12 best air fryers in 2024 UK – we've tested over 30 air fryers to find the very best on the market

The best air fryers make cooking easier than ever before, and more efficient too. We've tested over 30 of these appliances in a variety of different conditions to curate this list of the top 12 air fryers that are worthy of your investment. 

Air fryers are small countertop ovens, but there's plenty of variation between different models, with some able to perform up to 15 functions at once. You'll find in-depth reviews linked next to each air fryer in this guide if you want to learn more about a particular air fryer before you invest.

We've been ahead of the curve reviewing a host of air fryers according to our rigorous testing protocol for over two years now, with a particular emphasis on finding models that provide truly great value for money. 

We've tested, and continue to test, all of the air fryers from popular brand names, such as Ninja and Instant, alongside lesser-known brands such as COSORI and Dreo. 

Plus we also have dedicated guides for the best dual zone air fryers and the best air fryers for a family of four if you already know you need more cooking space.

Below you'll find our top-rated, value for money air fryers, along with a thorough breakdown of how we tested each one, our findings on their performances and answers to any questions you may have about these super helpful appliances. 

Best air fryer - the quick list

Not much time to spare on your hunt for the best air fryer? Welcome to our quick guide which allows you to see a choice of sizes, types and prices at a glance.

Best air fryer overall

The concept of the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer is simple, but the execution is nothing less than perfect. Instead of choosing between a dual-drawer or single-drawer model, you get both thanks to this new generation of multi-zone air fryers. 

While your old air fryer might have required you to still turn on your oven, you can leave your old built-in appliance behind for good with this kind of flexible capacity. 

We found several other reasons to love this excellent air fryer during our review process. Our expert reviewer Helen mastered everything from a leg of lamb to a toastie during tests, with a perfect cook every time. And seeing as this is a Ninja air fryer, it goes without saying that it’s simple to use, with well-thought-out settings and controls.

It might be too big for single-person households unless you host a lot. And if you have a teeny kitchen, you’ll need to be prepared to find space for it, since it’s quite wide and tall. Furthermore, it’s one of the most expensive Ninja air fryers - a fact that can’t be ignored in your decision about whether to buy.

Having said that, if you’re looking to limit how often you need to turn on your big, power-guzzling oven then look no further than the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer - it's answered every air fryer conundrum out there. 

Our Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer review has the full details.

Best air fryer under £100

The Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer takes the crown as the best air fryer for under £100 for good reason, thanks to its five-star performance in our tests. 

Though the price tag is low, the capabilities of this air fryer are high-end, with the option to preheat and the ability to control it on a swish touch screen. The capacity is decent on this air fryer too, packing in 5.7 litres of space. 

If you’re on a budget and looking for a medium size air fryer under £100, we think this one is a great choice. It might not have as many cooking functions or the viewing window that you’ll get if you buy one of the pricier Instant air fryers, but that’s to be expected given the price. 

Instead, it performs really well and our expert reviewer Helen had no complaints about the cooking speed or performance, and with four cooking functions, it’s versatile too. There’s very little not to like, in fact, the negatives that we've pointed out are really only minor niggles. In our opinion, it’s a cracking budget air fryer that beats the majority of similarly priced models from other brands.

Our Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer review has the full details.

Best medium capacity air fryer

The Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer with ClearCook got a rare five-star from Helen McCue, one of our expert appliance reviewers, and from the Ideal Home team during independent testing too.

Helen loved its generous capacity and found that it browned food evenly and quickly. When making chips she was able to get an even crisp in just 25 minutes, and even with the tray full of vegetables, it was able to roast in just 20 minutes. Most impressive of all, frozen chicken goujons took just 8 minutes to cook as opposed to the suggested 20 - yes, we used a temperature probe to check!

This air fryer has a touch screen with a dial to adjust timings and temperatures. The control panel has a bar that shows the cooking progress, and we like that this air fryer pre-heats. Because the touch-screen panel slopes towards you this is a great air fryer to place under kitchen cabinets. 

