Air fryers are a great option if you find yourself impatiently waiting for your oven to preheat or wish your oven-baked fries and chicken wings were a little crispier. These compact appliances don't require much more space than a microwave and work very well for crisping leftover pizza, preparing pre-packaged French fries or chicken nuggets, and making a quick side dish of crispy Brussels sprouts or cauliflower.
While air-fried food isn't the same as deep-fried food, airflow inside the cooking chamber helps with quick cooking and crisping. Plus, some air fryers are versatile enough to work like small ovens. Air fryers with a wide range of temperature settings and fan speeds can roast, bake, and dehydrate, which is great if you want to avoid heating your big oven on a hot day.
Air fryers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Multi-cooker air fryers bring in more functions, like slow cooking. Dual-drawer models let you cook different foods on each side of the air fryer, so you can prepare your main dish and a side at once or keep vegetarian and meat-eater meals separate.
The best air fryers produce evenly well-cooked, crispy, and golden-brown food. They preheat and cook your food fast and offer a wide range of settings for different recipes and cooking methods.
While the capacity of the air fryers we've tested varies from 2 to 10 quarts, bigger is better for performance. Unlike in a deep fryer, you won't get the best results by filling the basket with ingredients—instead, you'll want to arrange your food in a single layer as much as possible. You may want a bigger air fryer, even if you only cook for a few people. Baskets that are square instead of round and shallow instead of deep also offer a bigger cooking surface area.
We've tested 29 air fryers, and you'll find our recommendations for the best ones below. For more options, you can also check out the best large-capacity air fryers and the best small air fryers. Or, for an overview of what's available, take a look at the best air fryer brands. The products here are all basket-style air fryers, but we've also tested toaster oven/air fryers. If you might be interested in an oven-style air fryer, check out the best toaster ovens or the best air fryer/toaster ovens for a recommendation.
Once you've found the right model for your crispy foods, you might want the best microwave for your popcorn or reheating needs.
The Ninja Foodi DZ550 is the best air fryer we've tested. While it's a family-sized air fryer, its larger capacity is useful even if you usually cook for only a few people. It makes great-quality air-fried food, producing evenly crispy, golden-brown air-fried foods like chicken wings, vegetables, or French fries, partly because you have plenty of room in the basket to arrange your food in a single layer.
You can use different settings for each basket, which allows you to prepare a main and side dish simultaneously. It's quite versatile, with a range of fan speeds and modes for cooking methods like dehydrating and baking. Like many other Ninja air fryers, its crisper trays have a ceramic non-stick coating. This is harder to clean by hand compared with conventional non-stick coatings, but might be a pro if you avoid PTFE materials.
This model is also equipped with a temperature probe that automatically monitors the internal temperature of meat like steak or a whole chicken. If you don't have much use for that feature and want a cheaper option, the Ninja Foodi DZ071 has a similar overall performance. It has one big 7-qt basket that can be divided when you want to cook separate dishes. The large basket is a bit awkward to handle, but it produces very good-quality air-fried food.
Bigger is better when it comes to air frying performance, but you might want smaller if bigger won't fit in your kitchen. The COSORI TurboBlaze is a 6-qt air fryer, which is generally enough capacity to serve about four people. Still, its square basket gives you more cooking surface area compared with some options with the same overall capacity. While it doesn't perform quite as well as the Ninja Foodi DZ550, it comes close, producing very good-quality air-fried food.
It's also very versatile. There are five different fan speeds, so you can use the 'Bake' setting for a medium fan speed when you want to avoid drying out cake or cookies, or the 'Dehydrate' setting for a very low fan speed to prevent light ingredients from blowing around. The adjustable fan makes it a good option if you plan to experiment with a variety of cooking methods in your air fryer.
However, while it's alright at maintaining a stable temperature, the Ninja is much better in this regard, which helps with accurately following recipes or cooking delicate foods that need specific conditions. The COSORI also cooks food quickly, but preheating takes a while. That said, it has a preheat mode, so you don't have to guess when the air fryer is fully heated.
The Ninja Pro AF141 is the best small air fryer we've tested. Despite its compact design, you have a good amount of room to spread out ingredients in a single layer in its 5-qt square basket. It doesn't air fry quite as evenly as the previous picks, so you risk having a bigger proportion of food over or undercooked by the time it's done cooking. Still, it produces good results.
It also preheats and cooks very quickly, making it a good option for quick snacks. Once preheated, it returns to temperature very soon after you open the drawer to add food and maintains a very stable temperature for the rest of the cooking. While it's not as versatile as the COSORI TurboBlaze, with a smaller range of fan speed and temperature settings, it has four functions, including Air Fry, Roast, Reheat, and Dehydrate. Like our top pick, its crisper tray has a ceramic non-stick coating instead of the more common PTFE.
If you want to keep a close eye on your food while it cooks, consider the Dreo ChefMaker. This high-end air fryer has a window in its basket and a light inside its cooking chamber, so you can peek inside without opening the drawer. It's much smaller than the similarly priced Ninja Foodi DZ550 and cooks less evenly, but it's fast and makes good-quality air-fried food.
