A few more bonus points for the ClearCook: It adds dehydrate to its list of functions and is able to hold temperatures as low as 95°F (the low end of the Vortex Slim’s range is 120°F). The ClearCook also happens to be $30 cheaper than the Slim at full price.
What we didn’t like about the Instant Pot Vortex Plus 6-Quart ClearCook Air Fryer
Despite having the same quart capacity as the Vortex Slim, the ClearCook’s basket fit one less veggie burger patty due to its more square dimensions. It’s also a bit bulky.
Capacity: 6 qt. | Wattage: 1700 | 6 Cooking functions: Air-fry, bake, reheat, roast, broil, dehydrate | Color: Black | Weight: 11.35 lb. | Dimensions: 14.9 x 11.8 x 13.0″ | Warranty: 1 year
An excellent air fryer upgrade: Typhur Dome
If you want something sleek and spacious and have room in the budget, the Typhur Dome offers just over 150 square inches of cooking surface area in its squarish basket. Our testers were able to fit a 12″ pizza, six slices of toast, 20 chicken wings, or 10 slices of bacon per batch, while maintaining enough space for airflow around each item. It’s powerful and fast as well; the Typhur Dome doesn’t require any preheating, and the construction retains heat incredibly well. We found it cooked french fries, chicken, and bread several minutes faster than any other machine we tried. Because it can maintain a temperature as low as 140ºF, it can be used for dehydrating foods too. The relatively simple digital control panel has 10 presets, plus arrows to adjust the temperature and cook time, and the companion app has even more settings—including a self-cleaning function—as well as 50 one-touch air fryer recipes. Another plus? The entire basket, which has a ceramic nonstick surface (not a teflon one), is dishwasher-safe.
What we didn’t like about the Typhur Dome
It’s quite pricey, and its low height means it’s not the best option for cooking something large like a whole chicken. And, because it’s so roomy, this air fryer does take up a lot of space—but if you’re into kinda cute, futuristic small appliances, you might not mind making the space for this on your countertop.
Capacity: 5.6-qt. | Wattage: 1750 | 10 Cooking functions: Air-fry, toast, bake, reheat, roast, broil, dehydrate, fries, wings, steak, bacon, frozen | Color: Silver | Weight: 20.5 lb. | Dimensions: 19.7 x 15.6 x 9.6″ | Warranty: 3 years
The best small air fryer: Cosori Lite 2.1-Quart Mini Air Fryer
If you’re on a tighter budget, have very little counter space to spare, or simply want to reheat restaurant french fries every now and then, consider the Cosori Lite 2.1-Quart Mini Air Fryer. This compact air fryer did a beautiful job crisping and browning small servings of frozen tater tots and fries, sliced zucchini, and veggie burger patties (two at a time, max). Depending where you buy, it only costs $50–$60 at the time of publishing—not at all bad for a lightweight, quiet, digital air fryer with four easy-to-use presets (air-fry, roast, bake, and reheat). It’s easy to tuck into a cabinet and to clean. Again, while the manual says the nonstick basket is dishwasher-safe, we always recommend hand-washing anything with a nonstick coating.
What we didn’t like about the Cosori Lite 2.1-Quart Mini Air Fryer
Per its name, it’s quite small—don’t expect to be cooking enough food for more than two people in this thing. It also won’t remind you when it’s time to shake your food, so you’ll need ot keep an eye on the timer yourself (luckily, the digital display makes this pretty easy).
Capacity: 2.1-qt. | Wattage: 900 | 4 cooking functions: Air-fry, bake, roast, reheat | Colors: Gray, red, white, green | Weight: 4.9 lb. | Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.3 x 10.5″ | Warranty: 2 years
What is an air fryer? Is it just a convection oven?
An air fryer is a countertop oven that uses hot air, circulated by a fan, to give foods crisper textures than you can achieve in a regular oven or toaster oven. What makes an air fryer an air fryer is a built-in convection fan that blows the hot air around the food to crisp it up. It’s the combination of heat and moving air that produces the kind of crispy exterior you’d otherwise get from deep-frying or pan-frying. But unlike a deep fryer, an air fryer requires far less oil to achieve the desired effect—and it doesn’t leave your house smelling like a grease trap for days or weeks.
So, technically speaking, yes, air fryers are simply small convection ovens, but the most classic form of air fryer isn’t really oven-shaped. Products marketed as air fryers are traditionally egg-shaped, with small removable baskets that you shake, as you would a deep-frying basket, in order to get an even cook on, say, french fries or zucchini slices.
Whether you’re a purist and only consider products that contain baskets and have that classic round shape to be true air fryers, or you find the term air fryer to be stupid marketing jargon for a convection oven is up to you to decide. For the purposes of this review, we’ve included both toaster ovens that contain convection, or “air fryer” settings and the classic basket-containing air fryers. You can read more about each type below, and decide which might be right for you.
How we tested and selected the best air fryers
We have spent countless hours over the past few years researching, testing, and retesting popular air fryers from top-name brands, including Breville, Cuisinart, Ninja, Philips, and Cosori. When we tested these machines, we cooked hand-cut fries, slices of zucchini, cubes of marinated tofu, chicken breasts, salmon fillets, and myriad frozen foods in each model (sweet potato fries, tater tots, and veggie burgers), and assessed the following factors. We also solicited enthusiastic recommendations from our own test kitchen editors and recipe developers who use air fryers both in their Bon Appétit work and in their own homes. Here’s how we judged them:
This was one of the most crucial things we evaluated. We wanted to assess if each machine could crisp food better than your average oven.
