The 7 Best Air Fryers of 2023, According to Our Tests

Our Favorite Air Fryer

The Instant Vortex Plus 6-quart Air Fryer has impressed us time and time again as the best air fryer available. It’s the right balance of manageable size yet useful 6-quart capacity, blasting convection power necessary for crispy results, and, of course, the user-friendly interface.

Our Air Fryer Tests

Over the past few years, our editors at home and our testing lab have had their hands full with air fryers from dozens of brands. We’ve noticed that in the second or even third generation of products, some items with the same name have changed from the first models we tried in the initial boom of the air fryer phenomenon. This list of the best air fryers reflects our historical testing data and the most recent models we’ve tested — some brands still held strong, and others have not advanced in comparison, knocking them down in our ratings.

Our original tests included 11 popular models from go-to brands: Instant, Philips, Ninja, Cosori, Chefman, GoWise, Dash, Cuisinart, and Breville. We focused on the bread-and-butter air fryer staples: frozen fries, vegetables and chicken tenders. To test baking capabilities we made cornbread, and once we found the top performers for the first four rounds, we tried roasting a whole chicken.

Our initial results for those earlier models have largely held up in subsequent tests. We ventured farther, taking on 20 basket air fryers and 10 air fryer toaster ovens in our lab tests as well as more models for testing at home. We pitted basket-style air fryers against each other then we tested air fryer toaster ovens separately to determine the overall winners in each section. Our methodologies for testing air fryers have continued to focus on a few areas, though the exact ingredients and recipes vary, we're always paying attention to a few things:

• Crisping: That golden, caramelized exterior and properly cooked interior is essential for both enjoyment and food safety. We focus on frozen and fresh-cut fries, breaded proteins like shrimp and chicken tenders, and vegetables.
• Consistency and Heat: Fries play a major role here too, but nothing reveals hotspots or a lack of convection power like attempting to bake a head of garlic or an apple. Even heating is also a key part of our air fryer toaster oven testing (we make a lot of toast and cookies) to spot where the circulation isn't making the cut.
• Nonstick capabilities and cleanup: If you're popping cinnamon rolls or a flaky fish into your air fryer, you need to know you won't spend 15 minutes after dinner digging bits out of the basket. You can rest easy knowing that cleaning the air fryer after a messy batch of homemade chicken tenders is simple for our winning picks.

Aside from performance and ease of use, the machine's size, weight, and general feel are all factors in deciding which we recommend most. We also monitor the internal temperature to note how accurately the machine hits temperature settings and how consistently it holds the mark. We compared the data for all to come to our most current list of seven overall excellent picks, but the runner-ups we call "Strong Contenders" also won’t disappoint.

What We Learned About the Best Air Fryers

The price isn't always right. These days, basket-style air fryers can range from $50 to $350, and toaster ovens with air-frying capabilities generally run from $100 to $400. Our favorites we’ve tested landed between $100 and $200. Cheaper basket-style models lack decent performance or capacity, but more expensive machines generally don’t offer much more than their $200 counterparts. Air fryers don’t generally need to be flashy to be efficient, and the prices of our top picks reflect that.

A noisy air fryer isn't a great dinner guest. Many basket-style air fryers can make a bit of a racket, so we noted if any models were noticeably loud while running. If you're sensitive to sounds, we paid attention to alerts and other operating noises. If you’d rather not yell over the whirr of the air fryer in the kitchen, the sound is a natural consideration, and our winners won’t drown out your conversations. At the same time, the finishing "beep" in these models is strong enough you'll hear it if you've stepped out of the room.

There is a sweet spot for capacity. Knowing the volume of what you’ll want to cook in an air fryer is just as important as the type of food itself. If you’re slinging standard grocery store frozen fries, you can generally manage with 4 to 6 quarts, as long as you give them a good shake halfway through cooking. For more finicky recipes like homemade air fryer chicken wings and hand-cut fries, the more surface area inside your air fryer, the better. If the air isn’t circulating while it’s cooking, you’re not going to get the crispy, consistent results you’re looking for. At the same time, you won’t want to give up too much countertop or cabinet space. Our winners strike the right balance between the size of the basket and the actual cubic feet of space needed for the machine.

Extra features are nice, but more is not more. Most air fryers can also perform other tasks, including broiling, roasting, and dehydrating. However, similar to pressure cookers, they may not perform every function especially well. You may, for example, be better off purchasing a good dehydrator if you're into making jerky, dried vegetables, and fruit roll-ups. Other features to look for include a timer and an easy-to-use interface. Smart features varied widely so we didn't compare them 1:1 at this stage, we did put special consideration for machines that had helpful presets and those that had app/Wi-Fi connectivity. Ultimately, the flashy additions don’t hold as much weight as the cooking results, but a helpful app is a welcome addition for air fryers that performed well.

Other Air Fryers We Tested

Strong Contenders

TaoTronics Air Fryer ($100 at Taotronics)

What the Taotronics lacked in presets, it made up for in handle comfort and performance, but it was just shy of the results of our winning air fryers. It has a great capacity and produced mostly great food results. Unfortunately, only the fries didn't make the mark.

Ninja Max XL Air Fryer ($170 at Amazon)

A larger version of the star performer Ninja 4-quart, I own this model at home and truly find great results for the basic functions we use it for. It was touch-and-go on Brussels sprouts in our tests but we can forgive it for the excellent fries, shrimp, and wings.

Cosori 4-Quart Smart Air Fryer ($100 at Amazon)

The fries, Brussels, and biscuits were all slightly lacking here, but it was extremely easy to use with a great basket for easy cleanup. The dreaded dishes after cooking is an underrated factor in all appliance needs, and this model made that infinitely easier.

Cosori Pro Gen 2 Air Fryer 5.8-Quart ($120 at Amazon)

A little lacking in the Brussels and garlic arena, this air fryer won't do you wrong if you're not too worried about caramelizing vegetables. Great ease of use and smooth operation is an added bonus.

What Didn't Make the List

We've tested dozens more air fryers, including more Cosori models, the Philips Premium XXL, the tiny Dash Compact, and the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone. We were surprised to see a few of these struggle with the most straightforward food, like fries and chicken wings. Others had decent performance but lacked some of the features that our winners included as a default, like presets, large baskets, and easy cleanup processes. Some we felt the cumbersome size outweighed the results, and others were simply too small to recommend for most household uses.

More Air Fryer Categories

• The Best Air Fryer Accessories
• The Best Air Fryer Cookbooks
• The 6 Best Large Capacity Air Fryers
• The 6 Best Small Air Fryers
• The 5 Best Air Fryer Toaster Ovens

Our Expertise

Megan Soll is a Senior Commerce Editor at Food & Wine and a frequent air fryer user at home. For this piece, she referenced multiple rounds of testing data and research to rank our favorite air fryers in several categories. Commerce Director Taysha Murtaugh also contributed to this piece, and interviewed recipe developers and testers Anna Theoktisto and Julia Levy for their insights. Our team spent days evaluating air fryers side by side in our testing lab, judging each on a variety of qualitative and quantitative factors and curating a list just for Food & Wine readers.

Air Fryer Recipes to Try Now

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• Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp
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