Best Types Of Air Fryers

What Can You Make In An Air Fryer

The options for foods you can cook in an air fryer are vast, but some air fryer favorites include chicken wings, chicken tenders, french fries and mozzarella sticks. You can also make fish in an air fryer, including salmon, for a moist inside and roasted outer crust. Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs are great when made in an air fryer, as are certain vegetables like Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, onions, peppers and carrots. Frozen foods such as dumplings, potato skins, Hot Pockets and tater tots can be made in an air fryer for a quick and easy snack or side dish. Air fryers can also quickly reheat food like last night’s pizza or leftover fried chicken. Air fryers reheat food almost as quickly as a microwave and the results are generally much better.

How Do I Know What Size Air Fryer To Buy

When it comes to deciding what size air fryer you need in order to satisfy the people youre cooking for it all boils down to the amount of food you need to cook. Fortunately for us, almost every air fryer is standardized with the size and capacity using measurement in quarts. The sizes of air fryers range anywhere from one and a half quarts to a whopping 10 quarts or larger.

In case you needed something easy to look at, weve compiled a table that gives you information on how many quarts you will need to feed a certain number of people below:

What Shouldnt I Use An Air Fryer To Do

Although the air fryer is a great tool to speed up time spent in the kitchen, the food you make in it isnt going to taste the same as something youve deep-fried, experts told us. Free yourself of those confines and you wont be disappointed.

Linda Larsen, author of The Complete Air Fryer Cookbook, also noted that not every food can be cooked in the air fryer, pointing specifically to frozen stuffed chicken breasts. Foods like this, after being put in the air fryer, will look fully cooked and golden brown on the outside even if theyre still raw and potentially dangerous to eat. Both Larsen and Weinstein explicitly warned against cooking anything with a runny batter in the air fryer, too, since it can make a mess and require more painstaking clean-up.

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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.

What Is An Air Fryer And How Does It Work

Despite the name, an air fryer doesnt fry at all. Rather, air fryers are more like a supercharged convection oven, circulating hot air with a fan and hitting food more rapidly than most ovens. That causes the outside of food to cook more quickly without drying out the inside and giving a crispy, fried-like outer shell to wings, fries and other foods.

Most air fryers come with a grated rack or perforated basket so the air can travel through and hit the food on all sides.

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What Are The Best Air Fryers

We think the Cosori Smart Wifi Air Fryer is the best air fryer for most people. In our tests, it consistently gave crispy results. Plus, it has digital controls and nonstick-coated, dishwasher safe baskets that make it easy to use and clean. At about $125, it’s also not too expensive.

If youâre looking for the best air fryer on a budget, we think the GoWISE USA 3.7 Quart 8-in-1 Air Fryer is the best value at well under $100. In spite of its low price, it has digital controls and preset programs to take the guesswork out of air frying.

And, once you purchase a model, be sure to check out our guide on how to use an air fryer for the best results. If you love rice to go with your foods, here are 8 reasons why you should buy a rice cooker.

Best With Toaster Oven: Cuisinart Toa

• Slightly hard to clean

Cuisinart excels at making compact toaster ovens and air fryers in one. Its TOA-60 option can air fry up to 4 pounds of food, roast a 4-pound chicken, and toast 6 slices of breadand thats just the beginning. It has heating elements on both the top and bottom, with the convection fan located above the top elements, so you can bake and broil when you aren’t air-frying bacon.

When we tested this in the Lab, we found it to be the most compact and quietest of the toaster oven machines, and it performed the best as an air fryer. Both French fries and chicken tenders come out with great coloring and good flavor, even though this runs hot and some were overcooked. Once you’re over the learning curve, you’ll definitely be able to achieve fried goodness. When we roasted a chicken in the Cuisinart, it came out with the crispiest skin and tasted delicious.

Our testers did find some downsides to this machine, in addition to the machine running hot. It’s a bit difficult to handle grease both during the chicken roasting and the cleanup after. Even though the interior is nonstick, we needed to get into the corners to get all the splatter. We also wished it had a digital interface instead of manual controls. If having the ability to fine-tune the presets to your exact preferences is a must, take a look at the slightly more expensive Cuisinart TOA-65 Airfryer Toaster Oven.

