The 4 Best Budget And Cheap Air Fryers - Fall 2024

The best budget air fryer that we've tested is the COSORI TurboBlaze. This model is our best medium-sized air fryer overall, and it's a good option if you want an air fryer for less than $100 and usually cook for just yourself or a couple of people. It has a good amount of cooking surface area for arranging your food in a single layer, which is important for the best results, and it produces good-quality air-fried food, so your food gets mostly evenly browned without being under or overcooked.

It's very versatile, with five fan speed settings for different cooking methods. You can use a medium fan speed to avoid drying out cakes and cookies and a very low fan speed when dehydrating to prevent food from blowing around in the basket. The downside of this model is that it preheats slowly and doesn't maintain the most stable temperature, making it more difficult to accurately follow recipes.

If you want to spend even less, the best cheap air fryer we've tested is the Beautiful 6qt Digital. Beautiful-brand products are only sold by the brand at Walmart, and it's available there for well under $100. It has a 6qt capacity and a good amount of cooking surface area to arrange your food in a single layer. It's bulkier than the COSORI and takes up more space on your counter for a similar cooking capacity. Then again, unlike most air fryers, it comes in several different colors

It makes good-quality air-fried food, similar to the COSORI, so your food turns out mostly evenly browned and crispy. It's fast and maintains a decently stable temperature. However, it has fewer modes than most air fryers. There are no 'Bake' or 'Broil' settings, although you can use it with a lower fan speed and low temperature to dehydrate.

If you need a bigger air fryer, the best budget option that we've tested is the Ninja Foodi DZ201. This 8qt dual-basket air fryer is usually available for just under $100, but it's been on sale lately at some retailers. Like most dual-basket air fryers, its design lets you cook two different foods with different settings in each of its baskets. Combined with its bigger capacity, this makes it more suitable for preparing full meals and serving several people than the smaller COSORI. It has a very good overall performance, producing evenly air-fried food quickly. You can use the 'Smart Finish' feature to have each basket finish cooking at the same time, and it has a range of fan speeds and temperatures for different recipes and cooking methods.

It preheats and cooks quickly and maintains a stable temperature during cooking, which helps you follow recipes accurately. However, it's quite bulky for its capacity, as it's barely smaller than the 10qt Ninja DZ550.

If you usually cook for the whole family and need more capacity, the BELLA 8-qt is a cheaper large-capacity option. This model's circular basket means you have less surface area to arrange food compared with other large-capacity air fryers like the Ninja DZ071. However, it's much cheaper and still suitable for preparing food for the whole family.

It's not the most versatile since it lacks presets for different cooking methods like 'Bake' and 'Broil.' However, it has several modes for distinct foods, like 'Fries,' 'Bacon,' and 'Shrimp,' which act as suggested times and temperatures for the selected item. It's quite slow to preheat and cook for an air fryer but produces good-quality air-fried food.