A really innovative touch is the see-through air fryer drawer, which allows you to simply turn on the internal light to check on your food as it cooks. It has a dishwasher-safe basket and non-stick insert that lifts away easily. Our only real gripes are the control panel and grill tray, the former of which has shiny plastic that can mark easily if you're cooking with greasy fingerprints, whilst the latter has rubber feet that can attract grease very easily, and be a bit tiresome to clean.

Our Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 air fryer review has the full details.

Best cheap air fryer

The COSORI Lite is small, super sleek and has a lovely contrasting colour control panel, as well as being available in a number of great colours. And for under £100, the control panel itself holds many jewels, including access to preheat, shake and keep warm functions. 

Everything we cooked in this air fryer emerged perfectly done, which was probably helped by the range of different presets that we experimented with. If you're a newbie to air frying, these programs can really help you to get to grips with frying up different foods, and COSORI has more up its sleeve too - with a comprehensive recipe book and access to an app also included. 

Our main drawback with this model? It can hold fingerprint marks on the control panel, and its size isn't optimal for everyone. If you're looking for a standout middle-of-the-road sized air fryer on a budget, however, we couldn't be more complimentary. 

Our COSORI Lite Air Fryer review has more information.

Best dual zone air fryer

What's better than one air fryer? Two, in one. The Ninja AF300UK Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer, which is infamous by now as one of the best air fryers, comes with two distinct air frying zones that allow you to air fry your fish and chips individually, or bake a side dish such as mac and cheese while you air fry chicken. 

You can match or sync these two drawers to make sure all elements of your meal are complete at the same time. With all that going on, it's no wonder that this air fryer is the best Ninja appliance on the market right now.

Its Max Crisp setting gave us crispy chips and wedges every time, and always cooked our meat through completely. We even used it to make cauliflower wings, which were an unexpected triumph. The trays can be a little deep to reach into, so make sure you use non-stick utensils to take your food out when it's done. 

The exterior stays cool even when it's cooking at 240 degrees. It is on the large side at 35 x 37.5 x 31.5cm, but if you can spare the space, it's a total game-changer. And if you're not keen on the black colourway, then good news, as you can now pick this uber-popular air fryer in a different colour, as covered in our piece on the exclusive white Ninja air fryer from Currys. 

Our Ninja Foodi Max Dual Zone air fryer review has more information.

Best small air fryer

The Ninja AF100UK Air Fryer is Ninja's cheapest air fryer, and it's also the smallest. It has a cooking capacity of 3.8 litres and a circular basket, which will be fine with most meals but could struggle if you're cooking bacon rashers or chicken breasts. The air fryer was fast, easy to use, and comes with four pre-sets that won't be too overwhelming for first-time air fryer users.

You can choose to air fry, roast, reheat and dehydrate in this air fryer, and because the basket insert can be removed, you can also reheat or cook food that has a bit more sauce or moisture without having to worry about it dripping through the grates. The exterior is simple, small, and grey, which may not be the most attractive addition to your kitchen but it will be very easy to store if you want to put it in a cupboard.

Cooking times with this air fryer were brilliant, with some of the speediest chips we've made. It's a simple model that seems reasonably priced with an RRP of £129.99 - even less if you make use of Ninja Kitchen discount codes - and we were impressed by the cooking times: 23 minutes for homemade chips, and just five minutes for back bacon.

Our Ninja AF100UK air fryer review has the full details.

Best oven style air fryer

Countertop-oven-style air fryers are very common across the pond in the US, where space in kitchens (or even pantries) is more ample. For that reason and others, this type of top-rated air fryer hasn't really had its heyday in the UK just yet. 

The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer might just be the thing to change that, with the functionality needed to convince you to ditch your normal oven for it instead.

