We tried and tested the best air fryers on the market to see if they can really save you money, while using less oil for healthier food
Why are air fryers all of a sudden so hard to come by? They seem to be selling out everywhere, with big brands Ninja, Philips and Gourmia now as rare as gold dust. This time-saving kitchen gadget only entered the market a decade ago. They caught on fairly quickly ($412 million dollars were spent on them in the US in 2019), and saw a surge of interest during lockdown, when influencers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok showed how they could reduce the amount of oil used in cooking. Double Basket Dual Air Fryer
That persuaded health-conscious 20-somethings that they were worth a look. But now there’s a second, even bigger boom in air fryer popularity and this time it’s not just millennials but parents and grandparents. This time, the killer app is money-saving while still achieving crispy food with a fried finish and less oil used in the process.
To find out exactly how air frying cuts your energy bills, and for our reviews in full, see below. We’ve also included how much each costs to run per hour under to the current energy price cap. If you already know how air fryers save you money, here’s a quick look at our top five:
It’s down to two factors: size and time. Air fryers are considerably smaller than conventional ovens. They generally range from around two to eight litres in volume (although models as large as 24 litres do exist). The less air there is, the less energy is required to heat it up.
Then there’s the convection technology, which ensures the heat and vapourised oil is very evenly distributed to every part of your food. Taken together, these features mean that air fryers can typically save you around 30 minutes in cooking time. A meal cooked for an hour in a typical 2,000 Watt electric oven would use two kiloWatt hours of energy – but if you could cook the same meal in half an hour in a 1,000 Watt air fryer, it would use just half a kiloWatt hour.
This is suddenly very relevant. The first time we reviewed air fryers, during lockdown, one kiloWatt hour of electricity cost just 18p. The current price under the government’s Energy Price Guarantee is 27p.
If buying an air fryer, however, make sure it’s big enough to feed your whole family. Having to do two lots of cooking will negate its time- and energy-saving benefits. You will also have to balance its capacity against storage: some can be quite big.
All other things being equal, it is still cheaper to cook with gas, which at the time of writing cost 7p per kiloWatt hour, although the size and age of your gas oven may make still make it less efficient than the best modern air fryers.
What we wanted to know is whether they actually work – because, for every air-fryer super fan, there is a critic who says they cook unevenly, have a small capacity and produce dry, slightly rubbery results.
We cooked the same food in each model: chips, roasted vegetables, sausages and fish fingers. We were looking for tasty, healthy, appetising results (everything took a little experimentation to get right) but we also wanted to see how easy each machine is to use, how much space it takes up, how much it costs to run and how easy it is to clean.
We like: the crispy results
We don’t like: it takes up a lot of space on the worktop
It may look a little like a spaceship (and take up just as much workspace), but this Tefal air fryer performed best in my tests. It heats up in minutes; chips were crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle with just a small amount of oil (from a pre-portioned scoop), sausages and fish fingers were perfectly cooked, and even my “roasted” vegetables were fairly tasty.
It has a 1.2kg capacity, so there’s space for six portions of food. The noise while it’s operating is similar to that of a hairdryer, drawing 1400 Watts, so I don’t think it could be described as ‘quiet’; but in relative terms, it was again best in test.
The basket automatically rotates inside the fryer, so you get even results, and it has a clear lid so you can see the progress of your food as it cooks. It’s controlled via a semi-smart LED timer. Once finished, the removable bowl is easy to clean and dishwasher safe.
The only ‘con’ I can identify is the price, but compared to similar models from Philips and Ninja (reviewed below), I would say the ActiFry actually offers fairly good value for money. It was the closest I got to genuinely deep-fried-standard chips.
We like: the remarkably low price and running costs
We don’t like: no digital display
I wasn’t expecting the cheapest model (by far) on this list to come out near the top of my testing, but the Tower Air Fryer is a budget powerhouse. It’s very easy to set up and clean, with a simple drawer design, and the end results were as good as those from air fryers three times the price. It heats up in seconds thanks to the 1,000 Watts of power and cooked chips in 20 minutes, sausages and fish fingers in 12-15, and vegetables in just six.
My chips weren’t quite as crispy as the Tefal model above, but they cooked quickly and evenly, and it excelled on sausages and fish fingers. It has a simple manual dial for time and temperature, so lacks smart tech, but I actually found that made it easier to use than some of its fancier competitors.
It has a compact footprint and isn’t too loud, so I would say it’s the best choice for small kitchens (and it’s certainly the one I’d keep in my tiny flat). Despite being smaller, it still has a decent 2.2l capacity from the deep, dome-shaped basket. The only downside is the lack of digital display or pre-set cooking programmes, but to be honest, you wouldn’t expect that at this price.