While an air fryer basket needs to get shaken or stirred at least once while cooking, we also wanted to make sure each model produced evenly browned and crunchy results—we didn’t want to see any fries that are super crunchy on one end and raw on the other.
While a lot of air fryers come with additional presets, we focused mostly on how easy it was to set the time and temperature on each model. Was it a simple dial and few buttons or did it feature a confusing and hard to navigate interface?
Square- and rectangular-shaped air fryers tend to offer more surface area than round ones. We also preferred models with fewer interlocking pieces, which makes the air fryer easier to clean.
We took these machines apart and scrubbed them after we tested them. Like we said above, in general, the fewer pieces there are to the air fryer, the easier it is to clean.
Some home cooks will want an air fryer that’s light, with a slim profile that makes it easy to store in a cabinet and take out only for occasional use. Others won’t mind a larger appliance that they can keep out on their countertop, especially since a larger machine can accommodate more food and likely offer more versatility. We looked for options that would suit both kinds of air fryer users.
Other air fryers we tested
What we think of the Philips Premium Digital Air Fryer
The Philips almost took a top spot—almost. It’s got a generous capacity, the control panel is easy to navigate, and it performs well with minimal user intervention. In other words, you won’t have to do a lot of shaking or stirring to get crispy fries from the Philips. This model did have a smaller yet heavier basket. It’s also loud and harder to clean due to a bunch of interlocking parts. It’s a good air fryer but with its higher price tag we feel like there are better deals on this list.
What we think of the Cuisinart Air Fryer Oven 6 Qt
The Cuisinart ran neck and neck with the Instant Vortex Slim—it was easy to use, didn’t whir too loudly, included a nice preheat feature, and was about the same price. We also really liked the viewing window you could use to check the progress of your food. But while it technically has the same capacity as the Slim, the shape of the basket is awkward, making it tougher to use.
What we think of the Our Place Wonder Oven
Like all of DTC darling Our Place’s products, the Wonder Oven is cute. Unfortunately, it failed to impress us enough to earn our recommendation here. While it did fine at cooking tater tots and french fries, it produced unevenly browned, ultra mushy zucchini and tofu that never quite got the crisp exterior we were looking for. The analog controls are aesthetically pleasing, but make selecting an exact temperature impossible (and knowing when the unit is at temperature impossible too). It did, however, make a shockingly good fillet of crispy-skinned salmon.
What we think of the Ninja DoubleStack XL 2-Basket Air Fryer
The DoubleStack takes the idea of a dual basket air fryer to a whole new level—literally. Like the Vortex Slim, the DoubleStack’s design prioritizes using vertical space. It’s skinny with the baskets stacked on top of each other instead of side by side like most other dual models. This makes it narrow and tall instead of wide, but not so tall that you can’t nestle it under your cabinets. The space saving design doesn’t mean you lose out on actual cooking space either. The baskets are big enough to fit a chicken, and wire racks in each mean you can really maximize how much you’re cooking. (Though you do need to remain mindful of not overloading it with food, otherwise you’ll block the airflow and mess up the whole air-frying process.) You can also program the baskets separately and utilize the machine’s “Smart Finish” feature—which delays the start of the basket with the shorter cook—to have a whole meal ready at the same time. The one thing we didn’t like was the somewhat confusing interface.
What we think of the Instant Vortex Plus 4-Quart Air Fryer
This Instant Pot air fryer model is a fine option if you need something with a smaller capacity. The rectangular shape of its basket made it easy to fit plenty of food inside. It is sleek and has a short profile, which are nice features too. The Vortex Slim just offered better performance.
What we think of the Ninja AF101
This Ninja is what we think of when we think of a basic basket air fryer. It’s lightweight and simple to use, and it does a nice job crisping up fries. The round shape of its basket, though, makes it less versatile than other models on this list. If you’re trying to cook raw proteins or a tray of vegetables, you give away a lot of space with a round basket.
What we think of the GoWISE USA 3.7-Quart 7-in-1 Programmable Air Fryer
Another budget-friendly option, the GoWISE is best for one person who’s making small amounts of food at a time. Filling it with a meal for two-to-four people results in food. One other thing to note: The GoWISE claims to be a 7-in-1 air fryer, which isn’t quite true. It doesn’t offer seven different cooking methods, but rather just presets to make things like chicken or fish.
What we think of the Instant Vortex Mini 2-Quart Air Fryer
The Vortex Mini performed as well as the Cosori in our compact air fryer testing. However, it’s louder, heavier, and bigger. It’s just an inch smaller than our pick for best full-sized air fryer.
What we think of the Dash 2-Quart Compact Air Fryer
While the Dash looks cute with its retro silhouette and poppy colors, it just didn’t perform that well. Sweet potato fries came out soggy and greasy. Tofu cubes got crisped on one side but were raw on the other, and the round basket could only fit one veggie burger. The two dials, controlling time and temperature, also prevented us from getting more specific in the cook settings.
What we think of the Cosori 4-Quart Air Fryer
While this Cosori performed as well as other inexpensive models, it didn’t offer many additional settings to enhance the cooking experience—though it does feature an app to monitor your cooking progress.
What we think of the Nuwave Brio 7-in-1 Air Fryer Oven
The Nuwave Brio uses a wire basket instead of a nonstick-coated or ceramic-coated metal basket, like most other air fryers. This made it a lot harder to clean. Plus, it has a confusing interface.
A few of our favorite air fryer recipes
