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- Cooking chips until golden brown
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Compared with deep-fat fryers, air fryers are a more healthy way to cook as they use hot air and less cooking oil – or sometimes no oil at all.
Air fryers blast hot air around a small cooking chamber. Their compact cooking space and fast circulation of hot air allows you to make crispy, golden-brown food more quickly than using an oven.
Our expert air fryer testing and buying advice will help you choose the best air fryer for you.
Find the best air fryer for you with our independent air fryer reviews.
Here, we've selected some of the best air fryers from our rigorous air fryer tests, which include a chip taste test by our experts.
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Want to see more models? See our guide to the best air fryers for two people.
In most cases, yes. If you're after a convenient appliance that will save you time and potentially money, then an air fryer could be a worthwhile investment.
They are simple to use and don't require much work, apart from pressing a few buttons to adjust the time and temperature.
Our tests also prove that air fryers really can save you money, but only if you use them effectively by considering the cooking capacity and number of people you'll be cooking for.
A word of caution though: if you're looking to recreate that chip shop taste at home, then you are likely to be disappointed. We find that foods made in an air fryer, and chips in particular, do have a fried quality but if you're used to deep-fried food, you'll easily be able to taste the difference. If that fried food taste is your sole reason for buying, an air fryer may not be worth it.
Not ready to give up on frying just yet? Read our expert guide to the best non-stick frying pans.
This list of buying questions will help you narrow down your options and ensure you get the best air fryer for your needs:
Reliablity is important too. See our guide to the most reliable air fryer brands or see Ninja Foodi vs Tower air fryer vs Tefal ActiFry.
The smallest air fryers we've tested can hold up to 800g of food – about four portions of chips and roughly equivalent to the amount of food you can fit on two baking trays in an oven.
If you typically only cook for four people or fewer, any of the air fryers we've tested should be big enough. But if you want the option of using the air fryer to cook for more people – or you just have a particularly hungry household – air fryers such as the Tefal Actifry 2 in 1 can fit almost twice as much (1.7kg).
Dual air fryers are also an option if you're cooking for more people. They can fit between 0.6kg and 2.3kg of food.
Need a large-capacity air fryer? See our guide on how to buy the best dual air fryer.
This is the most common type of air fryer. They have a cooking bowl or basket with a handle, so you can shake your food during cooking. This helps ensure the food cooks evenly and makes it easy to lift out of the air fryer once it's ready.
Sometimes they come with a stirring paddle, though we’ve found this doesn't always make for better results.
Pros
Cons
Take a look at our basket air fryer reviews to see all of the models we've tested.
Oven-type air fryers come with one or multiple trays to place your food on and slot into the machine for cooking.
Most have a viewing window on the front so you can keep an eye on your food without disturbing the cooking process.
Pros
Cons
See our oven air fryer reviews to see the models we recommend.
Right now, countertop cooking appliances are becoming bigger, bulkier and more feature-laden as they take on a multitude of cooking tasks.
While most air fryers can also roast, grill and bake, a multi cooker can also cook in other ways, such as pressure cooking, steaming and slow cooking.
All this versatility typically comes at a higher price, so it's worth considering if you'll use all the features before spending the extra cash.
Go to our best multi cookers guide to see test results for multi cookers from from Ninja, Tefal, Russell Hobbs and more.
Don't pay over the odds for features that you'll rarely use. Consider this list before before you decide on a model.
All air fryers have timers that allow you to set how long you want your food to cook for, and show you how much cooking time is left. Some, such as the Philips Viva Airfryer and Russell Hobbs Purifry, have manual dials that you turn to set the time, but most other air fryers, including the Tefal Actifry, have digital timers instead. A digital timer can make it easier to see at a glance how much time is left on the clock.
You’ll need to wash your air fryer every time you use it, so you might appreciate being able to put the various parts in the dishwasher and let it do the work. Ideally, the basket/bowl, lid and stirring paddle should all be dishwasher safe, although this isn’t always the case.
Some models, like Ninja Foodi Dual Zone, have a second cooking compartment that allows you to cook two different types of food (at different temperatures) at the same time, so you could make steak and chips without having to mix them together. See our guide to how to buy the best dual air fryer.