By the way, if you’re looking for ways to save money in the kitchen, read my guide to the best kettles. The cheapest is under £15 and costs you a quarter of a penny to make a cuppa.
We like: it can go in the dishwasher
We don’t like: the basket can be difficult to clean
We recommend no fewer than four Ninja air fryers and, in some ways, that would be enough to cover the whole market. They are very much the dominant brand. First up is the AF100UK, Ninja’s bestselling air fryer and one of the simplest to use on this list.
You have four buttons of the front, with the option to air fry, roast, reheat and dehydrate, as well as temperature and time controls and a power and start/stop button. It’s a simple drawer-operated air fryer with a ceramic-coated cooking grate insert inside the non-stick cooking section. It heats up quickly, with 1,550 Watts of power, but I found the best efficiency by preheating for two minutes before cooking.
I cooked chips inside in around 16 minutes, thanks to the fast airflow which is better than most other brands. They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, though slightly dry (the downside to most air fryers). I’ve also managed to cook meat and vegetables in half the time it takes my oven, though there are definitely some vegetables to avoid: broccoli, which turns ashy and spinach, which turns into a smattering of veg crisps. That being said, I have roasted a whole chicken in this air fryer to great and tasty success.
There’s lots of talk about air fryers being a passing fad, but the most convincing argument I can make in this Ninja’s favour is that I now reach for it more often than I turn my oven on. It is pretty bulky and wants putting away when not in use, but it’s the second cheapest on this list and it’s a worthy investment.
We like: you can cook your pasta and air fry your chicken at the same time
We don’t like: it’s slightly overwhelming
Our second Ninja recommendation, the American brand’s newest air fryer, promises 15 minute meals in one pot. You can cook pasta and rice at the same time as you air fry your protein. The bottom of the spaceship-resembling machine is a layer for steaming food. Around halfway up is a grate which air fries any food placed on top. You can have a pasta sauce with crispy chicken laid on top within 15 minutes. It’s all rather impressive.
There’s little to complain about with this air fryer. It literally does everything short of putting your meal on the plate. The 10-moded machine also bakes, steams, grills, dehydrates, sears and slow cooks. The special bit is the ‘Speedi’ setting which is operated via a smart switch. It’s essentially air frying on steroids, wedging the grill plate between steam from the bottom and air frying on top to cook meals even quicker. Just be aware that at 1,760 Watts, it also costs a little more to use per hour than the average air fryer.
The reason it’s not further up this list is because it’s actually a little overwhelming. If you’ve got a small kitchen and no oven (trust me, it happens), the Ninja Speedi would be the best buy ever. But personally, I’d always rather bake in an oven and grill on the hob or my George Foreman. It’s also quite difficult to get used to what you can put where. Though the Speedi does come with a recipe book, it’s limited and after a few goes you’re left to your own devices.
Don’t get me wrong, the Ninja Speedi is an incredible piece of engineering and it’ll impress all your visitors. It will best suit families with kids, late office workers and anyone who wants to condense all their kitchen gadgets into one.
We like: the temperature probe means it will notify you when your food hits a desired temperature
We don’t like: you only get one temperature probe for the two drawers
Ninja’s dual zone air fryer is the most advanced fryer I’ve tried and the most powerful, drawing 2,470 Watts at its highest settings. It has a probe which monitors the internal temperature of food, allowing you to set your desired temperature instead of a cooking time – for instance, chicken at 75 degrees celsius. The air fryer lets you know when the food has reached that temperature.
I tested this out with a roast chicken. I love cooking with an air fryer, but sometimes I worry that they don’t cook food all the way through, instead just cooking the outside quickly. This temperature probe took all the guesswork out of it and by the time the chicken had reached 75 degrees, it had crispy skin and was succulent and juicy on the inside. It would be handy to have two temperature probes, though, one for each drawer.
The beauty of the dual drawer design is the ‘sync’ feature. It means you can set each drawer to a different time and temperature and the air fryer will ensure both finish at the same time. I found this particularly useful for cooking meat and vegetables.
I will note that this air fryer has a large footprint and is reasonably heavy, at nearly 9kg. But it cooks food evenly and at the moment, I’m using it more than my oven.
We like: the combined air fryer and grill function
We don’t like: it’s very bulky
Our final Ninja recommendation was the most expensive one we tried, but this impressive gadget is what would happen if you combined an air fryer and a maxi-sized George Foreman grill. It’s very popular indeed thanks to Tik Tok and word of mouth and is often sold out at some retailers, although stocks do get replenished. I would point out, though, that as the name ‘MAX’ suggests, this is for larger kitchens. It weighs a hefty 12kg, is 44cm long, draws 2,460 Watts and serves up to six people.
