With an air fryer, the cooking process is rather different. You don’t submerge food in hot oil; instead, you gently coat it in oil and then let the appliance circulate hot air around until your food has got that gorgeously crispy finish. Not only is it healthier, but you don’t have to clean up a large reservoir of oil once it’s all done. We have put plenty of air fryers through our rigorous reviewing process in order to find the best ones for any use, and for any home. This useful list collects the very best models, and you can read on for more information on them in the full review if you want the complete lowdown. Our testing of air fryers determines how easy they are to use, including evaluating the straightforwardness of the control panel. Then we review the performance based on how it cooks a range of common foods, including chips, frozen hash browns, meat, and more. If a fryer happens to pack in other features as well, such as a grill or a temperature probe, then rest assured that we’ll scrutinise these aspects too.
Best air fryers at a glance
Best overall: Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L – check priceBest large fryer: Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK – check priceBest budget choice for families: Proscenic T22 – check priceBest oven & air fryer combo: Sage the Smart Oven Air Fry – check priceBest for grilling: Tower T17076 10-in-1 – check priceBest multi-cooker: Ninja Foodi MAX OL750UK – check priceBest on a budget: Salter Aerogrill – check price
You can cook individually, use the same setting on both drawers or, cleverly, use different settings on each drawer but have them synchronise to finish at the same time. There are options to air fry, max crisp (a 240C turbo setting), roast, reheat, dehydrate or bake. Performance is excellent across the board, delivering crispy chips, succulent burgers and perfectly cooked corn. The only minor complaint is that while capacity is large, each drawer is the same size as a regular air fryer, so you can’t fit in larger ingredients, such as a whole chicken. This is a beast of an air fryer, but if you want the ultimate flexibility, it’s the best. Reviewer: David Ludlow Full review: Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer review As with the previous model, you can use just a single drawer, or use each drawer independently, synchronised (individual settings, but the air fryer will get both of your selected programmes to end at the same time or matched with the same settings. That’s hugely flexible, and we found that this air fryer made short work of all dinners, letting us cook two different parts of the dinner to finish at the same time, or just increase the total capacity for one part. Testing, we found that chips came out perfectly, and frozen food was dealt with brilliantly. It’s quite a beast, but if you use an air fryer all of the time, cook large portions (or for lots of people) and want quality results each time, then there’s nothing better than this model. Reviewer: David Ludlow Full review: Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK review For starters, this can be useful, but once we were used to the air fryer, we found it easier to skip the app and use the controls on the front. We have to say that the manual controls are a little confusing with lots of buttons for dedicated cooking modes, such as seafood, chips, fish and meat. A simpler layout would help, although once you’re used to the T22, it’s often easier to set a temperature and time manually. Persevere and this air fryer can deliver some quality results: crispy chips and nicely browned sausages, not to mention faster cooking times and better results for frozen essentials. With a single 5-litre drawer, there’s a good amount of space for cooking for families, too. Reviewer: Simon Handby Full review: Proscenic T21 The oven can also employ its Element iQ tech to direct power where it’s needed to eliminate cold spots in food. In practice, it worked perfectly, leaving us with evenly cooked home chips that had a crispy outside and fluffy inside. And, the size the oven means that you can use it for larger items, including chicken legs or even an entire pizza. Just be careful with the preset options, as we found that our pizza began to burn after 15 minutes, although the programme was set for 20 minutes. With a higher-than-average temperature option of 230C, rather than the usual 200C, the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fry can cook food faster than many other air fryers, although it does take a bit longer to heat up. Comparatively expensive, this model won’t be for everyone, but its unique design lends itself to foods that other air fryers can’t even think about. Reviewer: Rachel Ogden Full review: Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer review The rotisserie oven-style window sets the Tower T17076 10-in-1 apart from other air fryers. Being able to view food while it’s cooking is a boon, even if you’re not grilling a whole chicken. Accessories include three air-flow racks (which allow you to cook food on three levels at the same time), a rotisserie fork with handle, 10 skewers with rotating wheels, a wire rack, a reversible grill plate (functions as a hotplate and a griddle), two heat-proof silicone mitts and a drip tray. Performance was on the whole good: chips were nicely browned and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. We also had great success cooking slightly oiled corn on the cob using the grill plate on top of the wire rack. To try out the rotisserie function, we put halloumi, courgette and pepper pieces onto the skewers fitted into the rotating wheels. The griddle also produced excellent results, making the Tower T17076 10-in-1 a fine all-rounder. Reviewer: Helen Harjak Full review: Tower T17076 10-in-1 Digital Air Fryer review This sizeable cooker can air fry, grill, pressure cook, steam and more. Results across the board are fantastic, but you’ll need to ask yourself whether you realistically need this much cooking space and number of functions before you buy it. Each mode offers different cooking options and is exceptionally easy to use via the simple controls. A temperature probe is included; stick this into your food and choose from the preset options (chicken, pork, lamb and beef, plus, where appropriate, target levels from rare to well done), and the OL750UK will automatically stop when your food is perfectly cooked. This helps take the guesswork out of cooking and got us perfectly-cooked steak. Cooking for 20 minutes at 200ºC, with 125ml of water in the bowl, chips were evenly cooked and had a nice crispy texture to the outside, while the inside remained soft and moist. Quite possibly, this is the best that we’ve seen any air fryer perform. Frozen hash browns and grilling rump steak were also cooked to perfection. Pressure cooking works well, too, reducing the amount of time it takes to cook a lot of food. The Ninja OL750UK is a bit of a monster, taking up a lot of space. However, it isn’t wasted space since this is a jack-of-all-trades multi-cooker. Reviewer: David Ludlow Full review: Ninja Foodi Max OL750UK Inside, there’s space for a 6-litre air fry basket, which is enough space to cook for large families. For grilling, there’s a grill plate that drops into place, which is big enough to take large skewers of food, plus whole steaks and portions of fish. Salter provides default programmes for common foods, such as chicken and meat, which set the Aerogrill to the correct temperature; you just have to select the cooking time. Alternatively, there are two options: you can set the Aerogrill manually, or you can use the provided temperature probe to shut the device down automatically when your food is at the right temperature. General air fryer foods (chips, hash browns, burgers and the like) were cooked exceptionally well, although we did have to add a bit of cooking time beyond the recommend to some food types. Using the grill, we found that its heat was slightly uneven, but moving food around manually when turning it was enough to overcome this problem. More expensive air fryers can cook faster and more evenly, but for the price, the Salter Aerogrill is hard to beat, adding versatility with its grill. Reviewer: Simon Handby Full Review: Salter Aerogrill 114 Cooker