We first spied this air fryer at home in Stanley Tucci's kitchen and as our cooking king, we just knew we had to try it out. During testing, though we found this oven to be very large and very expensive, its convenience for everyday cooking tasks was unparalleled. 

Instead of having to wait for your oven to heat up, or to have to bend down to reach it, you can just use the Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer instead. It gets to the temperature you need quickly, has plentiful space inside and is absolutely brimming with functionality. It excelled in cooking bacon, chips, veggies and more in our tests and can slow cook, toast and reheat. 

This air fryer makes it easy to see why Americans are so attached to their countertop ovens. If you have the cash and the space, you can't go wrong with this mega-oven.

Our Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer review has the full details.

Best air fryer for 2 people

The Instant Vortex Mini Air Fryer not only wowed us with its value for money, but it also impressed us in testing. Despite the limited capacity, it was able to air fry our (somewhat crammed-in) chips evenly, and we are more than a little obsessed with the lovely colour. 

This air fryer is perfect for small kitchens. It has a removable basket liner that can drain away fat from bacon and juices from the chicken, but take it out and suddenly you can bake, roast and even reheat in this beauty.

You can pick up the Instant Vortex Mini Air Fryer in a range of fun colours. We tried it in red, but the blue option is pretty fetching. There is also a white for clean kitchens, and a failsafe matte black. The display is very intuitive, and can be controlled with touchscreen settings and a tactile dial. The only con? It's too small for families.

Our Instant Vortex Mini Air Fryer review has the full details.

Best Ninja alternative

This pick is a real contender to the Ninja Dual Zone for the crowning glory of being the best air fryer out there, with a design that is understated, clever and maybe even better looking than the Ninja (or so we think).

The front of both baskets has those magic see-through windows that allow you to check on the progress of whatever is inside without losing any heat, a feature that the Ninja actually doesn't have. The interface is a dream to work with - and during testing, we've loved how easy it is to set up.

Like the Ninja, this air fryer has five other functions, and all of them are perfect for everyday cooking. The bake function is ideal for bread, the reheat function works for leftovers and you can even dehydrate fruit or veg inside with the ability to set the temperature low for a long period of time (up to 12 hours). 

This is the air fryer that our Ecommerce Editor Molly now uses every single day, saying that it is a miracle for midweek meals. User reviews agree that this air fryer is a genius buy too, with many saying that they are impressed with the high quality of the appliance, as well as the range of different foods they can experiment with cooking inside.

Our Instant Vortex Dual Zone air fryer review has the full details.

Best affordable dual zone air fryer

This air fryer offers plenty of bang for your buck. It’s a great price, especially given that it includes features like the viewing windows in the doors. Admittedly, it took our reviewer Helen slightly longer to cook some foods in it compared to her usual air fryer, but otherwise she had only a few complaints.

Her main issue after testing was that the control panel is less intuitive than others on the market. But that being said, after she'd tried it out for over a week, she started to get used to it and felt it was a minor negative that was outweighed by the value for money this air fryer offers.

It’s worth remembering that it lacks any cooking modes other than air fry and the baskets can’t go in your dishwasher. But if that doesn’t bother you, it’s a great dual-basket air fryer.

Our Lakeland Dual Basket with Easy View Air Fryer review has the full details. 

Best narrow air fryer

Is countertop space at a premium in your home? It's a common problem for shoppers looking for an air fryer, especially in flats or shared accommodation. That's why the design of the Instant Slim Air Fryer is genius, with a long chamber for cooking that maintains a sizeable capacity (5.7 litres) whilst also fitting excellently into smaller spaces.

We love Instant air fryers at Ideal Home, with both single-drawer and dual-drawer options consistently topping our 'best of' lists. We tried cooking asparagus, bacon, vegetarian nuggets, and chips in this and all of them were cooked pretty much to perfection. 