For that, though, you get an impressive range of features. It acts as a grill, flat plate and air fryer and can roast, bake, dehydrate and reheat – a total of seven cooking functions. This review will focus on its air frying capabilities, for obvious reasons, but it’s worth noting that the Foodi MAX PRO comes with a digital cooking probe for perfectly cooked steaks, burgers, and skewers. Given its size, you could easily roast a whole joint of meat in there.
Onto frying. It doesn’t produce the crispiness of my top choice of air fryer, but it does cook very quickly and evenly – 20 minutes for chips or sweet potato fries and just six minutes for vegetables. The chips were tasty and not dried out; they were just softer than I would have liked, without that irresistible crispiness. However, the Ninja Foodi MAX PRO does come with the best recipe booklet of any of the models I tested, with a broad range of meat, fish and vegetarian recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner – and even air-fried desserts.
We like: how quickly it cooks
We don’t like: the food produced wasn’t quite as crispy
This beast of an air fryer is the one I’d opt for if I had a larger family to feed, as it has a 6.2 litre capacity and 2,000 Watts of power. For that reason, it’s not the best choice for small kitchens. You may baulk at the price, but it’s a clever four-in-one gadget that can bake, grill and roast as well as effectively air fry. It also has a handful of clever extra features, including a ‘favourite’ option for quick access to your favourite recipes.
I found that the end results were crispy, but more similar to a convection oven than the two air fryers above. Chips were decent, but didn’t quite have that deep-fried crunch. However, sausages, fish fingers and roasted veg were all cooked to perfection in less than half the time it would take in the oven (with a teaspoon of oil, or less).
It has the same ‘drawer’ design as the Tower fryer above, which is handy for checking the progress of food halfway through. The sheer size of the basket meant I found it slightly more arduous to clean, but the parts are dishwasher safe.
Finally, the Philips can be paired with the NutriU App for remote use via your smartphone, if you’re into that sort of thing. The app has some nice recipes for inspiration.
Best air fryer and oven, 8/10
We like: more user-friendly than the others
We don’t like: the high price and lack of precision
One drawback to air fryers is their unfamiliarity. Buy one for your gran and there’s a chance it will sit in the cupboard unused: who wants to spend an hour reading an instruction manual before they can cook their tea?
That’s why I like the Cuisinart. It just looks like an oven, with nothing scarier than four dials on the front. The first three select temperature, cooking time and cooking mode (air fry, bake, roast, grill or keep warm). With heating elements at the top and bottom, drawing 1,800 Watts, the Cuisinart can be used as a giant toaster. The fourth dial controls how brown you want your crumpets to be.
It’s basically a fan oven for the counter-top that can do air frying as well. It’s big enough to cook a whole chicken or a 12-inch pizza and, unlike the other fryers (except the Instant Vortex below), you can see inside. You do actually need this, since the controls are not the most accurate: the instruction manual says chips should take 10-20 minutes, which is pretty vague. Being able to check on them helps.
Results are similar to the Philips above. Chips are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, if a little dry. Burgers and sausages cook as well as in a normal oven, and in about two thirds of the time, but again look a little dry. Cakes come out well, but you do need to keep an eye on them since all the settings are inaccurate by a fraction.
Tefal and Ninja may make more precise machines, but this is a user-friendly take on the air fryer phenomenon, versatile enough to replace a full-sized oven in a small kitchen or to take away to university – which may be its natural home. It’s a shame the relatively high price might put off some of the people who’d get most out of it.
We like: the LED viewing window
We don’t like: Its bulky design can look imposing in smaller kitchens
ClearCook here denotes a viewing window, a scarce feature in the air fryer world but one that comes in very handy. It lets you see when your sausages are starting to brown and need a turn, or if your chips need a good shake to evenly coat them in oil. It’s also great for baking cakes: my air-fried banana bread rose really nicely inside.
I really enjoyed using this fryer as the 5.7l basket is deep and gives you enough room for up to six portions and 1,500 Watts is ample power for anything I’ve tried. The drawer pulls out a little swiftly, so you’ll need to be mindful when taking food out, but I can tell the design is made from quality materials and built to last.
The digital control panel is easy to navigate. I like the simple dial allowing me to adjust time and temperature settings, from an accurate 49℃ to 205℃. There’s a good range of pre-set cooking modes for air frying, dehydrating, roasting, baking and grilling.
