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You can understand more and change your cookies preferences here. When you click on a retailer link on our site, we may earn affiliate commission to help fund our not-for-profit mission. Find out more. In this article. Compared with deep fat fryers, air fryers are a more healthy way to fry different foods. They use hot air and less cooking oil - or sometimes even no oil at all - to cook. We've found big differences between the best and worst air fryers: some turn out delicious golden chips, while others leave you with a half-raw, half-burned mess.
Avoid getting lumbered with an expensive gadget that does nothing but take up space in your cupboard: use our tips below to choose the best type of air fryer for you. Our independent air fryer reviews will help you find the best air fryer for you. Air fryers all work in roughly the same way.
Air is heated and blasted around the inside of the appliance in a way that's similar to a fan oven. As such, they can also be used to cook a range of other foods, from scampi to cakes. The model you pick affects how much space you have to cook with, and how much effort you have to put in. These are the main types:. Here's what to look for when choosing:. Some air fryers come with a paddle that automatically moves the food around as it cooks.
This should save you from having to stir and turn it over yourself and ensures that your food cooks evenly - provided it works. We've found that some air fryers that stir your food for you don't do a very good job of it, so while a stirring paddle does make it more likely that your food will be evenly cooked, it's not guaranteed.
Air fryers with a stirring paddle can usually also be used without the paddle in, so you can cook more delicate foods in the air fryer without the paddle breaking them up into pieces. Some air fryers can be set to work at a tilted angle. This tilt, combined with the rotating bowl, is designed to have a similar effect to the paddle, ensuring chips get tumbled around for even cooking.
Russell Hobbs has something similar on it's CycloFry Plus model. Specifications Best for: Replacing all your other ovens. Capacity: g. Interface: Touch panel and there's an app. Reasons to avoid - Quite a sizeable thing, clearly - Noisy too. Wilko 4L Air Fryer. Specifications Best for: Cheap and cheerful air frying. Capacity: 4 litres. Interface: Twin dials. Reasons to avoid - A bit noisy - Limited settings.
Specifications Best for: Cooking two things at the same time. Capacity: 7. Reasons to avoid - Large footprint - Short power cable - Double the cleaning.
Instant Vortex Air Fryer. Specifications Best for: Faff-free fries and more. Capacity: 5. Reasons to avoid - Large footprint - Miserly cable length. Sage the Combi Wave 3 in 1. Specifications Best for: Multi-task cooking. Capacity: 25 litres. Reasons to avoid - Big and bulky - Quite expensive. Specifications Best for: Limited space. Capacity: 3. Interface: Buttons. Reasons to avoid - Controls less intuitive than Philips - Cannot cook entire chicken.
Specifications Best for: Air frying and oven baking. Capacity: Interface: Dials. Reasons to avoid - Quite bulky - More to clean - Short cable. Morphy Richards Health Fryer. Perfect if you love fries with everything and wings too…. In addition, the exterior casing remained cool to the touch throughout cooking. If you're an individual or a couple with small appetites, this small capacity air fryer is ideal.
A more compact version on the Instant Vortex above , it turned out crisp, evenly browned fries and succulent chicken during testing.
The Vortex Mini can air-fry, roast, bake and reheat as well, and it's easy to clean - although while the crisper plate is dishwasher safe, the basket itself can't be used in a dishwasher. Due to the smaller capacity, some experimentation is required to ensure you get the perfect crunchy exterior, and the reheat function can't rival a microwave.
However, considering the affordable price tag, we think it's a great buy. Read our full review: Instant Vortex Mini air fryer. To compare each air fryer, we've cooked up batches and batches of fries and chicken wings.
We rated each design on how many settings it offers, how durable and easy to clean the body and parts are, how loud their fans are and how hot the exterior casing gets. There are a number of considerations that need taking into account when choosing the best air fryer for you.
Start by deciding which type of air fryer you want. Bowl air fryers, however, have glass lids so you can keep an eye on your meal, but the cooking juices remain in the air fryer and in contact with the food, making it tastier but not as healthy.
Some of the best air fryers also have more than one compartment, which means you can cook multiple foods at the same time. Also consider whether you want an air fryer with smart features that means you can switch it on or off from your smartphone. There's no denying air fryers use substantially less oil than deep frying, but just how healthy are they?
Some foods, most of which are frozen or have naturally occurring fat, like Chicken Wings, are suitable for air frying without any oil at all. Fries, roast potatoes, and other traditional crisp foods will need some oil, but how much varies between air fryers.
In our tests, manufacturers ' instructions have recommended anywhere from 1tsp to 1tbsp of oil per 1. It's also crucial to remember the healthiness of what you make in your air fryer, all depends on what you actually put in it, to begin with.
To find out more, read how healthy are air fryers? You always get a good recipe booklet with Ninja products. The integrated digital thermometer meant the gadget alerted us when the whole chicken was full cooked, preventing it from being over-done. Requiring zero oil, the chips were well-sealed and soft inside. Hot air gets released from from the top and the base, rather than just the back meaning it only needs 13cm around it for safe use.
Most need cm, so if you have shallow countertops or a crowded kitchen, the Instant will make a good large-capacity model to keep out of the cupboard long-term.
The rotisserie chicken feature on this air fryer is something of a crowd-pleaser. The end result was juicily cooked through and evenly golden like those you buy from a supermarket. The chip basket performed less well, taking two runs of the preset function to cook through fully. But once done they were well-sealed, nicely crisp and tasty.
You can also leave it to do its thing when set whilst you potter around the kitchen, rather than the ingredients needing attention every minutes. With all removable elements dish-washer safe and an additional dehydrator function, this is a relatively faff-free air fryer that looks good on the counter-top. Read our full Princess air fryer and dehydrator review.
The Cosori was one of the best-looking air fryers we tested. Its boxy, matte design is sleek enough to be left out on the countertop. When on manual function, the temperatures can be adapted from 75 degrees for lower, slower cooking and timings are adjustable from minutes.
Chips for two people were evenly browned using the preset having been pre-tossed in 1 tbsp of oil, although they were not super crisp. Quantities for four took two-rounds of preset cooking. The baskets were thrown in the dishwasher for easy clean-up — a great benefit. Read our full Cosori Pro 5.
Think of this smart little stainless steel appliance as a new permanent fixture in the kitchen, and watch as you start using it in place of your main oven more and more. Sage uses technology that combines a supercharged convection heater with air frying to really crisp things up.
This reaches one of the hottest settings of any of the models we look at here, with a top temperature of degrees, making for chip perfection. Read our full Sage Smart Oven air fryer review. Chips, pizza and wedges worked out well in this model, with a good even finish and no cool spots.
As with a conventional oven , the highest shelf was hottest, so we did do a bit of moving around as things cooked, but it was easy to check on their progress thanks to the large viewing window and interior light. Our favourite function was the rotisserie, which turned a small chicken into a beautifully juicy and crisp centrepiece for a summer salad in around 50 minutes. There may have been straws drawn to decide who would clean it afterwards, but we would definitely use it again, perhaps adding some foil to the bottom pan for easier clean-up.
Read our full Tower Vortex W 11l 5-in-1 digital air fryer oven review.
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