The 3 Best Air Fryers of 2023 - Kunming Rainbow Colors Group Co.,Ltd

We tested our new pick, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 after our long-standing pick, the Philips HD9741/96, was discontinued, and found them to be nearly identical.

In February Cosori issued a recall of 21 air fryer models following incidents of them catching fire, melting, overheating, or smoking. Our budget pick, the Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer, isn't part of the recall.

If you’re looking for a compact kitchen appliance to bridge that gap between a microwave and a conventional oven, a pod-shaped air fryer might do the trick.

An air fryer crisps food like an oven does, but it also functions quickly and conveniently, like a microwave.

We’ve tested dozens of models since 2017, and we believe the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 is the best model out there. It is easy to use, cooks food more evenly and consistently than other pod-shaped air fryers, and doesn't take up too much counter space.

Air fryers are mini convection ovens. They use fans to rapidly circulate hot air and crisp your food.

Air fryers are compact and don't need to preheat, which cuts down on cook time.

The size of these machines limits the amount of food you can cook at once, and they don't always cook evenly.

If you have a large family and need a more spacious, versatile appliance, consider an air fryer toaster oven.

That said, the Philips Premium Airfryer is not our favorite appliance for air frying. If you have the space and budget, we recommend an air fryer toaster oven, which is more versatile and cooks more evenly than its pod-shaped counterparts. But we have learned over the years that many people prefer the pod-shaped style for a few reasons. Pods are typically more compact, which means they cook a bit faster, since there's less oven space to heat. Some people also find that it's easier (or just more fun) to use an air fryer basket with a handle, rather than pulling a hot pan from an oven. We get more into the pros and cons of each style below. But if you are short on time or space, cooking just a few servings, and favor crispy food, a pod-shaped air fryer might be right for you.

Looking for things to make in your air fryer? Try these recipes for brussels sprouts, chicken wings, french fries, broccoli, or green beans from NYT Cooking.

The Philips HD9741/56 is intuitive to use and has an elegant design that doesn't take up too much counter space. When filled to capacity, it was able to cook food more evenly than any other pod-shaped model we tested. However, it's only available at Williams-Sonoma.

After years of testing, we think the 2.75-quart Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 is the best pod-shaped air fryer out there. It's easy to use, has a relatively small footprint, and cooks food evenly. When tested against similar models from other brands, the Philips performed better across the board: It cooked the crispiest french fries and the most evenly golden chicken nuggets. We also like that it only has four preprogrammed settings: frozen fries, chicken, fish, and meat, all of which you access through a single dial on the control panel that's simple and intuitive. More settings on other machines felt like overkill, since we ended up just using the manual settings regardless. One downside to note: The basket is heavier than others we tested and has more pieces to clean (though you can choose not to use some of them).

This air fryer was the best model we tested in the $100 range. It shares some of the features we liked in the Philips, such as a large, 5-quart square basket and a streamlined control panel, though it doesn't cook as evenly.

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The 5-quart Cosori Pro LE is big and beautiful, with a sleek design and easy-to-use interface. It's no wonder many YouTubers and bloggers have proclaimed it their favorite pod-shaped air fryer. The Cosori Pro LE is the newest version of our previous budget pick, the Cosori Pro, and we think it offers a better user experience: The basket is easier to remove, and it fits more food than our other picks. The 11 preprogrammed settings are now clearly labeled with words rather than ambiguous food icons. The Pro LE also looks nicer. It has a chic matte finish, and the touch display screen has been moved to the top of the machine for a more streamlined appearance. In comparison to our other picks, the Cosori Pro LE cooked food the most unevenly; when we made french fries in this machine, for example, every fry was a little different. Some were crunchy on the ends and soft in the middle, and a few were wholly floppy. But most pod-shaped air fryers we’ve tested aren't great at cooking evenly, and for the price we think the Cosori's performance is good enough.

The Instant Mini Vortex is small, powerful, and one of the cheapest models we tested. While the wee basket can fit only one serving size at a time, the machine circulates heat fairly well and manages to cook food without dehydrating it.

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*At the time of publishing, the price was $54.

