The best air fryers make cooking easier than before, and more efficient. That's why we've tried over 30 of these appliances under test conditions to curate this list of the top 12 air fryers worthy of your investment.
Our team of testers consists of our Kitchen Appliances Editor (that's me!) and our expert product tester (and resident home economist) Helen McCue. Select reviews have also been contributed by the wider Ideal Home team (who are air fryer lovers through and through), so trust us when we say we've got the expertise to get you over the line.
Air fryers are small countertop ovens, but there's plenty of variation between models, with some able to perform up to 15 functions. While some, such as American countertop-style fryers, can rotisserie entire chickens, others have preheat settings or shake reminders to aid you throughout the cooking process, so there's plenty of variation. You'll find in-depth reviews next to each air fryer in this guide so you can learn more about specific features before you invest.
We've been ahead of the curve reviewing a host of air fryers according to our rigorous testing protocol for over three years now, highlighting models that provide truly great value for money.
We've learned all about the benefits and drawbacks of air fryers in this process, and the TLDR is this: these appliances will save you a huge amount of cooking time, with the only general drawback being that you'll need to find space for one on your worktop. As a rule, if you don't get much use out of your built-in oven already, an air fryer might not be for you: it's simply a smaller and faster version.
We have a dedicated separate guides for the best dual-zone air fryers if you already know you need more cooking space, though you'll also find two drawer models in this elite list too, as these are some of the very best.
Below you'll find our standout favourites along with a breakdown of which foods we used to test each one, the criteria we were judging by (think size, value, functionality, innovative features) and of course, our findings on their performances.
Best air fryer - the quick list
Not much time to spare on your hunt for the best air fryer? Welcome to our quick guide which allows you to see a choice of sizes, types and prices at a glance.
Best air fryer overall
The FlexDrawer is unbeatably versatile, as you can use it as a single or double-drawer air fryer interchangeably. Each zone can be individually controlled, and our expert reviewer even managed to fit a 2kg leg of lamb inside the megazone. It's phenomenally powerful and so easy to use. You can kiss goodbye to your oven for good.
Best air fryer under £100
The value for money with this air fryer is astounding. You get touchscreen controls, excellent cooking results and premium features (such as a shake reminder halfway through cooking). The only real issue our reviewer had was with the drawer, which felt clunky, but for the price, we're willing to overlook it. If it's a bargain you want, there's no need to scrimp on quality thaks to this air fryer.
Best mid-size air fryer
This is my favourite air fryer for a family kitchen, with controls that anyone could use, a dishwasher-safe basket and the power to achieve impressive, speedy cooking results. During my tests I did find it annoying that the interface gets marked so quickly, but for its size and innovative design (we love the viewing windows), it's a small price to pay. This is the air fryer that lives in my family's kitchen, and it's still as it good as it was on day one over two years later.
Best Amazon air fryer
All air fryers can look pretty similar, which is why the colour choice available with this one is a real USP. Pick from pastel green, white or grey and also enjoy the wonderfully cooking power on offer. This is another of my favourite air fryers under £100 and the advanced settings, including the option to keep warm and preheat, prove why it's a winner, though it is probably a little small for families. Seeing as it's available for next day delivery on Amazon Prime and often reduced, you can't really go wrong.
Best dual zone air fryer
This is still the most coveted Ninja out there for good reason, with the best execution of the two-drawer design on the market. It's supremely powerful, looks nice and sleek and is also available in white. During testing we did find it too big for a small kitchen, but if it's family portions you need, it'll impress.
Best small air fryer
Another Ninja favourite, this deceptively spacious air fryer is a winner despite its small stature, with 6.2 litres of space. It doesn't take up too much space on your worktop, and though it's our #1 smaller option, it can still comfortably feed two people everyday. Our reviewer Helen's only quibble? It's a shame there's no option to pre-heat.
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The best air fryer for a family of 4
This oven-style number has a divider to take it from one large space to two zones. And, if we're talking accessories, this Breville air fryer is king, with two baskets, one large tray and phenomenally effective crisper trays which make whatever you're cooking so deliciously browned. It's a tiny bit slower than alternatives by Ninja I've tried, but the accessories make it sure to be a hit for family cooking (when everyone wants different things for dinner!)
Best oven air fryer
The Ninja Combi goes the extra mile to make your built-in oven obsolete, with the ability to perform two cooking functions at once, so that you can rustle up pasta and grilled chicken simultaneously, for example. It's so functional and easy to use that it is, in fact, the air fryer our expert reviewer still has on her worktop, beating out the stiff competition.
