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5 things to know before you buy an air fryer

5 things to know before you buy a air fryer header on a worktop

An air fryer can add a lot of versatility to your kitchen, but there are a few things to consider before you make your purchase

According to recent surveys, over half of UK households now own an air fryer. This widespread adoption comes as little surprise to me, as I’ve been able to note the increasing popularity of air fryers over the course of testing and reviewing the latest models for our kitchen section. When asked for my opinion by friends and family, I’m generally very positive about air fryers, telling them truthfully that these countertop cookers are fast, effective and have several advantages over traditional oven cooking.

However, as with any kind of product, I also recommend doing some research before you buy. There are more brands, models and types of air fryer than ever before, making it increasingly difficult to select the correct one for your needs. And while air fryers have several notable advantages, being energy efficient and set up for healthier cooking, these boons aren’t always explained clearly, nor do people always fully understand how air fryers operate in general before they buy one.

To clear up these points of confusion and give you all the information you’ll need to make an informed purchasing decision, I’ve put together a list of helpful things to know before you buy an air fryer.

5 things to know before you buy an air fryer

From a simple explanation of how an air fryer works to the energy cost of running one throughout a whole year, the five points listed below cover everything you’ll need to know about air fryers before you buy one:

1. How an air fryer works

The first and most straightforward thing to know about air fryers is how they operate. The name air fryer, understandably, gives many people the impression that these cookers fry foods like deep fat fryers. Despite this slightly misleading naming convention, air fryers actually behave more similarly to a standard convection oven. Like a convection oven, air fryers create heat with a heating element and use a powerful fan to distribute hot air evenly around your food.

The main difference between an air fryer and an oven is the size of their respective cooking areas. Air fryers need to heat a much smaller area than a standard oven and can therefore do so more quickly, efficiently and evenly. They’re also much quicker to replace lost heat from opening the air fryer basket vs an oven door. For more information on the ins and outs of air fryers, check out our full ‘What is an air fryer?’ explainer article.

2. What size your air fryer should be

The answer to this question is twofold: before you buy an air fryer you should know the interior capacity you’ll need for your cooking tasks, as well as the physical size of the appliance and how it will fit on your countertop.

Let’s look at capacity first. Air fryers measure their capacity in litres, which can make it hard to visualise what size will be suitable as you’ll be cooking solid foods in them, not liquids. By my estimation, if you’re cooking for one or two people and are mainly focusing on side portions and snacks, an air fryer with a basket sized between 2l to 4l should be capacious enough. If you’re aiming to cook larger main portions for one to two people, such as whole chickens for example, a 4l to 7l capacity should do the trick.

Looking to cook a range of foods for larger groups or a whole family? I would suggest plumping for a larger air fryer with one or more baskets and a total overall capacity of 7l to 12l. A tabletop, oven-style air fryer, which I’ll talk about in more detail below, is another option worth considering if you want to cook large volumes of food.

Though they often bill themselves as compact, most air fryers are pretty sizable, especially dual air fryers and boxy oven-style models. Before you start air fryer shopping, try measuring the space you’re planning on placing the air fryer in and check this against the dimensions of your prospective picks. If, like me, you have a crowded kitchen already, you can get a headstart on saving space by checking out our best small air fryer page or take a look at my favourite space-saving model, the Ninja DoubleStack XL.