The Spruce Eats / Tamara Staples

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How To Pick An Air Fryer

Air fryers work almost the same way that convection ovens do. Air is rapidly circulated around the oven through a fan system, which helps food achieve the crispy, crunchy texture that fryers are known for. Thats why Weinstein and Scarborough told me that an air fryer is not really a fryer. Its a hot-air dehydrator. It uses very hot air currents to dry out coatings until theyre impossibly crunchy without much added oil .

Most air fryers have a basket or wire rack that allows food to sit above the base, so air can even circulate around the bottom, therefore creating a 360 degree flow of heat. Weinstein and Scarborough shared some advice for shopping for an air fryer over email. Look for a solidly-built machine, they wrote. In general, more metal means more stable, more durable, and more long-lasting. A metal air fryer will hold heat better, last longer, and work more efficiently. A cheap plastic one, not so much. Heres what to consider when shopping for an air fryer.

How Exactly Does An Air Fryer Work

Air fryers essentially work their magic the same way a toaster oven doesby circulating hot air throughout an inner chamber, giving your food crunchier and crispier skin than if you’d tossed it into the oven.

“The beauty of an air fryer is that you don’t need to preheat it,” Theoktisto tells us. If you want to get your kids some crispy nuggets or chicken tenders on the table fast, this thing will do it. My mom recently purchased one and she finds it’s easier to cook for two people using it. I’d recommend it to empty nesters, working parents, and single people.”

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Best Overall Air Fryer

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What’s The Best Way To Clean An Air Fryer

It depends on your air fryer model, so consult the user manual. Generally, you should clean the fryer basket and grease catcher with hot, soapy water and a soft sponge after each use.

You can simplify cleanup by air frying your food on aluminum foil or parchment paper.

For more details, check out our article on cleaning air fryers.

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How Powerful Should An Air Fryer Be

Most air fryers are somewhere between 1,200 and 1,800 watts. Larger air fryers typically have more wattage and smaller models have less. Your midrange 4-quart air fryer should have about 1,500 watts. The small Magic Bullet air fryer has just 1,300, but that’s plenty of power to cook food in the petite basket. Larger air fryers should have about 100 more watts per quart to make sure they hit those hot temps of 400 degrees F.

What We Think Of The Dash Dmaf360gbaq02 Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer + Oven Cooker

The Dash DMAF360GBAQ02 Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer + Oven Cooker has a 3 quart capacity, making it a much smaller and more compact choice than many of the other air fryers on this list. It only has a weight of around 10 pounds as well.

The appearance is pretty striking. It has a completely round body and comes in four color choices. This appearance looks fresh and ensures that the air fryer fits into any kitchen, no matter what the kitchen may look like.

Although the air fryer is small, it retains functional and efficient performance. It comes with a digital display and eight preset options. These presets make it easy to cook all of your favorite snacks in this nifty little device.

More so, the Dash DMAF360GBAQ02 Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer + Oven Cooker comes with safety features. For example, it comes with an auto shutoff function to ensure nothing burns or causes a fire.

Price wise, the air fryer is pretty affordable. It isnt quite as cheap as our budget pick, but it is close. People on a budget will be happy with the price tag on this product.

The biggest issue with the Dash DMAF360GBAQ02 Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer + Oven Cooker is its size. Because it only has a capacity of 3 quarts, large families probably wont be able to make food for the whole family using this device.

Easy to operate. Good time and temperature. The capacity is great for its price.

michelle

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How To Buy The Best Air Fryer For You

Look for easy-to-use controls for both temperature and time, as these are the most important features on any air fryer. Auto-stop and keep warm functions can be useful but chips, if left for any amount of time will soon lose their crispness. More expensive machines will feature touch screens rather than dial controls, which will help with accuracy.

The bigger the basket capacity, the more people youll be able to cook for. So if youve got a family, then a 5 litre machine is probably a must.

A loud beep to signal the end of cooking time is a good idea if youre using the time to wander off and do something else. Most air-fryers will only cook one food group at a time but some will cook a whole meal in one go if youre after a one-pot solution.

So Are Air Fryers Or Convection Ovens Better

Air fryers cook quicker than convection ovens and don’t require heating a large appliance, like your full-sized oven. Their perforated racks also allow fat to drip onto the drip pan so your food doesn’t absorb excess oil, which minimizes calories and becomes crispier since it is more dry.

