Martin Lewis warns that microwaves or air fryers may…

Martin Lewis warns that microwaves or air fryers may not always be cheaper than using the oven

Martin Lewis has warned anyone who has added alternative cooking appliances to their kitchen recently to check whether they will actually be cheaper to use than an oven.

As the cost of living crisis has many households rethinking their energy use at home in a bid to keep bills down, appliances such as air fryers and slow cookers have seen a huge upswing in popularity as people turn to them for cooking instead of traditional ovens. Air fryers and slow cookers were among the most sought-after buys on Black Friday, with many of the major retailers offering discounts on the gadgets in the run-up to Christmas.

But the MoneySavingExpert founder explained on the latest episode of the Martin Lewis podcast that people shouldn't assume that one cooking method will automatically be cheaper than the other because the appliance has a lower wattage overall. Martin reiterated a helpful equation that can be used to easily work out the most cost-effective way of cooking a meal.

Martin reminded listeners that electric appliances typically cost 34p per kilowatt per hour to run, with 1,000 watts in a kilowatt - so to find roughly how much something will cost to turn on, multiply its wattage by 34p per hour of use. For example, a 100W appliance on for two hours would cost 6.8p, at 3.4p per hour.

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But as the podcast producer pointed out that the handy equation can be used to compare how much it would cost to cook your meal in an air fryer compared to a microwave, Martin warned that different cooking methods mean that working out how much kitchen appliances will cost can prove less straightforward. "The difference between a microwave and an oven is that a microwave gives you consistent heat, whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up so it isn't using the full wattage the whole time," he explained.

"But as it makes sense that they're roughly equivalent wattage, if you're doing a jacket potato in a microwave and it lasts 10 minutes, it's going to be far cheaper than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half," he went on. "However, if you were cooking a full roast dinner in the oven and the jacket potatoes were part of that and you were cooking many of them, that is probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because each additional object you put in a microwave, you'll need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object."

"If you had a 1000W microwave and you put it on for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour, a sixth of 34p is about 6p, shall we say? So it's 6p to turn the microwave on for that length of time.

"So yes, it is a very useful equation," Martin summed up. The equation can also be used to work out how much using the likes of air fryers and slow cookers will cost compared to using an oven or microwave, as long as you bear in mind the equivalent cooking times.

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