Why Trust Good Housekeeping
Nicole Papantoniou is the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Culinary Innovation Lab. She has worked at kitchen appliance companies, where she helped develop some popular air fryers as well as many recipes for them. Since joining Good Housekeeping, she has had her hands on all of the new air fryers that come through the Lab and has tasted food that was made in almost all of them. She’s an avid air fryer user at home, too, where she has about six to choose.
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Are Air Fryers Worth It
Air fryers are worth it if you like to cook foods quickly with minimal cleanup. Sure, some are bulky and may feel like a usurper of your counter space, but most people who use them learn the benefits right away. They’re especially great for prepackaged frozen foods and leftovers, like french fries or dumplings, that would normally get soggy or rubbery in a microwave. In the Kitchen Appliances Lab, we like using ours for quick dinners. All types of proteins, like chicken, pork chops and salmon, cook up quickly and become golden brown and juicy veggies become nicely blistered or caramelized. We especially like air frying root vegetables, like mini potatoes and diced butternut squash and beets.
Are Air Fryers Good For Your Health
Air fryers are only as healthy as the food they cook, but you may rest assured that they are healthier than deep fat fryers. Air fryers are also great for crisping up your dinner without immersing it in fat if you want to reduce the amount of oil and fat in your meals.
Bacon isnt especially healthy, but when cooked in an air fryer, the fat drips away from the meat and into the basket while still rendering and crisping for the perfect bacon sarnie. Air frying is a great method to get more vegetables into your diet. Cauliflower wings, which are simply florets of cauliflower tossed in any sauce you want to pair it with, are among of the tastiest things to cook in an air fryer.
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Also Great: Philips Premium Airfryer Hd9741/96
*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.
The Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/96 is the best pod-shaped air fryer weve tested. Its a far less versatile appliance than the Cuisinart convection toaster oven, but its smaller footprint may make it ideal for tiny kitchens with limited counter space. Smaller households that plan to make only one or two portions of food at a time may also prefer this model. Compared with other pod-shaped air fryers we tested, the Philips cooked food the most evenly, aside from the occasional soggy french fry on average, it cooked faster than most other models we tried and with better results. Like all pod-shaped air fryers, this Philips model isnt good for baking or making toastits fan is too powerful and produces overcooked, irregularly shaped cakes and wonky, unevenly browned toast. But if you dont plan to bake in it, we think its a suitable choice for cooking frozen snacks, smaller portions of meat and vegetables, or certain dishes you want extra crispy, like chicken wings or flautas.
Best Budget: Cosori Compact Air Fryer
If you dont have a lot of space or money to spare, Cosoris Compact Air Fryer is a great option. As a 3.7-quart capacity machine, it doesnt take up too much counter space and it can easily fit into a cabinet when youre not using it. It has a traditional, square-ish pod design with a touch panel on the top half and a removable cooking basket on the bottom. I was impressed by how easy this air fryer was to use from start to finish. Learning how to program cooking modes and times was easy and using the basket is simple as well. It also has a handy release button that disconnects the air fryer basket from the base, which makes cleanup quick and simple.
This is a true air fryer in the sense that it has presets rather than a bunch of different cooking modes. It does have toast and bake, which are different from air fry, but otherwise you can choose from different food-specific presets like french fries, shrimp, frozen foods and more. While thats not so great if you want a multipurpose device, its ideal if youre just looking for an air fryer that can do exactly that very well. Not only was the Cosori machine fairly quiet, but it also only took between three and five minutes to preheat in most cases, and everything I cooked in it from tofu nuggets to chicken wings came out crispy and flavorful.
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What Is The Best Air Fryer
The very best air fryer you can buy is the Instant Pot Vortex Plus 6-Quart 6-in-1 Air Fryer. It has a generous capacity, several cooking modes, and is easy to clean with great results. If you want an air fryer to cook every element of your meal at once, try the Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer with DualZone. The two drawers and removable inserts give you so many cooking options, all in one device.
Best Gourmia Air Fryer Reviews 2022
Gourmia produces a wide range of air fryers that have many different features. The following Gourmia Air Fryer reviews will help you make an informed decision on which Gourmia Air Fryer to buy.
The Gourmia 6 Quart air fryer is the perfect kitchen appliance for those family of 3 to 4 persons. This 6-Quart Digital Air Fryer features 12 One-Touch Preset modes that eliminate guesswork, as well as One-Touch Cooking Functions that allow you to air fry, bake, dehydrate and more with just a tap. The Fry Force 360° Technology cooks food quickly and evenly with little to no oil, while the non-stick basket and crisper tray are easy-to-clean and dishwasher safe for hassle-free cleanup.