3. What type of air fryer you should buy

If you’re at all familiar with air fryers, the mental image you’re probably carrying is of a standard single-basket option, like the Ninja Max Pro 6.2l. However, as time goes on, more and more air fryer formats are emerging, each with their own unique advantages. Let’s take a look at the most common types:

  • Single-basket – The most common type of air fryer, these models heat food on a slotted crisper plate in a removable cooking basket. While more capacious single-basket models exist, most single-basket models are best suited to cooking side portions and smaller items. Single-basket air fryers are generally cheaper than larger models and also tend to have limited extra functions when compared to bigger, more expensive options
  • Dual-drawer – By adding a second independent cooking area, dual air fryers increase their overall capacity and make themselves much more versatile than single-basket models. Most dual air fryers have a capacity of at least 7.6l (3.8l per drawer) and include extra cooking modes and features. A common trait among dual air fryers is the ability to sync up their two drawers so that they finish at the same time, even if you’re cooking different foods at different times and temperatures. Alternatively, if you’re looking to get the best of both worlds, Hybrid models such as the Ninja FlexDrawer have removable inserts that allow them to offer either dual drawer operation or a large, single cooking area
  • Oven-style – As their name would suggest, oven-style air fryers look and operate like tabletop ovens. They usually have clear doors which open downwards and use racks and trays to cook food inside their cuboid interiors. Oven-style air fryers feel familiar and easy to use and allow users to cook multiple layers of food at once. They also tend to have large capacities and helpful accessories like rotisserie skewers and pizza steels
  • Multi cooker – If you want to get the most bang for your buck and be efficient with your kitchen space, a multi cooker is a great option. Nowadays, nearly all new multi cookers carry air frying as a feature, alongside a long list of other abilities. For example, our favourite multi cooker, the Ninja Speedi has ten cooking modes such as steaming, air frying and sauteing, as well as its unique Speedi Meals feature, which can combine cooking modes in the same basket to cook whole meals quickly

4. How air frying can be ‘healthier’ than regular cooking methods

One of the much-touted benefits of air fryers is their ability to make healthier meals but what exactly does this mean? What people are referring to when they say air fryers are healthier is the amount of cooking oil required to achieve a well-cooked or crispy exterior. Due to their rapid circulation of hot air in a condensed space, air fryers can match an oven’s performance on items like potatoes, breaded fish and vegetables while using little-to-no cooking oil. Using less oil in cooking cuts down the number of calories in your meal and reduces fat content, helping curb the risk of problems like heart disease, diabetes and high cholesterol.

One thing to note about air fryers and cooking oil: spray cooking oils are not suitable for use with most air fryers. If you’re already health conscious, you may rely on spray cooking oils to reduce the volume and caloric content of oil you use. However, most spray cooking oils contain an emulsifier called lecithin, which can bond to non-stick surfaces when exposed to high temperatures. Over time, sticky lecithin residue can damage the non-stick coating on your air fryer’s accessories and interior surfaces.

5. The real cost-saving capabilities of an air fryer

Another reason people are turning to air fryers is their energy efficiency. Where ovens might need to heat a 60l cooking space, an air fryer will only ever have to heat a fraction of that. Thanks to their more compact cooking spaces and rapid air circulation, air fryers can heat up more efficiently and cook food more quickly than a standard oven, thereby using less electricity. Air fryers also tend to have lower wattages than electric ovens, meaning they will generally go through less power while in use. However, while marketers push air fryers as a cost-saving solution, reviewers and experts will usually try to temper people’s expectations somewhat.

Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to work out just how you might save by switching to an air fryer. A kilowatt hour (kWh) represents the number of kilowatts of energy used by an appliance in an hour. A 1,500W air fryer will use 1.5kWh in an hour, while a 3,000W oven will use 3kWh of energy in the same timeframe. Calculating based on the 2024 energy price cap (24.5p/kWh), the hour of air frying above will cost you just £0.37, while the oven clocks in at £0.74. If we say that you might use your air fryer 45 minutes a day, since it cooks things a little quicker, and your oven for an hour a day, then the cost totals are as follows: £1.26 per week for the air fryer and £5.18 per week for the oven, or £66 and £270 per year, respectively. So, while it won’t free up the cash for any major lifestyle changes, you could easily save enough money to cover the cost of some minor car repairs or a few extra Christmas presents.

Now that you have all the above information, you’re more than ready to peruse our tried-and-tested favourite models on our best air fryer page.

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