Best Ninja alternative
Save on your air fryer without compromising quality with this pick from Ninja which has two drawers, glass windows so that you can check on cooking progress, and an easy-to-program touch panel. With this air fryer in your arsenal, everyday cooking will be much easier, and much speedier.
Best versatile air fryer
This is the recent star of Jamie Oliver's Air Fryer Meals TV show, and for good reason: it's a very versatile buy. It's got a sizable capacity too and delivered reliably great cooking results in our tests. The asymmetrical drawers won over our reviewer, who used the smaller drawer for quick meals for one. If you want to cook like Jamie, then this is the one for you.
Best healthy air fryer
The Speedi can air fry and steam at the same time, meaning that healthy dinners have never been so easy. Simply pop some salmon in the top to air fry while your veg and rice steam in the bottom, as we did in our tests, and wait 15 minutes for the delicious final product. It's a superstar product (though it's pricey) and perfect for making healthy meals much easier to conjure up.
Best air fryer for meat
This is very clever bit of kit, with an intelligent cooking system that works together with the included meat probe to give you detailed instructions on how to cook hundreds of foods. Our reviewer Helen found it as smart as it claims to be, as well as intuitive, allowing even a beginner to get stuck into cooking perfectly cooked steaks and fish. But veggies won't find a lot for them to enjoy, and can opt for something more affordable instead.
Best air fryer overall
The concept of the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer is simple, but the execution is nothing less than perfect. Instead of choosing between a dual-drawer or single-drawer model, you get both thanks to this new generation of multi-zone air fryers.
While your old air fryer might have required you to still turn on your oven, you can leave your old built-in appliance behind for good with this kind of flexible capacity.
We found several other reasons to love this excellent air fryer during our review process. Our expert reviewer Helen mastered everything from a leg of lamb to a toastie during tests, with a perfect cook every time. And seeing as this is a Ninja air fryer, it goes without saying that it’s simple to use, with well-thought-out settings and controls.
It might be too big for single-person households unless you host a lot. And if you have a teeny kitchen, you’ll need to be prepared to find space for it, since it’s quite wide and tall. Furthermore, it’s one of the most expensive Ninja air fryers - a fact that can’t be ignored in your decision about whether to buy.
Having said that, if you’re looking to limit how often you need to turn on your big, power-guzzling oven then look no further than the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer - it's answered every air fryer conundrum out there.
Our Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer review has the full details.
Best air fryer under £100
The Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer takes the crown as the best air fryer for under £100 for good reason, thanks to its five-star performance in our tests.
Though the price tag is low, the capabilities of this air fryer are high-end, with the option to preheat and the ability to control it on a swish touch screen. The capacity is decent on this air fryer too, packing in 5.7 litres of space.
If you’re on a budget and looking for a medium-sized air fryer under £100, we think this one is a great choice. It might not have as many cooking functions or the viewing window that you’ll get if you buy one of the pricier Instant air fryers, but that’s to be expected given the price.
Instead, it performs well and our expert reviewer Helen had no complaints about the cooking speed or performance, and with four cooking functions, it’s versatile too. There’s very little not to like. The negatives that we've pointed out are only minor niggles. In our opinion, it’s a cracking budget air fryer that beats the majority of similarly priced models from other brands.
Our Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer review has the full details.
Best medium capacity air fryer
The Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer with ClearCook got a rare five-star from Helen McCue, one of our expert appliance reviewers, and from the Ideal Home team during independent testing too.
Helen loved its generous capacity and found that it browned food evenly and quickly. When making chips she was able to get an even crisp in just 25 minutes, and even with the tray full of vegetables, it was able to roast in just 20 minutes. Most impressive of all, frozen chicken goujons took just 8 minutes to cook as opposed to the suggested 20 - yes, we used a temperature probe to check!
This air fryer has a touch screen with a dial to adjust timings and temperatures. The control panel has a bar that shows the cooking progress, and we like that this air fryer pre-heats. Because the touch-screen panel slopes towards you this is a great air fryer to place under kitchen cabinets.
An innovative touch is the see-through air fryer drawer, which allows you to simply turn on the internal light to check on your food as it cooks. It has a dishwasher-safe basket and a non-stick insert that lifts away easily. Our only real gripes are the control panel and grill tray, the former of which has shiny plastic that can mark easily if you're cooking with greasy fingerprints, whilst the latter has rubber feet that can attract grease very easily, and be a bit tiresome to clean.
Our Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 air fryer review has the full details.
