The Best Air Fryers to Buy
Air fryers have become a staple slimming-friendly kitchen gadget over the years. By using hot air with little or no oil, they leave food with a delicious, crispy texture. Whether you’re crisping a whole meal or just key elements, you can add a layer of deep-fried texture to chips, breaded meats and more without the typical deep-fried calories.
What type of air fryer should I get?
It really depends on what you’re looking for! Air fryers come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of cooking capacities and cooking functions. You’ll need to think about the space you have available in your kitchen and what kind of meals you want to make.
Basket air fryers tend to be a little more budget-friendly. They usually have a smaller capacity and cook food slightly faster than air fryer ovens. If you’re looking to cook full meals with your air fryer, we’d suggest looking out for one with a few different functions. Many models can roast, dehydrate, grill, bake and reheat as well as air fry, so they’re equipped to make starters, mains AND desserts!
We’ve picked out a few models with different benefits to give you an idea of what’s out there.
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Bargain buy: Tower T17147 Vortx 4.2L Digital Air Fryer 1400W
We think the Tower T17147 Vortx 4.2L Digital Air Fryer is reasonably priced considering it offers eight preset cooking options. These include modes for air-fried chips, bacon, chicken, steak, bake, veg, fish and even a defrost option.
The Vortx is a good buy if you don’t have a great deal of space, but you still want to prepare a few portions for dinner. The 4.2 litre capacity is roughly enough to feed 3-4 at the table.
The great thing about air-frying is it tends to halve the amount of time an oven needs to cook. You can have slimming-friendly Everyday Light recipes ready to serve in a flash!
While normally you’d wait 45-60 minute for Sweet Potato Fries, they can be ready in 20 minutes or less in an air fryer. Make sure you keep an eye on them, as sweet potatoes can catch quickly.
Basket air fryers like the Vortx are handy because you can easily give ingredients a shake that’ll keep the crisping levels even.
Our Chipotle Hasselback Potatoes are only 161 calories per serving and a perfect accompaniment for spicy dishes. They usually take around 40 minutes to cook in an oven.
After you’ve added the chipotle rub, pop them in your air fryer basket and keep an eye on them until they’re crispy. Keep giving the basket a shake throughout. The finer the potatoes are sliced on top, the crispier their finish will be!
Versatile buy: Tower 5 in 1 Digital Air Fryer Oven 2000W
The Tower 5 in 1 Digital Air Fryer Oven 2000W is a little different from a basket air fryer. This one is an oven with a rotisserie included so that larger meats, like whole chickens, can be rotated and air-fried evenly. It also has a generous capacity, with 11 litres of cooking space – so you’ll be able to prepare a meal for the whole family.
The viewing window is a handy feature that allows you to keep an eye on your food’s progress without opening the cooking compartment. Like the Pro Breeze, you have a choice between a few different cooking presets including rotisserie, dehydrate, air fry, bake and roast.
The downside of this model (and a lot of other air fryer ovens), is that it doesn’t have dishwasher safe parts. If you don’t mind that, it still has a lot of great features for preparing healthy meals.
Preheating helps food to cook quicker, and some air fryers come with a ‘preheat’ function built-in. If yours doesn’t, don’t worry! You can set the air fryer to start cooking and then add food after a couple of minutes. It’s a handy tip that’ll have your food on its way to crispy perfection.
Our Air Fryer BBQ Chicken Nuggets were made to be fuss free. The key to this recipe is marinating the chicken beforehand – once all that’s over with, you can enjoy them fresh out of the air fryer in just 15 minutes!
The nuggets have a smoky sauce and a crispy breadcrumb coating that turns crunchy and golden brown.
You can pair your nuggets with the Air Fryer Salt and Pepper Chips from pages of our Air Fryer cookbook for a delicious, low-calorie Fakeaway night.
If you agree those chips look delicious, wait until you’ve tried all 75 of the delicious, slimming-friendly dishes inside. You can order a copy just here or click the banner below.
Innovative buy: COSORI Air Fryer XXL 5.5 Litre
The Air Fryer XXL 5.5 Litre from COSORI is a basket air fryer that offers a little more with its generously sized square design. Most air fryer baskets are circular, while COSORI’s square basket can hold enough to feed a family of 4-6. Its parts are also dishwasher safe. Winner!
The 11 built-in presets might seem intimidating, but they start working with just a quick tap of the digital display. The ‘keep warm’ feature is SO handy – it’ll keep food crispy until you’re ready to serve it.
We love that this model lets you know when it’s time to shake your food, so you get a nice, evenly fried finish every time. Unlike ovens, air fryers don’t lose heat even if you open them – so basket air fryers won’t cook any slower even if you’re reshuffling ingredients.
Air fryers are a handy addition to any kitchen because they’re a speedy way to cook a variety of recipes. The more functions you have to choose from, the more recipes you can cook – including snacks and desserts.
To make Sausage Rolls, we wrap the tasty filling in low calorie tortilla wraps that get nice and crunchy in the oven. In an air fryer, you can get a whole new level of crispiness in even less time.
They’re such a handy snack to batch cook and have ready for picnics or light lunches. And they’re only 399 calories per portion (that’s 2 rolls)!
You might think dessert in an air fryer is a bizarre concept but hear us out – it can work. You can pop your freshly piped Churros into your air fryer basket until they’re golden brown. Keep an eye on them and make sure they’re evenly spaced apart.
When they’re ready, lightly coat them with low calorie cooking spray and sprinkle with the sugar coating. We use a mixture of cinnamon and granulated sweetener to keep the calories down. So simple!
Premium buy: Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer
The Ninja Foodi MAX Health Grill & Air Fryer is at the top end of air fryer budgets, but we’d say it’s worth the extra pennies. It’s a large capacity grill with six cooking functions and zero-oil air crisping.
The built-in smart cooking system is ideal for minimum fuss cooking. Simply leave the probe inside the piece of meat you’re air frying, select how well done you’d like it and leave it until it beeps. It’s a kitchen assistant you can count on, that’ll warn you if your ingredients need turning over or reshuffling – ideal!
The accessories are also dishwasher safe (excluding the probe), so the clean-up doesn’t have to be a big job.
The Ninja Foodi is especially good at leaving meat juicy and succulent. We’d recommend trying our Chicken Kievs for the crisp, garlicky crunch of the wholemeal breadcrumb coating.
We love how the garlic and parsley filling oozes out when you cut into each kiev. SO fresh and tasty served with a zingy wedge of lemon!
The Ninja is a pro at dealing with steak, and the gammon steaks from our Gammon with Parsley Sauce recipe are no exception.
Rather than heating them in a frying pan, add them to the basket and let the grill function cook until they’re ready to serve. The air fryer leaves the mustard and garlic glaze crispy and full of flavour. Delish!
From sausage rolls and churros to gammon steaks and chicken nuggets, air fryers are a speedier, healthier way to cook a variety of recipes. Whether you’ve already got one and you’re looking to upgrade, or you’re new to using an air fryer, be sure to look out for the functions that best suit what you’re most likely to make.
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