The Instant Mini Vortex 4-in-1 is proof that size isn't everything. Despite its tiny, 2-quart capacity—it was the smallest air fryer we tested—it held its own against much larger machines. Though the Instant Mini's square basket is a little more than half the capacity of the Cosori's and nearly a quart smaller than the Philips's, it could fit a meal big enough for one hungry person (or two snacky people). Depending on the food, such as french fries (which can be stacked), brownies, or pizza, the Instant Mini can fit nearly as much as the Philips Premium or the Cosori Pro LE thanks to its wide, shallow shape. What's more, this air fryer cooked food more evenly than most of the others we tested. Its streamlined interface has only four preprogrammed settings—air fry, roast, bake, and reheat—all operated by a single dial, which makes the Instant Mini easy to use right out of the box.

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*At the time of publishing, the price was $54.

As a staff writer at Wirecutter, I’ve researched, tested, and written about a variety of topics, including Costco's cheap Champagne, meditation apps, and the best facial sunscreens. I spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas in the kitchen with my mom cooking for a family of 12, and have always been interested in finding new ways to speed up the process. For this guide, I spent 34 hours cooking and reheating foods such as chicken wings, frozen french fries, pizza, and brownies in 10 pod-shaped air fryers at Wirecutter's New York City offices, which made me quite well versed in the appliances—and popular with my co-workers.

Senior staff writer Michael Sullivan conducted research and testing for the previous version of this guide. He has researched, tested, and reviewed toasters, toaster ovens, and deep fryers, among other kitchen gear and gadgets, since 2016, and spent more than 250 hours over the past five years researching and testing air fryers. Michael also served as a knowledgeable consultant for the latest round of testing, researching, and writing of this guide.

For many, the term "air fryer" conjures up images of egg-shaped appliances featured in TikTok videos of viral recipes. That's the style of appliance that this guide focuses on, but it's not the only thing you can use for air frying. More and more manufacturers are now producing air fryer toaster ovens, but you could even use a regular convection toaster oven, since that's what air fryers are: mini convection ovens. They use a fan to rapidly circulate hot air, cooking food faster and getting it crispier (essentially through dehydration) than a standard oven does.

The air fryers in this guide have some advantages over other options but also a number of downsides. They’re a good choice if you have a smaller household, both in terms of space and people. If you live in a dorm room, an apartment with limited counter space, or a retirement home, an air fryer will most likely fit wherever you can make it fit. If you live by yourself, or generally don't have many mouths to feed at one time, it's a good option for cooking one or two servings of food.

Plus, because of their small size, air fryers tend to cook faster than air fryer toaster ovens and don't require preheating, both bonuses for people who are looking to save time. If you primarily want to cook frozen foods or are looking to reheat leftovers that would get soggy in a microwave, a pod-shaped air fryer might be all you need. They also make cooking kind of fun—pop open a drawer, pour in some food, toss it halfway through, and it's done before you know it. For that reason, we think they’re a great tool to get uninitiated chefs interested in cooking for themselves. Pod-shaped air fryers can also be an invaluable cooking alternative for people with certain disabilities (video), since they don't require handling a hot tray, or bending over to open or close an oven door. Some smart models, like the Cosori Pro Smart Air Fryer, even come with apps that pair with your phone to make the appliance accessible via voice controls (video), though we haven't tested those features yet.

On the flip side, one of the biggest pitfalls of pod-shaped air fryers is that their compact size really limits not only the amount of food you can cook at once but also the kind of food you can cook. Air fryers can't fit larger items like casseroles, whole pizzas, or whole chickens. Because their fans are so powerful and the interior is so cramped, they tend to cook unevenly, and they aren't good for recipes that need a more delicate touch, such as cakes. Also, the preprogrammed settings, which may look enticing for new cooks, are generally inaccurate, so you’ll likely need to adjust the time or temperature a bit when using them. This can require a little trial and error, but if you spend the time to get to know your machine and how it tends to cook, this issue may not bother you. Finally, compared with washing a baking pan, some air fryer baskets are a pain to clean. Some claim to be dishwasher safe, but most have a nonstick coating that can be damaged by the dishwasher and will eventually wear off no matter how well you treat it.