Best cheap air fryer
The COSORI Lite is small, super sleek and has a lovely contrasting colour control panel, as well as being available in several great colours. And for under £100, the control panel itself holds many jewels, including access to preheat, shake and keep warm functions.
Everything we cooked in this air fryer emerged perfectly done, which was probably helped by the range of different presets that we experimented with. If you're a newbie to air frying, these programs can help you to get to grips with frying up different foods, and COSORI has more up its sleeve too - with a comprehensive recipe book and access to an app also included.
Our main drawback with this model? It can hold fingerprint marks on the control panel, and its size isn't optimal for everyone. If you're looking for a standout middle-of-the-road sized air fryer on a budget, however, we couldn't be more complimentary.
Our COSORI Lite Air Fryer review has more information.
Best dual zone air fryer
What's better than one air fryer? Two, in one. The Ninja AF300UK Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer, which is infamous by now as one of the best air fryers, comes with two distinct air frying zones that allow you to air fry your fish and chips individually, or bake a side dish such as mac and cheese while you air fry chicken.
You can match or sync these two drawers to make sure all elements of your meal are complete at the same time. With all that going on, it's no wonder that this air fryer is the best Ninja appliance on the market right now.
Its Max Crisp setting gave us crispy chips and wedges every time and always cooked our meat through completely. We even used it to make cauliflower wings, which was an unexpected triumph. The trays can be a little deep to reach into, so make sure you use non-stick utensils to take your food out when it's done.
The exterior stays cool even when it's cooking at 240 degrees. It is on the large side at 35 x 37.5 x 31.5cm, but if you can spare the space, it's a total game-changer. And if you're not keen on the black colourway, then good news, as you can now pick this uber-popular air fryer in a different colour, as covered in our piece on the exclusive white Ninja air fryer from Currys.
Our Ninja Foodi Max Dual Zone air fryer review has more information.
Best small air fryer
Our favourite small air fryer used to be the Ninja AF100UK and while we still think that one is pretty good, the new Ninja MAX PRO AF180UK has cleanly knocked it off its perch.
Whilst being more compact (and easier to fit under countertops when storing) than the AF100UK, it's got so much more space for cooking - 6.2. litres compared to 3.8 litres. It retains everything that we love about Ninja air fryers in bigger forms, including an intuitive control panel, fast warm-up times and superior cooking ability, but it's also got the added benefit of a more spacious drawer. Our expert reviewer struggled to find any downsides with this air fryer at all.
You can choose to air fry, roast, reheat and dehydrate in this air fryer, and because the basket insert can be removed, you can also reheat or cook food that has a bit more sauce or moisture without having to worry about it dripping through the grates.
Cooking times with this air fryer were brilliant, with some of the speediest chips our reviewer has made. It's more expensive than the AF100UK with an RRP of £169.99 compared to £129.99, but if you can make use of Ninja Kitchen discount codes than you can get hold of it for cheaper.
Our Ninja AF180UK PRO air fryer review has the full details.
Best air fryer for a family of 4
The Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer is the perfect air fryer for a family of four thanks to the removable divider that can take this oven style air fryer from one large zone to two smaller ones, just like our #1 choice.
You get more family friendly features with this air fryer too, including a huge range of accessories that'll make cooking dinner for the whims of a family easier. There's one large tray that fits into the large zone, and then four smaller separate trays that can sit on either side of the divider, which creates two areas that you can cook in separately.
One of the things I loved about testing this air fryer was the mesh tray accessory, which crisps up whatever you cook in it fantastically. The pull-out drawer built into this air fryer for storing all of those extra trays is also genius, as there's nothing worse than extra parts that you have nowhere to store.
I like the controls and the capabilities of this air fryer, but the cooking times are comparably slower than other Ninja air fryers on this list that I've tried, which means that it sits a little further down. For families however, it's a perfect option that'll allow you to complete multiple cooking tasks at once.
Our Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer review has the full details.
Best oven style air fryer
The Ninja Combi sounds like a complicated appliance to use, with a huge amount of functions on offer, but in classic Ninja style, our reviewer in fact found that it couldn't be easier to use. That's just one of the reasons it's our favourite countertop oven style model, with a performance that will make your oven redundant once and for all.
How? Well, thanks to the fact it can actually do far more than your oven or your standard air fryer. As well as so many functions (combi meals, combi crisp, combi bake, steam, rice/pasta, prove, grill, air fry, bake, sear/saute, slow cook), you can in fact mix and match settings, in order to cook pasta, for example, and grill meat at the same time.
