Derry woman helping 30,000 Instagram followers to love cooking

An airfryer is a small table-top convection oven which has become popular over the past few years. Unlike a conventional oven, an airfryer doesn’t need to be pre-heated and switches itself off after the selected time. Seana says that this safety feature was one of the main reasons she opted to get an airfryer in the first place.

"My friend Danika was the first person to tell me to get an airfryer, and that’s her claim to fame now! I didn’t know what an airfryer was but she told me it was really safe for the wains. I have two teenage girls and Aoife is an Irish dancer so I knew it would be great for her to make her own dinner and work around her classes. I got it and now I can’t see how I lived without it!

"During lockdown, I put my daughter’s turnover in the airfryer. She told me that I’m obsessed with it and she changed my name to Seana McAirfryer on Instagram as a joke. I tried to change it back but you have to wait 30 days before you can do that so I was stuck with it. My sister told me not to bother changing it back because people had started to talk about me. I was so surprised because I was only taking a picture of what I was making and sharing it on my story.

"Around Christmas time, my husbands family told me to start talking on my videos. I didn’t really want to first because of my accent but then I did and another year after that, I started showing my face. I haven’t looked back since!

“I never really enjoyed cooking before, I kept trying to make a soup for about 10 years and my husband Mark would always tell me it was rotten. I got the menopause when I was around 35 when my girls were in P4 and P5 and I went into a bit of a depression then. I was having anxiety attacks and panic attacks and I could barely leave the house. It was desperate. I couldn’t even make a dinner. The menopause really got me down.

"At the start of lockdown, I went on HRT and the doctor recommended I do some exercise. I did and I’m like a different person now. I’m loving cooking now too. All I can think about is food and recipes. I love when my girls tell me they’re hungry because I can get cooking."

Seana posts tips and recipes on her Instagram page and answers hundreds of questions a week from people wondering if they can cook certain things in their airfryer or for recommendations. Although she has been told she’s ‘sitting on a goldmine’, Seana doesn’t make a penny from her page and that doesn’t bother her in the slightest.

"I do this because I love it,” she said. “Cooking is my passion and it keeps my mind going and keeps me focused. It gets me up and out walking and that’s a plus for me.

"A friend of mines is in a group in Skeoge Hub and they were talking about events they could do. So, she asked me to go in and do a demo for young mothers. I wasn’t sure if I could do it and I was so lost at the start but, as soon as I started, I knew that that’s where I’m supposed to be. People are telling me that they made my recipes and can now feed their family easy, healthy dinners and it’s just amazing. That’s where my passion is. I’ll be doing a demo with adults with special needs now next month and I’m so excited for that. It was such an eye-opener for me to see my teenage daughter cooking her own dinner in a safe way. The airfryer turns itself off when it’s finished and it only lasts up to 60 minutes so it’s so much safer than using the oven.”

Seana tries to make her recipes simple, convenient and cheap to make her meals accessible to everyone. She often cooks with ‘whatever’s in the cupboard’, although she does have a special fondness for Hegarty’s Butchers, which is owned by her husband Mark, also known as the ‘Singing Butcher’.

"I’m not a chef and I don’t try to be. I’m just a wee mammy trying to show people how much cheaper and more convenient these wee machines are.”

Seana has big plans for the future to help more people fall in love with cooking. She will post updates on her Instagram page, @SeanaMcAirfryer, as well as her regular recipes and tips.