Air fryer toaster ovens are bigger and typically more expensive than the air fryers we recommend here, but they can do a lot more. Their larger size means they can cook foods that can truly feed a family: Whole roasted chickens, casseroles, and 12- to 13-inch pizzas are all feasible options for an air fryer toaster oven. Some can even fit a Dutch oven. And while they do take up more space, they eliminate the need for a separate toaster, whereas a pod isn't great for making toast. The air fryer toaster ovens we recommend also allow you to adjust the fan speed—or turn it off altogether—making them better choices when more gentle, even heat is called for, like when baking a cake.

You could also choose a convection toaster oven, which operates in basically the same way as an air fryer toaster oven: A fan circulates hot air around the food, crisping the outside in a way that mimics deep frying. The difference with convection toaster ovens is that the fan typically isn't as powerful, meaning you’ll need to cook your food a little longer to get the same kind of crispy results. You also won't get a dedicated air fry setting. But our top-pick convection toaster oven, the Cuisinart Chef's Convection Toaster Oven, costs less than our top-pick air fryer toaster oven, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro.

If your main priority is simply to get a small, inexpensive appliance to heat food better than a microwave, you might be happy with a small toaster oven without convection. These are even more inexpensive than convection toaster ovens and more suitable for small spaces. We recommend the Panasonic FlashXpress (a top pick in our guide to toaster ovens). It won't blast food with hot air, but it can still bake relatively quickly and provide crispy results due to its small oven cavity, which is similar in size to a pod-shaped air fryer.

After several years of research and testing, we made a list of the most important qualities to look for when choosing an air fryer:

Compact design: We looked for air fryers that cater to one of their biggest selling points—a smaller footprint. We looked for streamlined machines that wouldn't stand out on a countertop or take up too much space.

Easy to use: A good air fryer should be relatively intuitive to operate. We looked for air fryers with clearly labeled controls and easy-to-read displays. We didn't want to feel like we had to look up the user manual every time we wanted to try (or retry) a function.

A square basket: Over the years, we’ve come to learn that round baskets simply don't hold as much food as square-shaped ones. To get the maximum use of space out of an air fryer, we think a square basket is key.

Even cooking: While most air fryers won't cook as evenly as an air fryer toaster oven, they should still brown and crisp your food overall. We dismissed models that left food scorched or soggy, as well as models with fans so powerful that they dried out the meal.

An easy-to-clean basket: Since the regular maintenance of air fryers is vital to their performance and overall lifespan, we generally avoided models with a lot of parts that would discourage people from properly cleaning them after every use. Although our main pick, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56, is a bit of an exception and difficult to clean when fully assembled, you don't actually have to use the extra accessories (like the three-layered "fat-reducing" design) for the machine to work, which will significantly cut down on cleaning time.

For our original guide in 2017, we ran the air fryers through a series of tests, cooking frozen and hand-cut french fries, frozen finger foods, and pork chops. In subsequent years of testing, we cooked frozen french fries, chicken tenders, and fish sticks, as well as fresh chicken wings.

In 2022, we polled our followers on social media to get a sense of what they use their air fryers for the most and let their answers inform this round of testing. (Frozen fries, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, and cold pizza were among the most popular items, so a lot of our tests remained the same.) We cooked french fries and chicken nuggets in 10 air fryers for the first round of testing, with an eye for fries that were crispy on the outside and fluffy inside, and nicely browned nuggets with moist interiors. In the second round, we cooked chicken wings and brussels sprouts (separately) in the top performers, looking for wings with crispy skin and juicy meat, and caramelized brussels sprouts with creamy interiors. Then, in the finalists, we reheated cold pizza and baked break-and-bake cookies and boxed brownies. We wanted cookies and brownies that were chewy on the outer edges and tender on the inside, and pizza with a crispy crust and evenly melted cheese. In every round of testing, we looked for consistent and even cooking and kept an eye out for food that was dried out, which is a common issue with air fryers thanks to their powerful fans.

Beyond cooking all those foods, we did some tests focused on how reliable and easy to use each model was. We stuck an air probe thermometer inside each oven to see how well they maintained a set temperature. We also used all of the controls to see how easy they were to navigate and how accurate the cooking guidelines were for preparing common foods such as french fries and chicken nuggets. Additionally, we compared the cooking capacity of each model, and we took note of any egregiously noisy fans or annoying beeps. After testing, we washed all of the fryer components to see how easy they were to clean.

The Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 is the best pod-shaped air fryer we’ve tested. Compared with the others, the Philips cooked food the most evenly, aside from the occasional soggy french fry. It also cooked faster, on average, than most other models we tried. Its design is simple and straightforward to use, and the machine doesn't take up too much counter space. It's not as spacious or versatile as an air fryer toaster oven, but it's a good choice for cooking frozen snacks, smaller portions of meat and vegetables, or certain dishes you want extra crispy, like chicken wings.

When filled to capacity, the Premium Airfryer cooked food more evenly than any other model, though we still discovered a handful of underdone fries and some soggy patches on chicken nuggets. But overall it produced the crispiest, most evenly browned food of any pod-shaped air fryer we tested: Brussels sprouts were perfectly crisped on the outside and tender within, and brownies were chewy and fudgy. Compared with other models, this Philips air fryer also had the most accurate preprogrammed settings. In every test, the Premium Airfryer cooked the food in the amount of time the directions called for. With many of the other air fryers we tested, we had to tack on extra minutes of cooking time just to get some color on the nuggets and fries.

The Premium Airfryer is one of the best-designed air fryers we tested due to its small footprint, sleek looks, and streamlined interface. Unlike other models—including our budget pick, the Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer—that have a plethora of preprogrammed settings, the Philips has just four: frozen fries, chicken, fish, and meat. While preprogrammed settings might initially seem convenient, they aren't accurate, given that there's no way the machine can weigh the food in the basket and adjust the cook time accordingly. We more often just navigated around the presets to manually operate each air fryer, and we appreciated having fewer buttons to deal with. It's easy to program the Premium Airfryer yourself: The cook time and temperature are both easily accessed through a single dial on the control panel. We also like the fact that, unlike some of the other machines we tested, changing the controls doesn't cause the machine to beep loudly with every adjustment.

We also found the Philips Premium Airfryer's basket to be the most seamless to insert into the machine. It glided shut easily and didn't require any extra force to close. In contrast, many other models we tested, like the Dash Deluxe Electric Air Fryer or the Ultrean 4.2 Quart Air Fryer, slid across the counter slightly or wobbled precariously when we tried to shut the basket, which seemed unsafe. The square shape of the Premium Airfryer's 2.75-quart basket also allows a bit more space than round designs with similar capacities, which means you can fit four chicken thighs or wings in the basket versus three. This air fryer also isn't as much of an eyesore as some machines we’ve tried over the years, so it won't look like an alien spaceship has landed on your kitchen counter.

This air fryer also comes with a metal splatter-proof lid that, according to the user manual, can be placed over the basket during cooking to lessen the spray of grease, prevent food from overly browning, and to keep lightweight foods from flying around. The downside, the manual warns, is that things may take longer to cook (though the lid has some holes in it, it's essentially creating a barrier between your food and the appliance's heating element and fan). But we haven't tested it ourselves.

If you’re looking to feed more people, Philips also sells a larger version of this air fryer, the 7-quart Philips Premium Air Fryer XXL HD9650/96, though we haven't tested that specific model.

Although it performed better than the other pod-shaped air fryers we tested, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 doesn't cook as evenly as the air fryer toaster ovens we recommend because (like all pods) it requires you to cram your food in a basket rather than spread it out on a baking pan. This shortcoming, characteristic of all pod-shaped air fryers, can be quite limiting if you want quantity and quality, which is why we suggest an air fryer toaster oven if you have the space.

This model is only available at Williams-Sonoma. We used to recommend an identical version that didn't come with the splatter-proof lid and was more widely available, but that's been discontinued.

The basket in the Premium Airfryer weighs 1.8 pounds empty—significantly more than any of the other baskets we tested—and can feel quite heavy when you’re holding it in one hand. People who have weaker hand muscles or grip-strength issues may struggle with maneuvering this basket.

The Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56 is also designed with a grate in the fryer basket, which catches a lot of crumbs and oil from food. This feature made it the most difficult air fryer to clean. In contrast to the other machines we tested, which had single grates that took about five minutes to take apart and wash, the Philips's three-layered design and intricate grate made this a 10-minute-plus cleaning job.