In our tests, the combi settings worked to great effect, and made cooking much easier. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you're there, easy weeknight meals couldn't be easier. And our reviewer called more standard modes (like straightforward air frying) 'faultless', which is high praise indeed.
Our Ninja Combi review has the full details.
Best Ninja alternative
This pick is a real contender to the Ninja Dual Zone for the crowning glory of being the best air fryer out there, with a design that is understated, clever and maybe even better looking than the Ninja (or so we think).
The front of both baskets has those magic see-through windows that allow you to check on the progress of whatever is inside without losing any heat, a feature that the Ninja doesn't have. The interface is a dream to work with - and during testing, we've loved how easy it is to set up.
Like the Ninja, this air fryer has five other functions, and all of them are perfect for everyday cooking. The bake function is ideal for bread, the reheat function works for leftovers and you can even dehydrate fruit or veg inside with the ability to set the temperature low for a long period (up to 12 hours).
This is the air fryer that our Ecommerce Editor Molly now uses every single day, saying that it is a miracle for midweek meals. User reviews agree that this air fryer is a genius buy too, with many saying that they are impressed with the high quality of the appliance, as well as the range of different foods they can experiment with cooking inside.
Our Instant Vortex Dual Zone air fryer review has the full details.
Best versatile air fryer
Feeling inspired after watching Jamie Oliver's Air Fryer Meals? As we covered in our explainer on the exact model he uses, this one from Tefal with two unevenly sized drawers is the one if you want to copy his recipes. The large drawer, as tested by our expert reviewer Helen, can fit a whole chicken while the smaller one is absolutely perfect for cooking for one.
Our reviewer found the capacity to be great for family cooking when you need the extra space too, and air-fried sausages, sprouts, tomatoes, fishcakes and more to great success. In the show, Jamie uses it to spruce up frozen fish fillets and even magic up a curry.
According to our reviewer, it's got a great amount of power and did a good job across the board. It is pretty pricey at £199.99, but the versatility of the uneven drawers is definitely worthwhile if you want a dual zone air fryer but also occasionally want to save some pennies by just using the small drawer.
Our Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer & Grill review has the full details.
Best for the health conscious
If you want a large air fryer and you’re more likely to use the steam and grill functions than the components that can help you make fried chicken and chips, this will be the one for you.
The USP of the Speedi (like the Combi) is that it can do two of those functions at once, in the same unit. While on the top you can air fry salmon, or any other protein, to perfection, on the bottom you can perfectly steam rice, veggies or anything else you'd like. During testing, we found it to be just about the most useful multi-functional addition to a kitchen you could imagine, with good results across the board.
If however, you don’t think you’ll get much use from the steam and grill functions then it may be unnecessarily bulky. It's also not a very pretty appliance, unfortunately.
What you will get from this appliance is an appliance that can whip up healthy meals for the whole family in just 15 minutes and a great air fryer function to boot.
Our Ninja Speedi review has the full details.
Best air fryer for meat
Our expert reviewer Helen, who gave this air fryer a 4.5 star rating, found that one of the drawbacks of this air fryer is that it is very catered to meat-eaters. But if you're looking for the best air fryer for steak or for cooking fish then the Dreo ChefMaker is going to be just the thing for you.
This ChefMode on the air fryer works like this: you add your food, hook up the temperature probe and fill up the water tank. Then, you select the corresponding program to whatever food you're cooking (our reviewer tried salmon steaks, lamb chops and vegetables) and wait for the air fryer to calculate how long your food will take to cook. The air fryer can adjust the time and temperature of the cook accordingly and will infuse your food with steam, for a succulent finish to meat.
Our reviewer was pleasantly surprised by the results of ChefMode, which left her with 'perfectly cooked' salmon and 'moist succulent' lamb chops. Though it might sound like a lot to wrap your head around at first, she also found the controls easy to follow, and the number of recipes you can follow is in the hundreds.
There's also a normal air frying mode on this air fryer, which was also a hit with our reviewer, though she did find that the capacity might not be large enough for family life. For meat eaters or those who want quality cooking and a handsfree experience however, this air fryer is bound to be a hit.
Our Dreo ChefMaker review has the full details.
How we test air fryers
Every air fryer in our roundup has been tested hands-on by the Ideal Home team for a minimum of two weeks in line with our testing protocol. Our explainer on how we test air fryers has all of the details if you want to learn more.
We've written full, in-depth reviews of 32 air fryers over the last two years to narrow this list down to the very best 12 models, with plenty more that we've taken for a spin at our test centre.
