The air fryer on the counter looks strangely quiet.
Last year it was the star of every TikTok recipe, humming away with frozen fries and “healthy” nuggets. Today, in more and more kitchens, it’s being pushed back against the wall, half unplugged, slightly greasy, slowly turning into an expensive bread box. The new kid is louder, bulkier, and awkwardly proud of its nine glowing icons: steam, bake, air fry, slow cook, sauté, grill, reheat, dehydrate, yogurt.
One machine to rule them all, promise the ads.
But between rushed parents, tech-curious foodies, and outraged purists clutching their cast-iron pans, this new multi cooker isn’t just an appliance.
It’s starting an argument at the heart of the home.
From air fryer darling to crowded countertop: a quiet coup in the kitchen
Scroll any food group and you’ll see it: that same photo of a cluttered counter.
An air fryer, a rice cooker, a slow cooker, a toaster oven — and now, this imposing multi cooker with more buttons than an airplane cockpit. The owner usually asks the same desperate question: “Which one should I keep?”
The air fryer, once the miracle gadget of weeknight dinners, is slowly losing the spotlight.
This nine-function beast claims it can do the same job, plus eight more, in a single stainless-steel tower.
Take Maya, 34, who cooks every night after work. Last year she proudly posted “Air fryer changed my life” over a picture of golden chicken wings.
Last week, a new post appeared: a chunky multi cooker she bought on sale, with the old air fryer shoved into the background like a forgotten ex.
She now steams dumplings, slow-cooks bolognese, and bakes banana bread in the same machine.
The air fryer only comes out on weekends, when her partner insists wings “taste different” in the old basket.
Brands know this fatigue. They watched people buy three, four, five separate gadgets, then complain about space, cables, and cleaning.
The answer they’re pushing is simple: one device that does everything, replacing your air fryer, slow cooker, steamer and sometimes even the oven.
Food purists see a threat to tradition, a kind of culinary shortcut that flattens taste and texture.
Time-poor home cooks see freedom, fewer dishes, and an appliance that pretends to be a sous-chef.
That’s where the split begins.
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The nine-function promise: genius hack or flavor killer?
The core trick of this controversial multi cooker is its “stacked time” approach.
You can start by searing onions on high sauté, switch to pressure mode for quick cooking, then let it finish on low warm, all inside the same pot.
For people who work late, this is a quiet revolution.
Throw in lentils, vegetables, spices, a bit of stock, tap a program, and walk away. The machine handles the heat curves, the timing, the steam release.
*It basically turns “I have no time” into “Dinner is already done.”*
Still, this is exactly what drives traditional cooks up the wall.
Chef friends complain that steam-heavy appliances mute flavor, that slow roasting in an oven can’t be faked by a preset. One baker showed how her bread came out from the multi cooker: soft, pale, almost too polite.
Then she pulled out a loaf from a battered Dutch oven. The crust crackled, the crumb sang, the kitchen smelled like a bakery.
“Tell me this button can do that,” she said, tapping the multi cooker like a misbehaving phone.
The machine won for convenience. The oven won for soul.
Underneath the arguments about crispiness and caramelization sits a simpler question: what do we want from everyday cooking?
If the goal is survival dinners between two Zoom calls, the nine-function tool looks almost heroic. Program, forget, eat.
If the goal is pleasure, ritual, and that slow dance with heat and time, the box of presets feels suspicious.
Let’s be honest: nobody really does this every single day.
Most of us are stuck halfway — wanting deep flavor on a Tuesday night, but also wanting to not cry over an onion at 8:45 p.m.
Using the new multi cooker without losing your sanity — or your taste buds
The cooks who seem happiest with this new machine treat it as an assistant, not a dictator.
They ignore half the presets and focus on three or four that fit their real life: pressure cook for beans and stews, air fry for reheating leftovers, steam for vegetables, slow cook for Sunday batch meals.
One simple ritual keeps them sane.
They decide the texture first — crispy, tender, saucy, brothy — then choose the function that gets them closest to that result.
The button never comes before the goal.
A big trap is trying to “do it all” because the machine says it can.
People throw in too many ingredients, too much liquid, too many steps, then wonder why everything tastes like a well-seasoned mush.
Start small.