The manual claims that this multitiered system is the model's "fat-removal technology," which extracts fat from food and captures it all below the "fat reducer" at the bottom of the air fryer. This assertion is misleading, since the "technology" is just a plastic lid that rests over the bottom of the bucket where the fat collects. Fat naturally drains into the bottom tray of any air fryer, and it stays there even without a lid, thanks to gravity and the force of the fan—there's nothing actively "extracting" fat from your food in this, or any, air fryer. In reality, the tray was just one more item we had to clean, so we wouldn't recommend using it (the air fryer functions fine without it).

The Premium Airfryer is also one of the noisiest air fryers we tested—the convection fan is about as loud as a hair dryer. And while we haven't noticed any malfunctioning of the membrane buttons on the control panel, we are wary that that may occur with more consistent use. Finally, as with all air fryers, the nonstick coating on the basket can scratch and will eventually wear down. Philips does sell replacement parts for its air fryers, but one thing we find a bit annoying is that they’re broken up into pieces: The basket costs $34, and the handle, sold separately, costs $31—which can almost add up to the price of a new (cheaper) air fryer if you’re constantly replacing parts.

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The Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer was the best model we tested for around $100. Its large, square-shaped 5-quart basket fits more food than the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56, but it doesn't cook as quickly or evenly. The Pro LE's many preprogrammed settings also weren't as accurate as those of the Premium Airfryer—we preferred using the manual controls for selecting the time and temperature. But considering its relatively low price, and the fact that most air fryers of this style don't cook very evenly, we think the results were good enough. It also comes with a recipe booklet, which is helpful if you’re new to air frying. We’d be remiss if we didn't mention how good looking this model is—the entire exterior has a sleek matte finish, and it features a brightly lit control panel that's easily visible even in a dark room. Several co-workers who walked into the test kitchen immediately gravitated to the Cosori out of all of the other air fryers on the counter because it looks so chic.

The user interface is the Cosori Pro LE's best feature. The touch sensor LED display shows all of the functions in clear, easy-to-read text. It even has a "shake" button that makes the machine remind you halfway through the cook time to toss the food—a nice feature for the fiercely forgetful (guilty). The tempered-glass display on the top of the machine is slightly slanted to make it a little easier to see on a high countertop.

The Cosori Pro LE was able to fit the most food—six chicken wings in the Cosori versus four in the Philips. As for the cooking performance of the Cosori Pro LE, it wasn't the best of our final contenders. French fries and chicken nuggets cooked using the standard time and temperature settings recommended on the packaging came out less browned than we’d like. And both batches cooked unevenly—none of the fries had a nice golden crisp to them, and a handful of the bunch were overly floppy and soggy. Similarly, the breading on the chicken nuggets was pale and crumbly in comparison to the batches that the Philips Premium Airfryer produced. But we’ve found that most pod-shaped air fryers struggle to cook food evenly due to their cramped cooking baskets. And brussels sprouts and chicken wings turned out better in the Pro LE; the sprouts were crunchy on the outside and still soft and sweet on the inside, and the chicken was juicy, even if the skin was a bit chewier than expected. For the price—and the nice user interface—we still think the Pro LE is a good option.

We were able to get somewhat better browning by extending the cook time. For example, when we cooked chicken nuggets, we set every air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for seven minutes, per the nuggets’ air fryer cooking instructions. While most of the other air fryers visibly browned the chicken nuggets in just seven minutes, we had to leave the Pro LE running for an extra three minutes before the nuggets started looking crisp, and another two before taking them out. The chicken wings we cooked in the Pro LE needed three minutes longer to cook and still came out paler and gummier than the wings cooked in other models, like the Philips Premium Airfryer or the Dreo Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer. Generally, it took the Pro LE about five minutes longer to cook food than all of the other air fryers we tested—a small margin in the grand scheme of things, but a notable difference if you’re looking for a machine that cooks in the shortest amount of time.