Fish fingers did really well. Chips came out nicely crunchy, yet fluffy inside. Having been able to monitor them via the window (there’s a light inside too), I knew when to stop the cycle and shake them. As someone who doesn’t own a microwave, I appreciated the reheat mode too. It meant I could give leftovers a quick blast of heat when lunchtime came round.
The stainless steel and black finish feels luxurious. The only downside to this fryer is that it could perhaps be a little too bulky in smaller kitchens. You’ll need to consider the depth of the air fryer – and factor in space for the drawer to pull out, too.
We like: the wide variety of cooking modes
We don’t like: the quality of the air frying mode seems compromised to fit other functions
Our second recommendation from Canadian brand Instant is a combination of two of the most popular kitchen gadgets out there – an air fryer and a pressure cooker – in a single beast of an appliance. It has a lot going for it. It’s a hugely versatile gadget, with 1,500 Watts of power and 11 cooking modes (including steam, boil, sous vide and slow cook, as well as pressure cook and air fry) that make it perfect for one-pot meals. And, thanks to the large 8 litre capacity, you could genuinely feed a whole family. It’s big enough to fit a whole chicken. It also comes in 5.7-litre size.
However, unfortunately the air fry function just wasn’t as effective as the models above. The chips it produced definitely couldn’t be described as crispy, and during cooking it was loud and rattly. You have to remove the (heavy) domed lid to check the progress of your food, and when you put the lid back in place, I found the machine was slow to restart. Plus, you’d need a very large kitchen cupboard in order to house this massive machine and all its accoutrements – the fact that it has so many accessories means it’s trickier to store.
It’s not for me. But if you’re interested in pressure cooking, or need a one-pot solution for a large family, it could be for you. It certainly has a lot of fans, particularly in America.
We like: the capacity is huge
We don’t like: it’s too big to leave out on a countertop
First thing’s first, the Princess air fryer is absolutely massive. It barely fits on the countertop in my small flat and I can’t push it all the way back because it sits higher than the bottom of the cupboard above. I certainly wouldn’t leave it out. One of the standard criticisms of air fryers is that they’re too big and unfortunately, this is a classic example.
However, it is pretty special because it steams as well as air fries. The functions are a little awkward: even with the instructions, I struggled to find the compartment you have to fill with water (it’s on top, by the way). It also leaked the first couple of times I used the air fryer.
But the chips I air fried came out crunchy without drying out and the broccoli I steamed was moist and perfectly done. The buttons are big and easy to use and the basket has a very large capacity. Performance-wise, it’s pretty faultless. The machine is excellently built and it hits the sweet spot of power at 1,700 Watts, making it both powerful and cheap to use. It’s just let down by its enormous size and the small amount of leaking.
Best air fryer for up to two people, 8/10
We like: The petite size that works well for two
We don’t like: Its capacity can be limiting
If you’ve got a small kitchen or are simply struggling to accommodate any more must-have appliances on your worktop, this little air fryer is worth consideration. At just 30cm high, it will sit comfortably under your kitchen wall units and at 3.25kg is also light enough to pick up and store in a large kitchen cupboard when not needed.
Having tested quite a few bulky and heavy air fryers, this made for a refreshing change. There are no smart apps to contend with or confusing control panels to conquer, either.
It comes with an LED digital display so you can monitor the temperature and cooking times and illustrates its pre-set modes as icons: a drumstick for poultry, a cupcake for baked goods, a steak for meat and so on.
It doesn’t have a separate pre-set for fish, but with a manual mode it’s easy to tailor the temperature to suit whatever you’re cooking, using the + and - signs. The range goes from 60°C to 200°C, which gives you a lot of scope to bake or dehydrate foods at a lower temperature, or blast them at a more powerful heat to create that delicious crispy, fried finish.
While the capacity is a lot lower than your standard air fryer, the basket is round and deep and can fit a surprising amount inside. It’s capable of cooking about 450g of chips, which is enough for two and I was impressed at how evenly it cooked a homemade batch in under 18 minutes – a simple shake mid-way through ensured the chips were evenly coated.
It’s quiet compared to other designs I’ve tried, but surprisingly powerful for 1,200 Watts. (If you don’t like your chips too crunchy, you’ll need to experiment and choose a lower setting.) I also tried cooking marinated chicken tenders inside and found the fat drained away nicely under the crisper plate. 15 minutes at 200°C left a crispy texture with soft and nicely forkable inside.
I found fish fingers were quick to cook too: a moderate 180°C for 15 minutes more than enough to whip up tea for my ‘hangry’ kids when I was in a hurry.
