The Best Air Fryers

The short version

For most households, the Ninja AF101 is the right first air fryer: a 4-quart basket that suits one to three people, dishwasher-safe parts, and controls with no learning curve. Families and batch cookers should step up to the Ninja DualZone 8-Quart, which cooks two foods at two settings and finishes them together. The cost is a big footprint. Solo cooks in small kitchens on a budget want the tiny Dash Compact, though 2 quarts serves one. If you’d rather have one box that toasts, bakes, and air fries, the Cosori oven-style combo trades a little crisping power for versatility.

How we evaluate, and why trust us

Ten machines went head to head here, basket and oven styles alike, weighed on the things that shape daily use: how much food fits, how much counter the unit claims, whether the controls make sense, and how painful the basket is to wash. Worth stating plainly: we run a research desk, and nobody buys a slot or a higher ranking. When you see a wattage or a capacity number, that figure is the maker’s own, and we label it that way. The calls on footprint and cleanup come from us, after a lot of reading and a long look at what owners say once the novelty wears off. See how we test.

Buyers underweight one thing: an air fryer is a high-airflow convection oven, and peak temperature is rarely the bottleneck. Capacity, footprint, and cleanup are what you feel every week. So we sorted the field by household size and counter reality.

The picks

Top Pick: Ninja AF101

The AF101 gets the fundamentals right without asking you to learn anything. The 4-quart basket suits one to three people and doesn’t dominate a counter. The nonstick basket and crisper plate are dishwasher-safe, so cleanup is trivial, and the dial-and-button controls are obvious on first use. For a first air fryer, this is the path of least regret. Read the full Ninja AF101 review for the detailed verdict.

The tradeoff: it’s a single basket, so you can’t cook two foods at separate settings, and the plastic exterior feels less premium than costlier units. For a one-thing-at-a-time household, neither matters much.

Best for Families: Ninja DualZone 8-Quart

The DualZone solves the single-basket limitation with two independent baskets that cook two foods at different temperatures and times. A sync mode lands them both at once, so the protein and the vegetables finish together. With 8 quarts total it handles family-sized batches the Top Pick can’t.

The cost: it’s large, and it eats counter space. For a single person or a couple it’s more machine than the job needs. For a family, it ends the cook-in-shifts problem.

Budget: Dash Compact

The Dash Compact is for solo cooks and small kitchens where price and space both rule. Its footprint is tiny, it’s among the cheapest options, and the analog controls are about as simple as it gets.

Size up front: a 2-quart basket serves one, and there are no digital presets or precise timers. As a one-person tool at a low price, it’s well-judged. As a household fryer, it’ll frustrate you.

Best Oven-Style: Cosori Air Fryer Toaster Oven

The oven-style Cosori is the pick when you’d rather consolidate appliances than maximize crisping. It toasts, bakes, and air fries in one box, its flat capacity fits trays and small whole dishes, and on a cramped counter it replaces two machines.

The trade: it’s bulkier than a basket model, slower to preheat, and its crisping isn’t as aggressive as a dedicated basket. If versatility beats ultimate crunch for you, it’s the smart choice.

How to choose

1. One to three people, first air fryer? Top Pick, the safe default.
2. Family or batch cooking? Dual-basket: two foods, two settings, done together.
3. Solo, small kitchen, tight budget? Budget compact, and accept the size.
4. Want one box to toast, bake, and air fry? Oven-style combo.

Cleanup, not capacity, decides whether an air fryer earns its counter space. Dishwasher-safe nonstick parts are the biggest difference in how much you’ll use the thing. And resist sizing up to be safe: a bigger basket preheats slower and eats more storage for a capacity you’ll rarely fill.

Related reading

• The Best Hair Dryers: another everyday appliance where the spec on the box (wattage) matters far less than how it performs in real use.