8 Best Air Fryers: Breville, Ninja, Philips & More |Enjoy your food

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8 Best Air Fryers: Breville, Ninja, Philips & More |Enjoy your food

By Alex Beggs and Kristi Kellogg

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Looking for the best air fryers can be a slightly daunting task because there are so many models and styles to choose from—and the reality is that's what's best for one person isn't what's necessarily best for another. With that in mind, we created this shopping guide to help you navigate the wonderful world of air fryers. But first thing's first: what even is an air fryer?

Air-frying is a rebrand of the stodgy old term “convection.” It’s essentially the same thing, but “air-frying” just sounds so much lighter, doesn’t it? An air fryer is essentially a mini countertop convection oven, which means it uses a fan to help circulate hot air around your food so that it cooks more evenly than in a normal oven. If you've ever cooked food in a convection oven, you know that overall cooking times get reduced—this is even more true in an air fryer, since it's both smaller and circulates air better than a regular oven. Air fryers preheat in minutes and makes weeknight cooking convenient, mostly hands-off, and so, so crispy.

Air fryers come in basket-style units or a toaster oven-esque ones—and each comes with pros and cons. Ask yourself: How much counter space are you working with? Do you usually cook for just yourself or a family of five? Will you primarily use it for heating up frozen foods like french fries or more significant cooking tasks like roasting chicken? Would you prefer to store your air fryer away in a cabinet when it’s not in use or leave it on the counter for convenience? All these questions come into play when deciding which style air fryer is best for you.

Toaster oven-style air fryers can, well, double as toaster ovens. Because they're so big, they'll usually live on the counter—whereas a small basket-style model could be stashed away when not in use.

Now that we've got our bearings, let's dive into the air fryers. Ahead, we've rounded up the very best air fryers in a variety of categories. Read all of our reviews, or jump to the air fryer that best suits your needs:

Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer

If counter space isn’t an issue and you’re seeking something that can essentially do everything your full-size oven can do and more, go for a large, oven-style air fryer. This one is our overall top pick, and it can handle six slices of toast and a whole chicken with ease.

As mentioned, this is an all-in-one air fryer and regular toaster oven, so if you’d like to make crispy sesame-coconut chicken tenders and cook a whole bird in the same appliance, this is one to consider.

The air fry mode activates the “super convection” fan setting, which hits your sweet potato wedges with rapidly circulating air. The Breville is roomy and front-loading, making it easy to cook large items. And the window means you can watch food as it cooks so you don’t have to open the oven to check that dinner isn’t burning, letting precious heat out in the process.

Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

If you want an even bigger version of the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer, you’re in luck—the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro can fit 9 slices of toast, an entire 14-pound turkey, 5-quart Dutch oven, or a 9x13-inch pan. It also comes with two more additional presets—proof and dehydrate.

Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro

Is all this not high-tech enough for you? The Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro is essentially the same hardware as the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro—13 modes, 14-pound turkey, all that—but this oven connects via Bluetooth to an app developed by Chefsteps, the brand behind our favorite sous vide machine. The app features preset “recipes” that enable you to take full advantage of the oven’s many functions. For example, pop a chicken into the Joule Oven, select the rotisserie option, and the oven will automatically cycle through low temp convection interspersed with periods of broiling to mimic a chicken rotating on a spit.

Ninja Max XL Air Fryer

If you don’t have a lot of countertop space to spare, you usually cook in small batches, or you just want a compact air fryer, go for the basket-style variety. The average basket-style air fryer is ideal for serving two people.

The Ninja Max XL Air Fryer is our overall favorite basket-style air fryer. It produces extra crunchy fried chicken drumsticks, fish fillets, veggies, and frozen Dino nuggets. It has intuitive cooking functions that make it easy to use.

The control panel offers the options you'd expect: air-fry, air-roast, air-broil, bake, and reheat—but it also includes a button most air fryers don’t: max crisp. While most air fryers are capable of going up to 400°F, the max crisp button turns the temperature up to 450°F, allowing food to get crunchier, faster. This Ninja air fryer also has a dehydrate function, so you can make your own dehydrated fruit, tasty beef jerky, and dried herbs. The basket doesn’t have holes in it like other air fryer baskets; instead it comes with a metal “crisper plate” that you place inside of the basket to allow air to circulate all around the food. We found the crisper plate a lot less annoying to clean than a basket full crumbs.