Additionally, the Gourmia Air Fryer offers a temperature range of 90 to 400 degrees, making it perfect for all your cooking needs. Plus, the display features Guided Cooking Prompts that notify you when to add food after preheating and turn food during cooking.
Key Features:
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How Much Money Do You Want To Spend
Many of our experts mentioned you should expect to spend around $80 on a good air fryer, though top-tier models can cost as much as $300. Some smaller models under $80 can work for smaller quantities of food.
Are they worth it? Thats up to you, Weinstein said. His $300 air fryer has lasted him a long time, but he owns air fryers half that price that have worked their way through testing the thousands of recipes in his books, too. For the uninitiated, its probably worth spending less at first to allow room for experimentation and growth.
Instant Vortex Plus 6
If you want an air fryer with extra features, this model from Instant Pot is similar to our best value pick with two extra cooking modes: Bake and dehydrate. Its similarly well reviewed with over 15,000 ratings. Note that it has a slightly smaller capacity than our winner, so you may need to cook in more batches.
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Consider Toasting The Rice
Full disclosure: This step isnt necessary. But if you have the time, it enhances the natural flavor of the rice. Simply heat a teaspoon of butter or olive oil over medium heat in the pot youre going to cook the rice in. Add the rice and stir it frequently until it starts smelling nutty a bit like popcorn. If youre toasting white rice, youll see it turn pale tan.
How Our Test Kitchen Found The Best Air Fryers
TMB Studio
To find our Test Kitchen-Preferred air fryer, our team tested the most popular air fryers on the market, whipping up all sorts of recipes and judging them according to these standards:
- Texture: How well do our favorite air fryer recipes turn out? Is the finished product crisp? Tender?
- Cooking quality: Does the air fryer cook food thoroughly? Our Test Kitchen cooked all kinds of dishes, including meatballs, crab cakes, chicken wings and even cinnamon rolls.
- Price: Is the product affordable? Was the performance reflected in the price?
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Cleanup Went Fine With All The Models
All of the air fryers were alright to clean. And while some were dishwasher-safe per the manufacturers guidelines, we recommend hand-washing anything nonstick anyways, as the high temperatures of the dishwasher will breakdown the coating faster. Some of the models had a plastic slider covering the basket release button on the handle. This cover trapped water, but it wasnt too troublesome.
Serious Eats / Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm
How Does An Air Fryer Work
Air fryers don’t fry food in the traditional sense. Instead of oil, air fryers use hot air to crisp and brown foods. All air fryers contain a heating mechanism and fan that keeps the heated air circulating around the food. The process is similar to a convection oven.
Air fryers contain a perforated or mesh basket that allows air to move around the food for even cooking. The only downside to this design is you can only air fry breaded foods since battered foods would drip through the perforated air fryer basket.
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Best Design: Dash Deluxe Electric Air Fryer
This oversized air fryer is easy on the eyes. The Dash Deluxe has the largest cooking capacity of any of the ovens we tested with a 6-quart cooking basket. It also has some undeniable retro appeal and is available in a few fun colors. The appliance we tested was aqua, though it also comes in red, black and white. This model also has all manual controls with no presets and was exceedingly simple to operate.
Aesthetics aside, the Dash fried up batches of wings, Brussels sprouts, tater tots and French fries that were all cooked evenly and well. In our first round of testing, we found it easy to overshoot when air frying a mozzarella stick if youre not careful. For us, thats a good thing and only means the air fryer has considerable power that you simply need to learn to manage.
I rarely rely solely on food manufacturer recommendations or oven presets but rather use them as a loose guide and do lots of peeking and checking along the way. The Dash has exactly zero presets and no cooking modes such as roast or dehydrate but still got the most important jobs done.
The Dash is also solidly built, although not quite as sound as the Ninja. Its also on the heavy side, so this is one you might need to find a permanent home for. If you like this model but prefer a smaller size, the compact model for just $50 right now.
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Verdict What Is The Best 6qt Air Fryer
Thinking about everything I would certainly advise Habor 5.8 QT Air Fryer XL. This model has an LCD touchscreen so it streamlines your cooking. This air fryer is powered by a powerful motor of 1800W. The food is prepared by steaming warm air. The heat is being uniformly distributed throughout the basket and makes your meals scrumptious and also additional crunchy. This kind of cooking method requires no oil! Which is remarkable due to the fact that it is a much healthier way of consuming deep-fried food. If you wish to know even more about air fryers you should review my post about commercial air fryer or industrial air fryers. Also if you wish to know extra, read my message concerning ideal air fryers right now.
