Nothing revives leftover french fries or crisps up a handful of dino nuggets fairly like an air fryer. In the event you’re on the lookout for a compact kitchen equipment to bridge the hole between a microwave and a traditional oven, a pod-shaped air fryer may do the trick.
Utilizing convection baking—principally a robust fan that circulates scorching air round your meals—an air fryer crisps meals like an oven does, but it surely heats up and cooks a lot sooner.
We’ve examined dozens of fashions since 2017, and we suggest the Philips 3000 Sequence Airfryer L HD9200/91 or its touchscreen-operated twin, the HD9252/91. It crisps meals rapidly and evenly, and its interface is easy and minimal (although the handbook dials will be troublesome to show). And it is the most effective value we’ve seen for this stage of efficiency.
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Our decide
With a easy interface and an amazing value, this no-frills air fryer heats quick and crisps rapidly and evenly.
This variant performs identically to our prime decide, however has a contact display screen that we discovered much less simple to make use of, and infrequently prices a bit extra.
The three-quart (by our measurement) Philips 3000 Sequence Airfryer L HD9200/91 will get meals crispy rapidly, cooking sooner and extra evenly than some other machine we’ve examined on this value vary. It’s additionally straightforward to make use of and clear.
This air fryer crisped rooster nuggets, fries, and wings practically in addition to our improve decide, the Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741. It has a minimal show, with only a temperature dial and a timer. The air fryer basket is comparatively straightforward to wash, with a nonstick coating and a much less irritating grate design than these of different air fryers we examined.
The Philips 3000 Sequence Airfryer L HD9252/91 is identical air fryer because the HD9200/91, however this one has a contact display screen as an alternative of dials. Neither show is ideal. The touchscreen is cluttered with unhelpful preset applications and will be onerous to activate with greasy fingers. The dials, although refreshingly easy, are too shut collectively. And the timer dial is difficult to show counterclockwise, which you need to do if you wish to flip the air fryer off earlier than time is up (higher to simply unplug the machine). However neither show is a dealbreaker.
These machines are slim, look inoffensive, and have small footprints for air fryers of this capability. The Philips Airfryer L with dials sometimes prices round $120, and the Philips Airfryer L with a touchscreen round $150, the place different equally performing air fryers value roughly double that, or as a lot as one among our (extra sturdy and versatile) convection toaster oven picks.
A notice on dimension: We’ve discovered the listed capacities of Philips air fryers to be inconsistent and inaccurate. The Premium Airfryer HD9741, our improve decide, is incorrectly listed as one quart bigger than the Airfryer L. We measured the amount of our two Philips picks, and so they each have roughly a 3-quart quantity (the Premium measures 3.1 quarts, and the Airfryer L 2.9 quarts).
Improve decide
This air fryer cooked the quickest and most evenly of any air fryer we examined, and the interface, with a clean dial and handbook buttons, is without doubt one of the best to make use of.
The three-quart Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741 is without doubt one of the greatest pod-shaped air fryers on the market. It cooked the crispiest french fries and probably the most evenly golden rooster nuggets. We additionally like that it has solely 4 preprogrammed settings: frozen fries, rooster, fish, and meat, all of which you entry via a single dial on the management panel. Extra settings on different machines felt like overkill, since we ended up simply utilizing the handbook settings regardless.
However the basket of this machine may be very heavy, and the worth tag is steep—we expect this machine is most price it if it’s on sale, or in case you really want the pace and comfort of a deluxe pod. In any other case, you would get extra bang in your buck with a equally priced convection toaster oven.
Additionally nice
The Immediate Vortex Mini is small, highly effective, and one of many most cost-effective fashions we examined. Whereas the wee basket can match just one serving of meals at a time, the machine circulates warmth pretty properly and manages to cook dinner meals with out dehydrating it.
With a 2-quart capability, the Immediate Vortex Mini 4-in-1 is the smallest air fryer we examined, but it surely held its personal in opposition to a lot bigger machines. Although the Immediate Mini’s sq. basket is a quart smaller than that of the Philips Airfryer L or the Philips Premium HD9741, it comfortably matches one or two servings of meals because of its large, shallow form.
This air fryer cooked as quick and nearly as evenly as our different picks. Its streamlined interface has solely 4 preprogrammed settings—air fry, roast, bake, and reheat—all operated by a single dial, which makes the Vortex Mini straightforward to make use of proper out of the field. Plus, the air fryer is light-weight, with a diminutive footprint and the lightest basket of any air fryer we examined.