Best air fryer for smart control, 9/10
We like: Its small size and convenient app
We don’t like: White finish may get marked over time
The aluminium and plastic Cosori Lite comes ‘truffle grey’ and a ‘milk white’, both with a stylish orange trim. The overall feel is premium. It has rounded corners and its basket opens and closes smoothly, without sliding out too fast like some air fryers can. With a power of 1,500 Watts, it sits in the middle of the table for output and cost per use.
The crisper plate has silicone corners, so it slots into place nicely too, while the pull-out basket has a handle that remained cool to touch in use, while the sides didn’t get too hot for comfort either. Considering the sub-£100 price, I think it’s great value for money.
The Cosori comes with good variable controls, from 75℃ up to a toasty 230℃ for that crispy, fried finish - a temperature you won’t find all air fryers reach. They tend to stop at 200℃. Unusually, it has pre-set cooking modes for chicken, fries, steak and veggies and, randomly, bacon. The timings are a little random, however. Chicken suggests 13 minutes at 210℃, for example. While that cooks chicken tenders through, it isn’t quite long enough to get that really crispy fried finish. But it’s easy to adjust the timings and add or subtract minutes as you get used to the air fryer.
The controls are spelt out on the display, so you won’t need to refer to the instructions too much and there’s also a handy ‘keep warm’ mode. I like the convenient pre-set mode that makes it easy to blast the air fryer with heat for a few minutes before loading food. (Pre-heating is something all seasoned air fryer fans swear by for best results.)
If, like me, multi-tasking isn’t your strong point, you’ll also find the Shake mode helpful too. I used this when cooking chips on the Fries mode for 15 minutes at 200°C and it reminded me with a beep to shake them mid-way through the cooking cycle. Very handy.
This air fryer – like the Philips Essential Air Fryer with Rapid Air Technology that we’ve also included in this round up – is smart, which means you can pair it to an app for remote control. For safety reasons you can’t start or stop the air fryer using the app, but it did mean that I could set it and go catch up on a little TV while monitoring my sausages and chips from the other room. After a long, busy day I can imagine that’s a feature I’m going to appreciate and use often.
Air fryers use technology almost identical to a convection oven, but on a smaller scale. A heating component heats air, which is circulated by a powerful fan around the food to cook it and produce a ‘frying’ effect with minimal oil. There’s no oil reservoir in the machine: you simply put it on the food if the recipe requires it. The powerful air circulation, plus the small chamber of an air fryer, mean that meals are cooked much more quickly compared to a regular oven.
They almost always come with a basket or drawer to hold the food you’re cooking, a timer and pre-programmed settings for different foods. Depending on your budget, they’ll be controlled with either manual buttons or a touchscreen display.
“We call them air fryers, but what it’s really a small convection oven,” says Darren McGrady, former personal chef to The Queen and Princess Diana and now the owner of catering company the Royal Chef. He’s a confirmed fan of air fryers.
“At an event where, say, we’re cooking 200 portions of beef but there are two people who have requested salmon, I can air fry two salmon cutlets within eight minutes, so it’s perfect. You can cook healthy things in there too, not just chips.” McGrady uses his air fryer for sweet potatoes, fish, meat, and Victoria sponge cake (see video evidence below). His university-age daughter even uses it to make perfect “air boiled” eggs, he says.
Yes. “Air fryers require less oil compared to deep fat frying or pan frying and so help reduce the calorie content of the overall meal; it’s definitely a healthier way to cook whilst preserving taste and texture,” confirms nutritionist Jenna Hope. It’s also markedly less messy than regular frying.
Manufacturers make bold promises about being 75 per cent healthier than conventional fried food, and in my tests I never used more than one or two teaspoons of oil. For some dishes, I needed none at all.
Anything from a few sprays to two tablespoons of oil is perfectly adequate for air fryer cooking, though the latter is only necessary for breaded or battered foods. Excess oil in an air fryer will drop through the grate onto the bottom of the air fryer, burn, and smoke. Some recipes may even need no oil at all, but it’s always worth a few light sprays to prevent food from drying.
This is a rumour that has been going round on TikTok. The claim is that their non-stick thermoplastic coating uses perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which can be harmful if ingested. In fact, PFOA has not been used for over a decade.
It is true that thermoplastic coatings can still release harmful compounds when heated to very high temperatures of 260C or above, but air fryers don’t reach temperatures that high. If you’re dead set against thermoplastics, consider an air fryer that uses ceramic cooking surfaces, such as the Ninja AF100 above.
As with all cookware, you’re advised to keep your air fryer clean using non-scratch tools to avoid the build-up of burnt oil and starchy foods, the smoke from which can be harmful.
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