It doesn't have a very wide range of fan speeds for different cooking methods, but offers a temperature range wide enough for a variety of recipes. This model also has some unique features, including its 'Chef Mode' presets, which use a temperature probe and a water misting feature to automatically cook cuts of meat like steak. It connects with an app that lets you monitor the cooking process, look up 'Chef Mode' instructions for a variety of foods, and send cooking information to the air fryer, so all you have to do on the machine itself is press start.
It's also expensive for an air fryer. If you want to save money and don't mind somewhat worse performance, the Cuisinart AIR-200 is our next-best option with a window. It makes less evenly air-fried food compared to the other picks listed here, but it still produces decent results. It's significantly cheaper than the Dreo while still allowing you to keep an eye on your dinner.
The Ninja Speedi SF301 is a combo air fryer and multi-cooker, meaning you can use it as a conventional air fryer or add liquid for methods like steaming and slow cooking. Unlike most basket-style air fryers, it opens from the top like a rice or pressure cooker. It makes great-quality fried food, similar to the Ninja Foodi DZ550, but it has a smaller 6-qt capacity, and we haven't tested its performance for its other functions.
See our reviewThe Ninja Foodi DZ201 is a dual-basket air fryer with a design similar to that of the Ninja Foodi DZ550. It has a smaller 8-qt capacity and doesn't come with a temperature probe. It's not as versatile and doesn't air fry as evenly as the DZ550 or the Ninja Foodi DZ701, but it's a solid, less expensive option.
See our reviewWhile most air fryers are only available in black and stainless steel variations, the Beautiful 6qt Digital comes in various pastel colors with gold accents. It doesn't perform quite as well as the Ninja Foodi DZ550 and isn't as versatile as the COSORI TurboBlaze, but it still produces good-quality air-fried food, so it's a good option if you want an air fryer that matches your kitchen.
See our reviewWe've made minor updates to the text for clarity, but haven't made any changes to our recommendations.
We've made minor updates to the text and checked that the products are available.
We've made minor updates to the text and checked that the products are in stock.
We've checked that our picks represent the best recommendations and that the products are in stock.
We've edited the text for clarity and checked that the products are in stock, but our recommendations haven't changed.
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the top air fryers for most people. We factor in the price, feedback from our visitors, and availability.
If you'd like to do the work of choosing yourself, here's the list of all air fryer reviews. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no air fryer is perfect, most are good enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you look for them.
What do you think of our picks? Let us know below.
Looking for a personalized buying recommendation from the RTINGS.com experts? Insiders have direct access to buying advice on our insider forum.
Were any tray-type Air Friers tested?
Hey! We have tested toaster oven/air fryers, or toaster ovens with an air fry function. You can see all of the models we tested sorted by air frying performance here in this table: https://www.rtings.com/toaster-oven/tools/table/173930. We also recommend the best air fryer/toaster ovens: https://www.rtings.com/toaster-oven/reviews/best/air-fryer. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Were any tray-type Air Friers tested?
Update: We’ve made minor updates to the text for clarity, but haven’t made any changes to our recommendations.
What do you think of these changes? Let us know
As listed in the individual reviews, Ninja AF141 is slightly bigger than the COSORI TurboBlaze in terms of width and depth, despite the smaller COSORI having a larger cooking basket area. Could you double-check the measurements? The smaller machine has a larger cooking chamber?
Hey jerrylui! The Ninja AF141 is only larger than the Cosori Turboblaze in depth, primarily due to a small plastic extension at the back. It’s important to note that the outer dimensions of a unit don’t always reflect its actual cooking surface area. That said, I double-checked the cooking surface area measurements and I can assure you that the surface area measurements provided in the review are accurate. I hope this clears up any confusion. Thanks for reaching out! Cheers!
As listed in the individual reviews, Ninja AF141 is slightly bigger than the COSORI TurboBlaze in terms of width and depth, despite the smaller COSORI having a larger cooking basket area.
Could you double-check the measurements? The smaller machine has a larger cooking chamber?
How come you didn’t test any air fryers from Philips, the company that actually launched the air fryer?
We only had a limited amount of products to choose from, so we opted for products that we expected users to care more about. The next time we buy a batch of air fryers to test, we anticipate picking up some Philips ones as well. We just can’t say when that’ll be at this point. Sorry about that!
How come you didn’t test any air fryers from Philips, the company that actually launched the air fryer?
Is air fryer better for health?
Hey tentes,
Thanks for your comment! Air fryers are marketed as a healthier alternative due to their ability to cook with less fat. This comparison is mostly drawn against other cooking methods that use a lot of fat or oil, like deep frying. While it may be possible to achieve similar crispy results in an air fryer without needing lots of fat, the healthiness depends on what type of food and how much oil you add.
I hope that helps clear things up. -Tristan
Is air fryer better for health?