The Pro LE's handle has an improved design over that of the original Cosori Pro, which we tested in 2017. The old version had a plastic guard on the handle to cover the button that releases the inner basket from the outer one. It slid around and looked a bit cheap, and didn't actually do much to protect you from accidentally releasing the bucket and sending it crashing to the floor. The Pro LE has a simple release button and a guard that's less conspicuous. The basket is also lighter than the Philips Premium Airfryer's, and easier to lift with one hand.

The Pro LE has seven preprogrammed settings, which is a bit overkill, especially since some of them aren't that accurate (a common drawback with most air fryers). The preprogrammed setting for frozen foods, for example, doesn't take into account what kind of food it is and how much it weighs, so the set time and temperature may not be right for the type of food you’re trying to cook. You may have to figure out the optimal settings for what you’re cooking by trial and error. We found it just as easy to set the time and temperature manually, following the instructions in our recipe or on the food packaging, then adjust the cook time as necessary.

One nice thing about some of the preprogrammed settings is that the machine beeps halfway through the cooking time to remind you to shake your food for more even browning, something the Philips Premium Airfryer doesn't do. But even if you decide to set the machine manually, you can still press the "shake" button to activate the reminder. The beeping is much louder on the Cosori Pro LE than on the Premium Airfryer, and you have no way to lower the volume or turn it off, so some people may find the sound annoying. That said, the beeping is loud enough to be heard from far away, which is handy if you’re in another room. Like the Premium Airfryer, this Cosori model is about as loud as a hair dryer while the convection fan is running.

The overall design of the Pro LE is streamlined and modern, so it won't look out of place on a counter. The machine is also light enough to move around or store in a cabinet if you need to free up some space.

Inside the Pro LE basket, there is a removable tray, which, during testing, fell out when we flipped the basket upside down to transfer food to a plate (this was also the case with the Ninja Air Fryer AF101). If the tray comes flying out, it could potentially cause burns. But when we later ordered another model to photograph, we didn't have this problem. The Pro LE comes with a two-year warranty, but Cosori does not offer any replacement parts, so you’re out of luck if your outer basket handle breaks or you lose the tray.

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*At the time of publishing, the price was $54.

The Instant Mini Vortex 4-in-1 is a 2-quart air fryer that packs a big punch. Its compact footprint, which is about a quarter of the size of our main pick, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56, makes it ideal for use in tiny kitchens with limited counter space, in dorm rooms, or for people who plan to make only one or two (small) portions of food at a time. While the Mini Vortex didn't cook as evenly as the Premium Airfryer, we did think that, given the small size of its shallow, square basket, the food came out surprisingly crisp without tasting dehydrated. The Mini Vortex also cooked just as fast as the Premium Airfryer, with consistently good results.

We like that the Mini Vortex has a streamlined interface with only four preprogrammed buttons: air fry, roast, bake, and reheat. Those buttons, along with a simple dial that can be used to adjust the cook time and temperature, are intuitive to use, so there's no guesswork when it comes to setting the machine. The Mini Vortex also helpfully makes a light beeping noise halfway through the cook time to remind you to flip the food, regardless of the setting.

Even when filled to capacity, the Mini Vortex managed to cook food evenly. It's also surprisingly roomy considering its size. We were able to fit four large or five small wings in the basket, while larger models—like the Cosori Pro LE, which has a larger footprint and is visibly bulkier—can hold only two more. (The wings turned out the juiciest in the Mini Vortex, though not the crispiest.) Since cooking in an air fryer works best when you arrange food in a single layer, the shallow, square basket gives this little machine an advantage—a super-deep basket doesn't necessarily mean it can hold more food. For example, when we reheated pizza, the Mini Vortex fit a large slice more comfortably than an air fryer with a deep basket, such as the Dreo Aircrisp Pro. The basket is easy to take out and put in, and the Mini Vortex was also the quietest of our three picks. We found it easy to clean (even after cooking sticky chicken wings), and it blends right in on the counter when not in use.

Because of its small size, and the fact that it doesn't cook as evenly as the Philips Premium Airfryer, we don't think this air fryer is for everyone. But we do think it's a great, inexpensive option for those who want a simple appliance that's easy to use and lightweight, or someone who's tight on counter space and looking to fill the gap between a microwave and an oven. And because it's so small and light, you can easily move the Mini Vortex into a cabinet or pantry for storage if need be. The Instant Mini comes with a one-year limited warranty. To replace parts, you’d have to contact Instant Brands's customer support team (but the company doesn't sell replacement trays at this time).