Some basket-type air fryers have baskets that are set at an angle. This tilt, combined with a rotating action tumbles your food around, helping it to cook more evenly.
A 'smart' air fryer is one you can control from your phone or tablet. You select the recipe you want to use from the app, which then sends instructions to the air fryer to cook the food to a particular temperature and length of time.
You can keep an eye on the cooking time using the app on your phone, and it will let you know once cooking is finished.
This is a fairly uncommon feature and products with smart capabilities that we've tested have come and gone from the market. But when we come across any more, we'll be sure to flag them.
Some air fryers come with a paddle that automatically moves the food around as it cooks. 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.
With most air fryers, you can set the temperature you want the food to cook at. Typically, you can choose anything from 80°C to 200°C.
Generally, you can get an air fryer for as little as £40, but we've found you'll need to spend at least between £70 and £80 to get a decent model.
There is a correlation between price and quality with air fryers, but this does not mean that all expensive air fryers are good, nor the opposite.
In our tests, some cheaper air fryers were so poor, we named them Don't Buys. We also found some pricier models that gave disappointing results –including soggy, limp or tasteless chips.
Looking for a decent cheap air fryer? Visit our air fryer reviews and use the Great Value filter.
The buzz around air fryers means that popular models have been difficult to come by recently.
To help you find your choice, we've picked out a handful of the most searched-for sellers that have a wide range air fryers in stock.
Not sure which shop to buy from? Take a look at our member survey on the best home and appliance shops.
Yes, they can be if you use them correctly. But it depends on the size of your air fryer and how many people you’re cooking for.
The main drawback with the air fryer is the amount of food you can cook. The cooking capacity of the air fryers we’ve tested ranges from 0.3kg and 2.2kg, a huge variance, so choose a model that caters for your needs.
In general, small households cooking single batches of food will benefit most. As an alternative to switching on a full-sized oven several times a week to cook a meal for two, the benefits really stack up.
However, if you’re feeding several people, or want to cook a few different food items at the same time, an oven has more space and may work out cheaper than cooking several batches in an air fryer.
To help you decide whether an air fryer is a worthwhile investment, we cooked 320g of chips (two to three portions) in an air fryer, a halogen oven and a built-in electric oven.
We found that the air fryer was quicker to heat up, cooked faster and used less energy, although the quality of cooking was slightly worse than in either of the ovens.
If you're a smaller household, an air fryer may save you money if you use it several times a week instead of a built-in electric oven.
Air fryer | Halogen oven | Built-in electric oven | |
---|---|---|---|
Cooking time | 23 minutes | 35 minutes | 33 minutes |
Energy used to cook | 0.287kWh | 0.679kWh | 0.863kWh |
Cost to cook | 7p | 17p | 21p |
Saving (compared to electric oven) | 14p cheaper | 4p cheaper | n/a |
Quality of cooking (out of 5) | 3 – some cooked perfectly but the chips at the bottom were undercooked | 3.5 – some chips were overcooked and some were undercooked | 3.5 – inconsistent cooking as some chips were too crispy |
We've calculated energy costs based on an electricity unit price of 24.5p per kWh, the average capped rate for direct debit customers from 1 April 2024.
Curious to know how the air fryer and an oven compare to a slow cooker? Find out more in our story comparing the cheapest ways to cook.
Any food that does well when roasted, baked or fried will do well in your air fryer.
As well as chicken and chips, other popular choices include potatoes, roasted vegetables, falafel, fish, pizza and even baked goods such as cookies and cakes.
Air fryers can also be useful for quickly cooking and crisping up frozen foods and snacks such as fish fingers, chicken nuggets, spring rolls and pies.
Things you should avoid putting in your air fryer include fresh greens, cheese and any food covered in wet batter. Cooking whole roasts such as roast chicken can also be problematic, so joint your bird first before frying.
Some air fryer manufacturers offer starter recipes to get you going: take a look at these Ninja recipes and Philips recipes.
Get answers to more common air fryer questions.
Need ideas for how to use your appliance? Find creative ideas by exploring BBC Good Food's air fryer recipes.