Choose one dish you already cook well — say, your chili, your lentil soup, your roast veggies. Then adapt only that recipe to the multi cooker, changing a single variable at a time.
If something fails, it’s not proof you’re a bad cook.
It’s just proof the preset was written by someone who doesn’t know your stove, your pan, your taste buds, or your weeknight stress.
“Tech won’t replace real cooking,” says Léa, a home cook who tests appliances for her blog. “It just lowers the bar for how bad a Tuesday can be.”
- Use it for what it’s best at: long-cooking dishes, grains, and “set-and-forget” meals become easier, cheaper, and less stressful.
- Keep one specialty tool you truly love: a trusty pan, a Dutch oven, or **your original air fryer** if it still makes you happy.
- Clean it the same night: dried-on starch in a multi cooker is a tiny nightmare waiting for you in the morning.
- Don’t chase every trend: one or two reliable recipes you repeat are worth more than ten you’ll never touch again.
- Remember the plain truth: the machine is a tool, not a personality upgrade — you won’t magically become someone who meal-preps for the whole week.
What this “appliance war” really says about how we want to live
Behind the memes about air fryers versus nine-function beasts, there’s a quieter story about time, energy, and what we call “good food.”
Some people feel guilty for using machines at all, as if true love for cooking means three pots on the stove and a sink full of dishes. Others feel guilty for not using their gadgets enough, like they’re failing some modern productivity test.
The multi cooker isn’t just changing what we eat.
It’s changing how we feel about the effort behind every plate.
We’ve all been there, that moment when you stare at the fridge, phone in one hand, delivery app in the other, and a very expensive appliance judging you from the counter.
Maybe the real shift isn’t saying goodbye to the air fryer or hello to some new all-in-one miracle.
Maybe it’s accepting that some nights we crave a perfectly crisped chicken thigh from a cast-iron pan, and other nights we just want soup that cooks while we’re in the shower.
Both can exist in the same kitchen, on the same counter, with the same slightly scratched multi cooker humming in the background.
The controversy will keep raging online: “Real cooks don’t use presets”, “My multi cooker saved my life”, “Air fryer forever”.
Yet in the end, the most interesting conversations happen off-screen — in messy, half-renovated kitchens where a pot is simmering, the multi cooker is beeping, and someone is quietly deciding what stays and what goes.
Some air fryers will end up in cupboards.
Some multi cookers will be sold second-hand.
And some homes will find a weird, honest balance between tradition and convenience, between flavor and fatigue, between what we dream of cooking and what we can manage on a tired Thursday night.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Test, don’t worship, the nine functions | Focus on 3–4 modes that match your real habits instead of chasing every preset | Reduces overwhelm and helps the appliance fit your actual life |
| Keep one “joy tool” alongside the multi cooker | Hold onto the pan, Dutch oven, or **air fryer** that still gives you pleasure to use | Protects flavor, texture, and your personal cooking identity |
| Use the gadget to ease weekdays, not replace cooking | Reserve it for beans, grains, stews, and batch meals that usually drain your time | Less stress, fewer dishes, and more energy for the meals that really matter to you |
FAQ:
- Question 1Is a nine-function multi cooker really better than an air fryer?
- Answer 1It’s different, not strictly better. You gain versatility — stews, rice, yogurt, steaming — but often lose the intense crispiness and speed people love from a dedicated air fryer.
- Question 2Can one multi cooker safely replace several appliances?
- Answer 2For many households, yes. It can stand in for a rice cooker, slow cooker, steamer and sometimes the air fryer, as long as you accept some trade-offs on texture and capacity.
- Question 3Does food taste worse from a multi cooker?
- Answer 3Not automatically. Long-simmered dishes, curries, beans and soups often taste great. Where it struggles is with deep browning, crunchy crusts and delicate baking.
- Question 4Is it worth upgrading if my air fryer still works?
- Answer 4If you mostly reheat and crisp things, probably not. If you want help with full meals, dried beans, grains or batch cooking, the upgrade might genuinely lighten your routine.
- Question 5How do I choose between brands and models?
- Answer 5Ignore the marketing and look at capacity, cleaning difficulty, noise level and which 3–4 functions you’ll use weekly. The best machine is the one that earns a permanent spot on your counter.