Instant Pot and Ninja offer electric pressure cookers with air frying capabilities, such as the Instant Pot Duo Crisp and the Ninja Foodi. Instant Pot also makes a separate air fryer lid that fits many 6-quart Instant Pot models. We’ve tested both the Duo Crisp and the Foodi, and we’ve found their air frying capabilities mostly acceptable but still not nearly as good as those of the Cuisinart Chef's Convection Toaster Oven TOB-260N1. They suffer from the same major pitfalls as pod-shaped air fryers: The cooking chambers tend to be pretty small, producing less evenly cooked and less browned foods. (We have yet to test an air fryer lid on its own, and we will update this guide with more information once we do). We recommend the Duo Crisp over the Foodi, or if you already own an Instant Pot, you may want to try a compatible Instant Pot air fryer lid.

If you’d like a midsized air fryer under $100: Air fryer lovers who are looking for a machine under $100 and can tolerate a confounding interface might consider the Dreo Aircrisp Pro Air Fryer. We thought the 4-quart Dreo did some of the best cooking among our finalists—the food it produced was consistently crisp but not dehydrated. Chicken nuggets were evenly browned, wings were juicy yet crispy, and the brownies and cookies came out soft on the inside and crispy-chewy on the outside. Though the machine is cylindrical, the basket itself is square, and it fits more food than a round basket might.

What kept the Dreo from being a pick was its exasperating interface. The touch display screen's nine preprogrammed settings are identified by inscrutable graphics that require a manual to decipher. The Dreo also boots up to a default 380 ºF and 20-minute cook time. Adjusting the time requires you to do so minute by minute, and the buttons make loud, annoying beeps every time. If you accidentally start a program, you have to shut the machine off to reset it, the process for which is in itself unclear (spoiler: hold down the power button for three seconds). While we liked the food that came out of it, interacting with the machine put a damper on the results.

The Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/96 was our long-standing pick thanks to its simple interface, fast and consistent cooking abilities, and efficient design. Unfortunately, the model has been discontinued. But our current pick, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/56, looks and functions nearly identically.

The Ultrean 4.2 Quart Air Fryer is one of the less expensive models we tested, and it happened to provide one of the least pleasant user experiences. The buttons were noisy and hard to press, and the basket was difficult to shove in without pushing the entire air fryer back on the counter. Its awkward, egg-like shape draws a lot of attention on a countertop, and it takes up too much space.

The Hamilton Beach 3.7 Quart/3.5 Liter Digital Air Fryer has a small, 2.5-liter round basket that, unlike our also-great pick, the Instant Mini Vortex, can barely fit a full-size meal. There was almost no crispness to the food that came out of it, and the french fries it cooked in the first round of testing were noticeably inconsistent.

We tested three Dash air fryers in 2021: the 3-quart and 6-quart versions of the Deluxe Air Fryer and the 2.6-quart Tasti-Crisp Air Fryer. However, all of the models did a poor job of maintaining a set temperature—in our tests they ran about 40 to 50 degrees below their settings. In addition, they all produced the most unevenly cooked french fries of the models we tested. The 6-quart version was so tall, we thought some people would have trouble fitting it under their cupboards. And in the french-fry test, it produced the most mixed results—some fries were floppy, others were burnt on the ends—which earned this model elimination in the first round. If you’re looking for a less expensive model, we recommend the Cosori over any of these.

We liked the spacious square basket of the Instant Vortex 6-quart Air Fryer, which offers a lot of surface area for evenly cooking food. We also appreciated that this model allows you to silence the beeps, which can be annoying. Unfortunately, you have to press the controls really hard in order to operate the machine, which meant we had to grip the machine with one hand to hold it still while attempting to press the buttons with the other. This was frustrating enough in our tests that we had to dismiss it.

The Instant Vortex Plus Dual Basket Air Fryer features two 4-quart baskets that can cook two separate portions of food at the same time. While the premise is alluring, the execution fell short. When we tried cooking chicken nuggets in both baskets, neither basket got as hot as it needed to be—the nuggets in both came out soggy on the inside, with crumbly breading on the outside.