This allows us to compare air fryers directly when compiling our top 12 list, and it also helps us when deciding which air fryers will be the right pick for different living situations.
Because all air fryers claim to do very similar things, it's important to us that we put them through their paces before recommending any air fryer to our readers. We used a standard recipe for air-fried chips, bacon, broccoli and asparagus across all air fryers, recording the cooking timings and considering how evenly the foods come out, as well as how well cooked they are.
Bacon cooks brilliantly in air fryers, allowing fat to drip away and leaving crispy rashers in the basket. We used the speed and evenness of cooking as a way of measuring how well an air fryer distributed heat and how fast it circulated hot air.
Based on our findings, we gave every air fryer a rating out of five and then sorted them into this list (while excluding those that didn't make the cut!) to recommend to our readers.
Below you can find out more about exactly which members of the team tested the air fryers within this round-up, as well as an insight into the air fryers we are currently testing out for you.
Molly is Ideal Home's Kitchen Appliances Editor and knows everything there is to know by now about kitchen appliances, after writing about them for two years.
She's a certified Customer Advisor when it comes to air fryers, having completed a five-step process to become a true expert in these exceptionally useful buys.
She regularly visits the Future Test Facility in Reading to put products through their paces. She's always up to date with the newest releases from brands such as Ninja, Instant, COSORI, Tower and more.
Is there an air fryer you're thinking about buying and would like to see a review of? Send her an email (molly.cleary@futurenet.com) to see if she can test it before you buy.
Millie was previously the Head of Reviews for Ideal Home and spent years testing air fryers for us, meaning she was well ahead of the curve when it came to product recommendations.
Now working at Tom's Guide, she's familiar with absolutely every air fryer out there, having tested the majority of them at Future's dedicated facility, and always has one eye on new releases.
Helen is a freelance contributor who trained as a Home Economist. She's another of Ideal Home's air fryer experts, having tested dozens and dozens of them in her home.After starting her career in the food industry, she moved into home appliance reviews, utilising her cooking skills and experience to put all kinds of products to the test, and over the years has reviewed hundreds of home and kitchen appliances for a variety of publications.
FAQs
How do air fryers work?
Why you can trust Ideal Home Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Air fryers work like a convection oven to circulate air around your food and cook it evenly from every angle. That means any fat you add to the air fryer will circulate your fries, chicken or fish as it cooks, making it crisp and crunchy.
Air fryers typically come with an in-built basket that has space for air to get underneath your food, as well as cook it from above and the side. In the Ninja Dual Zone for example, you can remove this and use the tray like a regular oven tray to add a crisp cheesy top to a pasta bake or roast vegetables and potatoes for convenient mealtimes.
How to buy the best air fryer for you
Look for easy-to-use controls for both temperature and time, as these are the most important features of any air fryer. Auto-stop and keep warm functions can be useful but chips, if left for any amount of time will soon lose their crispness. More expensive machines will feature touch screens rather than dial controls, which will help with accuracy.
The bigger the basket capacity, the more people you’ll be able to cook for. So if you’ve got a family, then a 5-litre machine (which usually provides a chip capacity of around 800g to 1kg) is probably a must.
A loud beep to signal the end of cooking time is a good idea if you’re using the time to wander off and do something else. Most air-fryers will only cook one food group at a time (ie meat or veg) but some will cook a whole meal in one go if you’re after a one-pot solution.
The best air fryer for you will also be the one that falls within your price range. To help with this, we'd recommend checking out our air fryer deals page, which can go a long way in helping shave a few pounds of any given model's RRP.
Are air fryers economical?
Air fryers can be an economical way to cook depending on the voltage of any model. That's partly thanks to the fact that they usually cook food 60% of the time your oven takes, meaning that your electricity is in use for less time.
To get into the specifics, basket air fryers tend to be smaller and therefore may be a little more economical than countertop oven models, but it really depends on voltage and how long you'll be using your air fryer, so bear that in mind.
Can an air fryer be used as an oven?
Yep, your air fryer can achieve everything that a standard oven can. If it helps, just think of an air fryer like an oven that sits on top of your work surface.
These clever appliances can achieve the same as an in-built oven can, though they do tend to be smaller in capacity. Our dedicated feature on air fryers vs ovens has all of the details you need on the main differences and similarities.
Hopefully, your journey to elevating your mealtimes has now started thanks to this round-up of the very best air fryers on the market. We'll be updating this list regularly to keep you up to speed with all of the air fryer newness you need to know about.
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