Also Check: Are Air Fryers Worth The Money
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer
If you arent worried about money or space and you find that youre regularly preparing meals for a bunch of people, the Breville Smart Oven Air is a great convection oven-style air fryer. I have a Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer that I absolutely love, Pitre said. It has 11 cooking functions, like toasting, broiling, baking, and of course air frying. Like most of our recommendations, it has a screen for the timer and temperature. The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer has a 4.7-star average rating from around 160 reviews at Best Buy and comes with a one-year warranty. Its important to note here that the Breville doesnt have any dishwasher-safe parts.
How Do You Clean An Air Fryer
Most removable parts on most air fryers are dishwasher safe. Check the owner’s manual of your air fryer for which parts, if any, are ok to run through the dishwasher.
These parts are also easily cleaned by hand with warm, soapy water and a non-abrasive sponge. If there’s any particularly difficult to remove grease or stuck-on food, let the parts soak in hot, soapy water first.
The interior and exterior of the air fryer can be wiped clean with a damp cloth, but should never be submerged in water since it contains electrical components.
If the heating element gets dirty, you can wipe it with a damp cloth when the unit is turned off, cooled, and unplugged.
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What About Using A Full
For the record, you can get similar air-fried results when cooking food in a full-size oven with convection. But because a full-size oven is so much larger than a toaster oven or an air fryer, it takes much longer to preheat and can take longer to cook food. The Cuisinart TOB-260N1 toaster oven preheats almost immediately, making it the better choice if speed is part of what appeals to you about an air fryer.
Why Trust The Spruce Eats
This roundup was written by Sharon Lehman, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who happily makes space for any gadget that makes cooking faster and easier. She has tested and reviewed several air fryers for The Spruce Eats, including the Chefman TurboFry Air Fryer and Emeril Lagasse Power Air Fryer 360.
The Spruce Eats Editor Siobhan Wallace compiled testing data from our official Lab as well as insights from our home tester’s full product reviews to update this roundup.
This roundup was updated by Katya Weiss-Andersson, a writer and editor who has nearly a decade of experience as a professional chef. Katya started out as an air fryer skeptic, but it is now the most beloved appliance in her kitchen.
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Different Brands Of 6 Qt Air Fryers
These gadgets are not made complex, anybody can push a few buttons and also wait up until their food is done. There are a lot of designs of numerous different brand names to choose from and it can be hard to select one out. A lot of popular brands today are making air fryers such as Philips, GoWise, Power, Elite, and also several others. Below I will inform you all the info about the 6QT air fryers.
How To Choose: Convection Toaster Oven Vs Air Fryer
If youre having trouble choosing which type of air fryer to get, heres how wed decide.
Get the Cuisinart oven if:
- You have room in your kitchen for a larger oven.
- You have a family or larger household, and/or want to be able to cook larger portions of food at once.
- You want to make a variety of foods, such as baked goods, toast, frozen pizzas up to 13 inches, or roast chicken as big as 6 pounds.
- You want the option to adjust the convection fans speed or turn it off completely.
- You dont want to buy extra accessories to get the most out of your appliance.
- You dont mind turning your food to achieve even browning while cooking.
- You like to avoid nonstick coating, which lines the baskets in most pod-shaped air fryers and tends to wear off quickly.
- You want faster cleanup.
Get a pod-shaped air fryer if:
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What Can You Cook In An Air Fryer
Fries, roast potatoes, chicken wings, and other deep-fried favorites are obvious dishes to cook in an air fryer, but that’s not all you can whip up in one of these handy kitchen gadgets. You can prepare anything you can cook in a traditional fan oven, space permitting, because they work in the same way.
So whether that’s frozen foods, mini pizzas, or even gnocchi and ravioli – it can all be cooked in an air fryer. You can even make fudgy brownies in an air fryer, in less time than it takes in an oven.
In fact, we’ve spent more than 12 months attempting to cook some of our favorite dishes in this kitchen gadget. We found an air fryer can rival KFC when it comes to fried chicken, and was also the answer when it came to creating crisp, crunchy crackling on pork belly.
It also proved to be the best way to cook cinnamon rolls and Krispy-Kreme-style donuts.
As well as being used in place of an oven, air fryers can be an easier way to prepare dishes usually cooked on a stove, without having to watch them like a hawk and turn them before they burn. In particular, we discovered French Toast and grilled cheese work extremely well in the kitchen gadget.
If you’re a fan of fries but unsure how to go about making them in an air fryer, then check out our advice, which even details an air fryer trick that’s a game-changer when it comes to cooking fries.
