How to Boil Water Using a Deep Fryer (Why it Works!)

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Boiling water is a part of everyday life, and it’s something that’s vital for many different types of cooking.

Whether you’re making soup or pasta, boiling water is an important step. It’s probably one of the first steps.

One question we get asked quite often is whether you can use a deep fryer to boil water? This article will discuss the benefits of this method as well as how to safely use your deep fryer in order to boil water.

So can you use that deep fryer you have in the corner of the kitchen to boil up your water?

Yes, you can. Deep fryers can heat up oil up to 190°C (375°F), and it only takes 100°C (212°F) to boil water. However, there are many precautions you should take before trying to boil water with your deep fryer. This process involves extensive cleaning and knowing how to safely use and operate the deep fryer for something it’s not traditionally meant for.

An article will also cover some awesome tips and tricks you can do when boiling water.

Can you boil water in a deep fryer?

Absolutely, you can. I know that deep fryers are traditionally supposed to use cooking oil to cook their food. Fortunately, you can also put water it in a boil it up to cook food as well.

As discussed above, a deep fryer can easily cook water. There is just one issue though. Your deep fryer is designed mainly to tackle extremely high temperatures and is primarily focused on dealing with things with the high heat of evaporation, like cooking oil.

In any case, there are ways to boil water in a fryer. This is actually great to know because not only can you fry food, but now, you can cook watery soupy things with a deep fryer.

If you’re interested in doing so, follow along.

What materials you’ll need

The first part of the process is knowing how to properly clean the deep fryer. And for that, you’ll need a few things.

Dry cloth
Bucket with water in it
Dishwashing sponge
Dishwashing soap
Empty bottle carton
Funnel

These items should be enough to get you started.

How to get your fryer ready to boil water for cooking

One of the first most important steps of preparing to use an air fryer, especially if you’re going to put something new like water into it, is to make sure it’s clean. Here are the best steps you should take to clean and otherwise maintain your deep fryer.

Unplug the electrical cord from the outlet.
Remove the top lid.
Take out the wire basket.
Lift up and remove the heating element which is often attached to the control panel.
Take out the deep frying pan.
If there’s any oil in the pan, use a funnel and pour it into the empty bottle carton
Using the sponge, give the pan a pre-scrubbing to get rid of any large chunks of food left inside.
Reassemble the deep fryer.
Pour water into the fryer by filling up the frying pan.
Add several generous squirts of dishwasher soup.
Turn the fryer on and set it to 100°C, but don’t let the water over-boil.
Leave it for about 20 minutes.
When done disassemble all the pieces again and scrub everything down with a sponge, water, and dishwashing soap.
Let it dry and then reassemble all the parts.

Your fryer should now be spotless and clean. Notice that during the cleaning process, you already used water to simmer and clean the deep fryer.

What types of food can you make by boiling water in a deep fryer?

One of the best reasons to boil water using a deep fryer is if you’re wanting to cook something. In fact, you can certainly use the wire basket included as a stainer.

Boiling vegetables

Using the wire basket, you can easily place any type of vegetable inside the basket and let them boil. You can fill up the deep fryer to the same amount as you would as if it were cooking oil.

Turn the control to 100°C and let it cook until it’s ready.

Cook your pasta and noodles

This is where the wire basket shines. You can try cooking pasta and noodles by heating up the water to 100°C.

The basket will work like a perfectly shaped strainer allowing you to remove the pasta cleanly from the boiling water when it’s done. It makes cooking pasta really easy.

Make hard-boiled eggs

The same thing goes for boiling eggs. Simply turn up the temperature to 100°C. Place the uncooked eggs into the basket and dip them underwater for roughly about 7 minutes. Pull the basket out along with the egg and now you have a perfectly boiled egg.

Soupy foods

You can even make soup in your deep fryer. Simply put meats and bones into the basket and dip them into the simmering water.

To make foods like chicken broth, you’ll need to cut the chicken up into small pieces for it to cook faster.

Generally speaking, cook the meat, bones, and all in simmering water for about 4-6 hours.

Boiling water in a deep fryer can clean it

From the process of getting a deep fryer ready, it was important to clean it fully and completely.

Fortunately, we used the function of the deep fryer to our advantage. We boiled soapy water which helped clean the frying pan.

Boiling water to clean isn’t something new. Take dishwashing machines for example. Dishwashers actually turn up the temperatures of water from 65°C to 70°C which is hot enough in combination with dishwasher soap to almost remove and dissolve any food substance.

In the case of a deep fryer that doesn’t have the same cleansing properties as a dishwasher, boiling water to 100°C is able to do almost all of that for you. Almost.

Rather than using pressurized water to clean, we upped the temperature of the water to make up for this. It seems to do a pretty decent job and I was happy with my results.

What are the dangers of boiling water in a deep fryer?

Some deep fryers can’t measure temperatures under 100° C (212° F)

For one thing, deep fryers are used to cooking at higher temperatures than the boiling point of water which is 100°C (212°F).

In fact, some models may not even recognize 100°C and you may have to keep an eye on these models that don’t. You don’t want the water boiling out.

If you were to leave your deep fryer boiling water unattended, then hot boiling steam would eventually boil out and spill all over the floors making a huge, steamy mess.

It could also burn you and your feet if you weren’t careful to watch your step.

Another issue with over boiling the water is if it ends up completely evaporating, and no water was left in the deep fryer, the heating element might get too hot and without a liquid to help cool and regulate it, it would burn out. Or even worst catch fire.

Deep fryers are used to much higher temperatures and work best at those ranges. It’s important that we understand the best way to maintain the fryer.

It’s always recommended to closely keep an eye on your deep fryer while it’s on no matter what it’s cooking.

Don’t mix boiling water with hot oil

This may be one of the biggest shocks to most people. It’s something that isn’t well understood by most people who are new to deep-frying, but it can be extremely dangerous and even deadly.

So what happens here is that adding water into hot oil can cause a huge explosion of the mixture.

There have been countless stories on Reddit about how people would terribly injure themselves accidentally pouring cold water into a hot deep fryer full of oil.

The reason for this is that a deep fryer usually cooks at really high temperatures. It’s even hotter than water and stand, hotter than boiling water. But because oil has a much higher specific heat and higher boiling point, it can handle these incredibly high temperatures without erupting and boiling.

Now the problem with that is when someone who doesn’t know decides to add water to this already extremely hot oil. When water touches this oil, the extreme temperature almost instantly changes the state of water to steam.

If let’s say a considerable amount of water was poured into a deep frying oil bath all at once, that water would explode into steam reacting and also causing the oil inside (which is already super hot) to jump out of the deep fryer.

Anyone close enough would end up with really bad burns.

My final thoughts

It’s uncommon but completely doable to boil water using a deep fryer. In fact, if you ever need, I suggest this be a great way to create a great meal for you or the family.

Make sure you properly clean out the remnants of oil leftover from the previous cooks. Remember cold water and hot oil does not mix well so be very careful and never add water into a deep fryer filled with hot oil.

Other than that, enjoy your new way of boiling veggies, eggs and making broth.

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