The downside of air fryers is they can’t cook as much food at one time as you can in an oven. Food cooks better in an air fryer when it’s in a single layer. Some foods, like French fries, can be stacked, but should be tossed at least once. Air fryers can also be loud although many manufacturers consider this in development.

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Air Fryers We Reviewed But Didn’t Score As Well

• We’ve always loved Instant Pot. But if you’ve never used an air fryer before, we can’t recommend the Instant Vortex Plus . Its “Getting Started Guide” wasnt very helpful. We also found cooking with the included tray yielded better results than the basket the manufacturer suggested using. Still, if you don’t mind a lot of trial and error, this device can produce solid results.

• We’ve reviewed a few Krups models. We like the Krups Easy Fry Deluxe Digital a bit better than the Krups Fry Delight thanks to its design and cooking results. However, neither are very close to mimicking the crispiness of food that came out of a traditional deep fryer.

• Farberware 3.2 quart Digital Oil-Less Fryer is very inexpensive and does a decent job of crisping and browning, especially with frozen foods. However, the basket sticks and it’s a little confusing to use.

• The generic-looking Power Air XL has a small capacity, and its basket doesn’t glide out very smoothly.

• The Black and Decker 2L Purifry is a big appliance, but comes with a much smaller basket. With no digital controls and tiny numbers, it’s really difficult to set your temperature precisely.

Should You Buy An Air Fryer Toaster Oven

Air fryers are all the rage, but can feel like a single-use appliance. Plus, they require significant countertop real estate. Air fryer toaster ovens tend to look like larger versions of your classic toaster oven, but come with all the functionality of a toaster oven, air fryer and even roaster combined. If your countertop already houses a toaster oven, consider this the ideal more-than-2-for-1 upgrade.

For one thing, the shape is sleek and angular, meaning it will fit more easily into a corner and sit flush against your backsplash. And most of these combo machines are stainless steel making them very durable, while many solo air fryers are shiny plastic that can feel like it’s a bit of a cheaper design. Another pro? The air fryer-toaster ovens are designed to hold more food. Many of these models can fit a 12-inch pizza, four-plus slices of bread and a whole chicken. No more batch cooking necessary, which means you can get dinner on the table for your whole family faster.

Jill Novatt

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Best Air Fryer 202: For Low

We have reviewed the 10 best air fryers you can buy for two people or large family meals, from Ninja, Instant, Philips, Cosori and more

Choose the best air fryer for your kitchen with our reviews of cookers from Ninja, Instant, Philips, and more. Air fryers are quickly becoming a household essential for quick meals and oven-free lunches, and with a variety of sizes to choose from, there is an option for every family.

Some air fryers now come with dual baskets, allowing you to cook one part of a meal in one drawer, and a side dish or even dessert in the other. And air frying aside, many models come equipped to bake, roast, reheat and even dehydrate with easily adjustable timings and temperatures. When you’re done, most of the models in this guide come with dishwasher-safe baskets and inserts, meaning they’re easy to use and even easier to clean.

Best Smart: Cosori Vesync Pro Ii Smart Air Fryer

• Wide basket for better airflow

• App with recipes

• Baskets might not fit well in dishwasher

• App could use more recipes

The Cosori VeSync Pro II is an upgraded version of the Cosori Pro, which we previously tested, with one major difference: a highly functional app. This means you can control the settings, look up recipes, and monitor cooking all from your phone. There is also voice control. Design-wise, it’s a sleek device that won’t take up too much counter space and if you’re cooking for a large group, the 5.8-quart capacity makes this big enough for large meals and then some.

With 12 presets that you can customizesteak, chicken, shrimp, seafood, frozen foods, French fries, bacon, vegetables, toast, bake, preheat, and keep warmour tester found it very intuitive to use. It performed just as well as the non-smart version. Our tester had great results with grilled cheese, potato wedges, wings, frozen fish, burgers, and even air-fried cannoli.

Our reviewer would like to see even more recipes included in the app but likes that they can be customized. Plus, the app may update in the future, adding to the value. Currently, you’ll find recipes like prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, chicken satay, stuffed French toast, and blackened catfish. The perforated basket and the outer basket have a nonstick coating that makes cleanup easy .

The Spruce Eats / Donna Currie

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