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.
A family of four or five, for instance, should be fine with a 5-quart model. If you plan on regularly cooking full meals for a family including meat and veggies or sides, you might consider a larger, dual-basket air fryer like the Ninja DualZone that we’ve recommended above. If you’re buying a toaster oven, however, there’s no reason not to get one with an air fryer function. It can still be used for less splatter-prone foods such as potatoes, frozen empanadas and filets of salmon with too much risk of making a mess. While it was the best toaster at actually air frying, its cooking chamber is very slim, making it impossible to fit certain foods. Known for luxury espresso machines, juicers, and air fryers, Breville makes a variety of small appliances in its signature brushed-stainless-steel finish.
Be creative with your fillings – leftover rotisserie chicken, roasted veggies or even just cheese on it’s own would all work well. Toss the wings in a little oil and the 2 seasonings, arrange them on the basket and bake right away. You can let them marinate if you prefer but there’s no need to pre-marinate.
We (and most of the hardcore homemade-pizza fans out there) absolutely love the Ooni brand. Its gas- and wood-powered ovens cook up incredible charred-and-smoky pizza in minutes, and they look really cool doing it. The only problem is that all of Ooni’s models were for outdoor use only. We tested the Onlyfire kit on a Weber grill as well as a smaller pellet grill and had no problems with either. The included pizza stone is 14 inches, and a 13.5-inch-wide pizza peel is also included to get the pie neatly in and out of the oven. If you’re a beginner pizza maker, you might also be disappointed in the lack of directions, though there are lots of online resources available (including right on this here website).
Some brands will advertise the material of their toaster oven’s heating elements, and generally, ovens using quartz or ceramic will cost more than those using Calrod. But in all our research and testing, we didn’t see consistent correlations between element type and either price or performance. For instance, our budget pick, the Hamilton Beach, has the same quartz elements as the Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven, which costs cuisinart toa60 more than $200. And the Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven we tested, which normally costs over $700, uses Calrod elements, which are typically found in cheaper models. So, it’s not always worth paying more for certain elements, as performance varies with every oven. The options for foods you can cook in an air fryer are vast, but some air fryer favorites include chicken wings, chicken tenders, french fries and mozzarella sticks.
Ooni offers a three-year warranty if you purchase directly from its site. You’ll also find this Stasher Bag set on sale, which is ideal for on-the-go meals, as well as storing food in the refrigerator or freezer, like cheese fruits. You’ll get one gallon-sized bag, two sandwich bags, and one snack back for a nice size variety. It’s, of course, great for chopping, but thanks to its large 18-by-12-by-1.75-inch size, it’ll also double as a serving board. Deck it out with cheese and other accompaniments, or serve up sweets on a dessert board.