It's got a great amount of power, and finishing touches that make it feel worth the investment, including a preheat setting and a progress bar so that you can keep an eye on how your dinner is coming along. With an RRP of £99.99, we also think this is a standout choice for those on a budget of under £100, with the kind of quality you'd expect for a much higher price tag. Our one gripe? The cooking trays proved difficult to clean in our tests, with rubber feet that become a magnet for grease. Cleaning might be improved by using a dishwasher with this one. 

Best for the health conscious

If you want a large air fryer and you’re more likely to use the steam and grill functions than the components that can help you make fried chicken and chips, this might just be the one for you. During testing, we found it to be a good multi-functional addition to a kitchen, with good results across the board.

If however, you don’t think you’ll get much use from the steam and grill functions then it may be unnecessarily bulky. Given the capacity it’s fairly priced, especially if it's going to be used by a whole family. 

You’ll only really get the best from all the functions if you’ve got the confidence to experiment, because the instruction manual is sparse and lacks detailed guidance, so trial and error is necessary until you get the hang of it. After that though, you’ll have a great appliance that can be used for all manner of foods.

Our Tefal EasyFry 3-in-1 air fryer review has the full details.

How we test air fryers

Every air fryer in our roundup has been tested hands-on by the Ideal Home team for a minimum of two weeks in line with our testing protocol. Our explainer on how we test air fryers has all of the details if you want to learn more. 

We've written full, in-depth reviews of 32 air fryers over the last two years in order to narrow this list down to the very best 12 models, with plenty more that we've taken for a spin at our test centre. 

This allows us to compare air fryers directly when compiling our top 12 list, and it also helps us when deciding which air fryers will be the right pick for different living situations. 

Because all air fryers claim to do very similar things, it's important to us that we put them through their paces before recommending any air fryer to our readers. We used a standard recipe for air-fried chips, bacon, broccoli and asparagus across all air fryers, recording the cooking timings and considering how evenly the foods come out, as well as how well cooked they are.

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Bacon cooks brilliantly in air fryers, allowing fat to drip away and leaving crispy rashers in the basket. We used the speed and evenness of cooking as a way of measuring how well an air fryer distributed heat and how fast it circulated hot air. 

Based on our findings, we gave every air fryer a rating out of five and then sorted them into this list (while excluding those that didn't make the cut!) to recommend to our readers. 

Below you can find out more about exactly which members of the team tested the air fryers within this round-up, as well as an insight into the air fryers we are currently testing out for you. 

Molly Cleary

Molly is the Ecommerce Editor for Ideal Home and knows everything there is to know by now about kitchen appliances, after writing about them for two years.

She's a certified Customer Advisor when it comes to air fryers, having completed a five-step process to become a true expert in these exceptionally useful buys.

She regularly visits the Future Test Facility in Reading to put products through their paces. She's always up to date with the newest releases from brands such as Ninja, Instant, COSORI, Tower and more.

Is there an air fryer you're thinking about buying and would like to see a review of? Send her an email (molly.cleary@futurenet.com) to see if she can test it before you buy.

Millie Fender

Millie was previously Head of Reviews for Ideal Home and spent years testing air fryers for us, meaning she was well ahead of the curve when it came to product recommendations. 

Now working at woman&home, she's familiar with absolutely every air fryer out there, having tested the majority of them at Future's dedicated facility, and always has one eye on new releases.

Helen McCue

Helen is a freelance contributor who trained as a Home Economist and another of Ideal Home's air fryer experts.

After starting her career in the food industry, she moved into home appliance reviews, utilising her cooking skills and experience to put all kinds of products to the test, and over the years has reviewed hundreds of home and kitchen appliances for a variety of publications.

Air fryers the Ideal Home team are currently testing out

These are the air fryers we're currently reviewing so that we can give you our verdict on how they perform, and evaluate their value for money. 

FAQs

Hopefully, your journey to elevating your mealtimes has now started thanks to this round-up of the very best air fryers on the market. We'll be updating this list constantly to keep you up to speed with all of the air fryer newness you need to know about.