Jamie Oliver's genius hack will double the cooking space of your air fryer - it's already my go-to trick

You might think that finding new ways to use your air fryer to cook is a tall order, but not for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who is encouraging us all to rethink how we use this very popular appliance.

Ahead of the release of his new cookbook Easy Air Fryer, Jamie has been sharing his favourite space-saving and flavour-enhancing hack. And the best bit is, there's no extra equipment needed.

So, unless you still need to pick up one of the best air fryers, you're ready to cook like Jamie does in his air fryer.

Jamie's air fryer hack

To save time and to capitalise on space, Jamie's air fryer hack focuses on 'Being able to use the drawer in cool ways,' he says. He does this by cooking things both on AND under the air fryer tray at the same time.

He uses the example of cooking chickpeas under the air fryer tray, and then placing a seasoned chicken leg over them on the tray. 'They’ll slowly reheat and bubble while the chicken is getting tender and crispy, all of that spiced rendered fat flavouring the chickpeas,' Jamie explains.

But it doesn't end there, Jamie Oliver takes it one step further by using the same drawer to quickly cook something else. 'Once you’ve plated up the chicken on top of the chickpeas, you can quickly put a bag of washed spinach in the drawer for 1 minute to wilt it down in the flavours, before serving up, finishing off with a sprinkling of bashed-up roasted cashews that you’d cooked earlier,' he adds.

That means you effectively get a whole meal with three elements from one air fryer drawer.

As Ideal Home's Kitchen Appliances Editor, being creative with the air fryer tray is a hack I've tried and loved myself. I'm a huge fan of allowing the design of an air fryer to complement your recipes, rather than just sticking to the prescribed way of using it.

Jamie's pick of air fryer, which he has curated in collaboration with Tefal, is one we've tried and loved ourselves here at Ideal Home - The Dual Air Fryer by Tefal. It achieved an impressive 4.5 star rating in our review, with our expert tester finding plenty of selling points, including the unique division of the two drawers.

Opting for the Tefal air fryer is a good choice if you want to put Jamie's hack into practice, especially thanks to its large capacity. There are also other air fryers that have layered designs built in to encourage this type of cooking.

I'm thinking in particular of the Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer, which has a selection of accessories you can use at the same time in order to bring elements of a meal together.

However, what I love about Jamie's hack in particular is that anyone with an air fryer that has a tray inside the drawer can do it with no extra equipment required. It is the biggest gamechanger for a single-drawer air fryer allowing you to cook a whole meal in one. It also encourages people to use their air fryers in a way that suits them, rather than sticking to the prescribed way in an instruction manual.

Jamie goes on to say 'It’s a holistic way of cooking. You can also raise it on a heatproof ramekin or two cookie cutters, so you can get the crispiest duck skin. Or roast veg with stock in it to make a soup.'

Jamie Oliver's cookbooks have been a staple in kitchens since 1999, and I'm willing to bet that this new air fryer-specific book will be a hit with anyone who finds these mini ovens an invaluable addition to the kitchen.

Will you be picking up Jamie's new book to discover more hacks like this one?