The Ninja AF101 Air Fryer has a flat, removable tray liner in its basket to keep food from sitting in oil. Unfortunately, the tray falls out when you turn food out of the basket, which could potentially cause burns. This model runs quite hot—which we discovered when it burned our brussels sprouts during testing—so you have to be vigilant about adjusting the temperature. And because of its round bucket, it holds less food than our picks.

The Ninja AF161 Max XL Air Fryer, a larger iteration of the AF101, also ran too hot. All of the food we tested in this machine was overcooked on the outside and undercooked inside, with varying levels of dehydration.

The Ninja DZ201 Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer, with two 4-quart baskets, is the other dual-basket model that we tested, and it performed only slightly better than its Instant counterpart. While this machine is much more intuitive to use, the setbacks of the dual-basket system were the same: This machine didn't run hot enough in either basket to cook food with a crisp outside and a juicy, cooked-through interior.

The Philips Essential Airfryer HD9252/91 performed similarly to our previous budget pick, the Cosori Pro Air Fryer, yet it often costs significantly more. The fish sticks we prepared in the Essential HD9252/91 stuck together in a giant glob, and preparing food generally took longer than it did in our pick. Overall, this model seemed to run cooler than the set temperature, which would account for its longer cook times.

The Black+Decker 2L Purifry Air Fryer HF110SBD was the best budget pod-shaped model we tried back in 2017, but at the time it had the smallest max-fill capacity of all the fryers we tested. In most cases, we were able to successfully cook only about one serving of food at a time. For less money, we think the Instant Mini Vortex is a better single-serve option.

Unlike most air fryers, the 7-quart Gourmia GAF798 Digital Air Fryer required preheating (probably due to its large size). Annoyingly, however, if you want to add a few minutes to the cooking time after the initial set time runs out, the appliance automatically kicks into preheat mode again, even though the air fryer is already hot. It's a weird programming glitch that we found to be a nuisance. In addition, instead of a basket, this model uses a tray at the bottom of the bucket, which occasionally falls out when you invert the bucket. And the finger holes for lifting the tray are wide enough to allow french fries to fall through to the bottom.

The Oster DuraCeramic Air Fryer, which looks straight out of a sci-fi movie, has a tilting mechanism and a rotating oven cavity so you don't have to toss food manually. Unfortunately, in our tests, fries took nearly 50 minutes to cook (versus about 20 minutes in our pick, the Philips Premium HD9741/56) and still weren't as crispy as we’d like.

The french fries we cooked in the GoWISE USA GW22621 turned out badly burned at the top of the cooker and undercooked at the bottom. Also, when you reinsert the basket, the air fryer slides across the counter because it doesn't have enough weight or grip to stay in place.

In April 2022, Best Buy recalled 770,000 Insignia air fryer models—including digital, analog, and air fryer toaster oven models—which amounts to roughly 3% of all air fryers sold in the US over the past two years. We haven't tested (nor do we recommend) any Insignia air fryers for this guide, so the recall doesn't affect our picks.

This article was edited by Gabriella Gershenson and Marguerite Preston.

Michelle No, I Tried The Airfryer Kitchen Gadget That's All Over The Internet, BuzzFeed, March 1, 2017

Rachel Hunnicutt, Corporate Fare, Frozen: A Donald Deskey Associates’ Cafeteria Concept, Cooper Hewitt, August 31, 2018

Rebecca Abbot and Jennifer West, authors of Air Frying Foodie, Zoom interview, September 1, 2022

Christina Morales, How the Air Fryer Crisped Its Way Into America's Heart, The New York Times, January 25, 2022

Caira Blackwell

Caira Blackwell is a staff writer at Wirecutter covering sleep and mattresses. Her work has previously been published in Okayplayer, The Knockturnal, and Nylon magazine, and her book A Lullaby for the End of the World is available on Amazon.

Michael Sullivan

Michael Sullivan has been a staff writer on the kitchen team at Wirecutter since 2016. Previously, he was an editor at the International Culinary Center in New York. He has worked in various facets of the food and restaurant industry for over a decade.

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