Meals are completed in a much shorter amount of time and the cooking process is far easier than traditional methods. Consumers are reaping all these benefits without having to compromise the quality of cooking results,' explains Lilie Nguyen, the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Vesync, the parent company of one of our favourite air fryer brands COSORI. Air fryers typically come with an in-built basket that has space for air to get underneath your food, as well as cooking 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 While there are plenty of foods that can be cooked in an air fryer, there are some things you should avoid putting in this cooking appliance. For example, we found 5 foods to avoid putting in an air fryer. These include foods dipped in batter, as the liquid will simply slide off the item and leave a mess in the frying basket.

Countertop-oven-style air fryers are very common across the pond in the US, where space in kitchens (or even pantries) is more ample. For that reason and others, this type of top-rated air fryer hasn't really had its heyday in the UK just yet. Wondering which foods to avoid with your new air fryer? Anything that cooks in a sauce may be a little disappointing, as the grill design means that liquid tends to end up lost on the bottom of your fryer. Things that need a hot oil to get super crispy might also fall a little flat, such as roast potatoes. While you can make delicious, low-fat roasties in an air fryer, it's worth noting they won't have that same sought-after crisp. Are air fryers economical? Every air fryer in our roundup has been tested hands-on by the Ideal Hometeam 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. It cooks brilliantly and runs very quietly (we recorded 50.4dB on test), with Quiet Mark certification, but inevitably there's a trade-off to get that smaller size. There's only one tray here, it doesn’t have a dehydrate setting, there’s no progress or text bar (instead, a small seven-segment screen displays the time, temperature, and cooking stage), and there’s no window nor a light. However it works well, it's built tough and it's really big inside –and we'll take that over a progress bar any time. The Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Grill is designed for cooking outdoors – but, surprisingly, it’s electric. So in addition to being a grill and smoker, it can also air fry, roast and bake. Its clever self-igniting woodfire smoke box uses convenient wood pellets to create smoky flavors just like cooking over a wood or charcoal fire.It has a larger overall capacity than other Instant air fryers. However, it's worth remembering this is split across two frying baskets, so each basket holds a slightly smaller amount of food - meaning it won't be suitable for larger homes. Of course, despite all of these pros to getting an air fryer, sometimes they're not the right fit for every kitchen. If you're short on space, for example, you could consider an Instant Pot or alternative multi-cookers, which includes some models that mimic the effect of a standalone air fryer. We first spied this air fryer at home in Stanley Tucci's kitchen and as our cooking king, we just knew we had to try it out. During testing, though we found this oven to be very large and very expensive, its convenience for everyday cooking tasks was unparalleled. Basket air fryers. This is the most popular type of air fryer. They have a slide-out basket or tray which slots in to the main unit, and tend to be available as a single or dual-drawer. When cooking food types such as fries, an uneven bake can sometimes be achieved if the food isn't rearranged or tossed around. The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer might just be the thing to change that, with the functionality needed to convince you to ditch your normal oven for it instead.

We're almost done with our testing and review of the Dreo Chefmaker, and we can already attest to its cooking prowess and its ability to deliver moist-on-the-inside and crispy-on-the-outside results. That’s due to the fact that this air fryer is able to cook more precisely than many others. 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.The transparent glass basket is also a nice addition as you can keep visual tabs on your food without pulling the basket out. We also appreciate the fact that the components are dishwasher safe. And, though water atomization and super convection seem like buzzwords that Dreo applies here, make no mistake. This is a powerful, if pricey, air fryer. While most recipes call for a teaspoon or half a teaspoon of oil. We found we got a more even coating on some foods by decanting our choice of oil into a small spray bottle and using that. Never use one-calorie oil spray, which is a step too far in the diet stakes we found, producing nasty, chewy fries. When it comes to air fryers, there's one brand that takes the top spot time and time again during our testing process: Ninja.

We love Instant air fryers at Ideal Home, with both single-drawer and dual-drawer options consistently topping our 'best of' lists. We tried cooking asparagus, bacon, vegetarian nuggets, and chips in this and all of them were cooked pretty much to perfection. There are a number of considerations that need taking into account when choosing the best air fryer for you.

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Another brand that we rank very highly here at Ideal Home after testing is Instant. It's a name that has had much success across the pond with its popular line of Instant Pots and constantly emerges after testing as a great Ninja alternative. We delve into more detail in our Ninja vs Instant piece where we put these two successful brands head to head. What's the first thing I should try in my new air fryer? Simply put, yes. The air fryer is able to cook your favourite dishes using little to no oil and helps you to cut down on the amount of saturated fat in your diet. With the air fryer, you can adapt your old faithful meals for healthier versions without sacrificing the taste! Plus, it's much less faff and much more fun than regular cooking methods! How easy is it to clean this air fryer? 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. Basket style with heating elements: tall, slim air-fryers feature a main unit with heating elements and fans. These have slide-out baskets or trays that slot into place inside. As they tend to have a smaller cooking area than oven-style fryers, in testing we found even results were more likely if the cooking was paused occasionally to rearrange or toss the food around. Some fryers will cut out automatically when you do this, some will need to be paused if you want accurate timings.