There are very easy ways to clean your deep fryer.
We break it down in detail here. the result? use soap and water on the basket and rack. use a damp cloth to clean the heating element, if it needs cleaning and once it has cooled down. You can clean the exterior with disinfecting wipes or a cloth.
but if you want an easy deep clean, let's say your fryer has been dirty for a long time, then tiktok has a hack for that. user @maverickmcbee (opens in a new tab) posted a tiktok in which she heated up soapy water (opens in a new tab) to deep clean her kitchen basket.
the basic steps, as described by @maverickmcbee, were.
fill your fryer with soapy water.
Air fry at 370 degrees for 3 minutes.
Dump the water, rinse and see a much cleaner air fryer.
this is what it looked like on the viral tiktok, which has amassed nearly 9 million views.
When I started my test of this hack, I first had to assess the cleanliness of my fryer. the machine gets a lot of use considering i do these airfryday tests at least once a week. but i find my air fryer, an instant pot brand vortex (opens in a new tab), very easy to clean, considering the interior is just a nonstick drawer with a removable nonstick rack.
upon inspection, there were a few greasy stains stuck to the bottom of the rack and a couple of scuffs here and there, probably due to some shoddy hand drying through your server. here are some close ups.
so I loaded up my deep fryer with a ton of dish soap and some warm water, then agitated the water to make it foam. it looked like this.
From there, I carefully popped the water-filled drawer into the air fryer for 3 minutes at 370 degrees. Before I knew it, the weird cook was done.
but when I pulled out the drawer, the hot water was nearly clear, which didn't give me much hope about the trick's effectiveness. this is what it looks like.
in the viral tiktok, the resulting water was brown in color. so I clearly didn't take as much dirt as that.
upon closer inspection, watermarks and light dirt were removed from the top of the grille, which was nice. however, most of the accumulated grease on the bottom of the grill remained. a quick rinse didn't remove it, although I was able to scrape it up, meticulously, with a paper towel. but that would have been the case before the attack, I suspect.
Here are images of the remaining grease and the top of the grill, mostly clean.
so does the trick work? Yes and no. hot soap and water will do some cleaning. I think a lot is clear and obvious. is it radically better than just using a sponge and tap water? or, better yet, using the dishwasher? No, not really. but it is very easy.
You just wouldn't expect it to magically remove the hard fat that's actually stuck. however, I will admit that this trick might work better for different types of fryers that don't seem so easy to clean by hand. The nonstick on the vortex makes it a breeze to clean. I could see this trick coming in handy for fryers that use wire baskets or even the guy on the viral tiktok who seems to have more places for food to stick.
so there you have it, fry up some water and you could be rewarded with a cleaner machine.