The biggest drawback of the Ninja Max XL is that it doesn't seem very XL. While it has a 5.5 quart capacity—which is similar to most other XL air fryers—the inside just feels a lot smaller. That’s probably because the basket is circular, not square. We’ve found that square-shaped baskets (like the one in the Cosori air fryer further down) provide some extra space for cooking a larger quantity of food. That said, the basket in the Ninja Max XL is tall, and you can purchase a special mid-level rack to add extra layers for cooking.

Ninja Foodi DualZone 10-Qt. 2-Basket Air Fryer

Dual-basket air fryers like the Ninja Foodi 2-quart dual zone air fryer conveniently allow you to cook a main and a side dish at once—at different temperatures and in separate compartments. But they take up as much space as their oven-style counterparts. But the tradeoff can be worth it, considering you can cook a whole 6-pound chicken in one basket while your favorite side cooks up in the other.

Cosori Pro II Air Fryer Oven

If you’re looking for the best deal on an air fryer, the Cosori Air Fryer Max XL is hard to beat. This touchscreen digital air fryer is one of our favorite basket-style units and the one Rachel Gurjar used to test her air fryer recipes (make her air-fryer potato wedges—you’ll be glad you did). It’s a spacious 5.8-quart air fryer that’s both larger and more affordable than most other basket air fryers, so you can get a double portion of French fries in the frying basket at once. The removable basket has nonstick coating and is dishwasher-safe (but it’s easy to hand wash, as well). Stashing it away is a breeze: compared to other models, this is a relatively small air fryer. It’s easy to unplug and stash this thing under the counter—which is ideal if you have limited counter space. Unlike with the Breville Smart Oven, you can also fry foods right in the basket without worrying about dripping and smoking fat. Bonus: It’s equipped with a “shake” reminder to ensure all of your chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, and brussels sprouts come out super crispy. When the alarm sounds, just pull the basket out and give it a jostle to make sure the goods are all evenly exposed to the circulating air.

Here’s the truth: Extra-large basket-style air fryers aren’t that large. If you want a large capacity air fryer but don’t have the counter space for an air fryer–toaster oven appliance, then you should consider sizing up to an XXL air fryer. Bon Appétit deputy food editor Hana Asbrink loves her Philips Premium Air Fryer XXL, which has a 7-quart capacity that offers more versatility and the opportunity to cook a wider variety of foods—like a whole roast chicken. It helps her avoid the need to turn on her full-size oven. “The clear win for me is the lack of preheat time, which makes it an exceptional kitchen helper during the hot and sticky summer months,” she says. “I use it for so many different foods—standard frozen items like fries, crispy ravioli, egg rolls, and various proteins like chicken, fish, and even pork belly.”

If you can afford the counter space, you’ll love this air fryer. But, like the rest of the air fryers on our list, it has its drawbacks. First, Asbrink says that you must be mindful of the residual fat that drips when cooking meat, which can quickly smoke up a small kitchen or apartment. She adds that if you’re roasting a large quantity of vegetables, it might just be easier and more efficient to do so in a traditional oven.

Instant Pot makes pressure cookers that come with air frying capability and this pressure cooker was the first Instant Pot model to offer an air-frying function. It comes with two lids: one for pressure cooking and one for air frying. You can switch between them with ease, while saving room in your cupboard (or on your counter) since you only need one appliance to handle it all. This pick is an Amazon bestseller with more than 30,000 five-star reviews, and it consistently makes “best of” lists.

Now that you've gone through all the air fryer reviews, here are some of our best air fryer recipes to get you started. Once you invest in one, we're pretty confident it's going to quickly become one of your absolute favorite kitchen appliances—so best to start bookmarking recipes like these now.

Air-frying is ingenious marketing; it sounds so light, so fat-free, so…noncaloric. But it is not “healthy” in a specific way. Yes, the air fryer uses a lot less oil than the deep-fryer, but were you really deep-frying that much before? It makes roasted vegetables and salmon in a flash, which maybe means you'll eat more of them. But if you’re looking to make some changes in your eating habits, you should talk to a registered dietitian, not your toaster oven.

Read about some of our other favorite small appliances and kitchen gadgets, including a see-through Dash toaster, a perfect waffle iron, and the very best blender.