Serious question, I preheated my air fryer for 2 months straight and one frozen pizza showed me why
I got my air fryer back in March and for two whole months I ran it empty for 5 minutes before every single thing I cooked, just because the manual said so. Last week I was starving after a job in Tacoma and tossed in a frozen mini pizza cold, no preheat, and it came out with a crisper bottom than any batch I had done before. That made me think the preheat was drying out the basket and maybe even cooking the top of stuff too fast. Now I only preheat for things like wings or fries where I want a hard sear. Does anyone here actually notice a real difference with preheating, or is it just something we all do because the booklet says to?