and that it controls the temp perfectly, and in fact I use that most now. I love that I don't have to stand over the pans stirring or checking the temp. I don't think the 11 in 1 would replace the combi but it can do a LOT for sure. I'm making an effort to do one pot meals which I can in the foodie, including grilling a topping at the end. I'm going to attempt to bake a carrot cake tonight. I'm a bit wary of the air fryer as it is so fast but just need to learn more about it.

Northern_Wanderer

adindas said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

Hi,

Looking for suggestions of how to reduce energy use/ costs for cooking please.  Planning a kitchen refurb soon. Currently using an electric hob, table top oven and microwave.

Getting quite p'd with the oven as it is fine for small items but takes longer time than it should to cook bigger things and suspect costs far more to cook than it should. I will get an induction hob with new kitchen. Am considering to buy one of the multi-cooker/ air fryers now which have slow cooker and pressure cooker included. I'm considering what sort/ size of electric oven I should get for new kitchen as I probably won't require a large oven very often.

What is the cheapest way to cook in terms of energy use? Is a multi-cooker a cheap way to cook? Does a slow cooker/ pressure cooker use less energy for a meal than the hob? How do I calculate energy usage of an appliance for a meal? I prefer to only use microwave for defrosting or heating, not cooking. Am trying to defrost in fridge as well.

Any tips appreciated. Not sure if this is correct forum.

The most efficient way saving energy cost in cooking in my opinion is to just buy a ready meals from the supermarket and put it in microwave. Say the electricity cost is 20p per KWH you are using 1KW microwave to warm up the meals for five minutes you are only paying 1.67p (e/g 2p rounding up) for that. You could put two meals at the same time in microwave.

But life and cooking is not just about energy. Some people see cooking their own meals as a hobby. Also many of ready meals are unhealthy with a lot of preservatives, colourants, etc.

I sometimes have micro meals but really want to get away from the hormone disruptors in heated plastic that we are consuming. Also, they are not proper food in my opinion. We need real food to nourish our bodies, not sugar and preservatives and goodness knows what else. Also, the cost of microwave meals is not always cheap.

Northern_Wanderer

adindas said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

Effician said:

littleteapot said:

Mstty said:

Percypeeved said:

If I am doing something like a stew, pasta dish, cottage pie or a dish that can be reheated in the microwave, I make double, chill and refrigerate half and have it the next day or day after. Saves on energy and washing up.

Skills that I fear the deliveroo generation never had and need quickly 

Going back on topic, whilst cooking some chicken and roast potatoes in the combination microwave yesterday evening I was thinking about the vast amount of heat radiated by this device into the room.

We have a Sharp 40l combi & using the poultry setting for a 1.8kg chicken it uses ~1.5kWh. Cooking the same size chicken in the pressure cooker & then crisping the skin in the air fryer uses ~0.6kWh. The taste & texture are close but different  in a good way though & i must add that we normally inject the flesh with a garlic & ginger infused olive oil as this makes for better cold cuts.

That's good to know re kwh used. I did a whole chicken in my foodie, it took was so much quicker than my rubbish table top oven and was really succulent. I used the steam air fry option and in total took me about an hour to make from prep to plate.

For some people with an opportunity cost that one hour cooking and  prepping might cost them £50 (say)

For this it it cheaper if they just buy a whole roasted chicken from take away shop or big supermarkets..

I'm not sure in what instance it would could £50 to buy and cook a chicken but certainly it might be cheaper to buy a pre roasted chicken (for now but I suspect costs will have to go up due to surges in energy prices). I prefer to know what's in my food, that's all.

Effician

Northern_Wanderer said:

Effician said:

littleteapot said:

Mstty said:

Percypeeved said:

If I am doing something like a stew, pasta dish, cottage pie or a dish that can be reheated in the microwave, I make double, chill and refrigerate half and have it the next day or day after. Saves on energy and washing up.

Skills that I fear the deliveroo generation never had and need quickly 

Going back on topic, whilst cooking some chicken and roast potatoes in the combination microwave yesterday evening I was thinking about the vast amount of heat radiated by this device into the room.

We have a Sharp 40l combi & using the poultry setting for a 1.8kg chicken it uses ~1.5kWh. Cooking the same size chicken in the pressure cooker & then crisping the skin in the air fryer uses ~0.6kWh. The taste & texture are close but different  in a good way though & i must add that we normally inject the flesh with a garlic & ginger infused olive oil as this makes for better cold cuts.

That's good to know re kwh used. I did a whole chicken in my foodie, it took was so much quicker than my rubbish table top oven and was really succulent. I used the steam air fry option and in total took me about an hour to make from prep to plate.

About 40 mins total for us  made up of 30 mins using the 6l pressure cooker on the induction hob + a little under 10 mins in the cosori air fryer depending on how well done you like the skin, this is a little quicker than the combi .

Having measured the usage costs of much of the foods we cook the cheapest option is often a combination of appliances, although getting the texture & flavour we like may sometimes mean a compromise on cost.

wild666

new_owner said:

We use a slow cooker, microwave 5.something L air fryer and we have an 8L instant Pot with an air fryer lid and 5.6L without. We use them for cooking constantly. we have not used the oven since the start of the year.

We bought the instant pot over the ninja because we preferred the more compact sizes and the separate lids (+lower costs)

The Ninja 11 in 1 is a slow cooker, pressure cooker and air fryer plus other methods in one. I haven't used my cooker since I bought mine but I do have a one ring Induction hob for thinks that I cannot cook in the Ninja like rice, I suppose it cooks rice but not a sweet and sour recipe.