If there’s one kitchen appliance that has skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, it’s the not-so-humble air fryer.
These bucket-like benchtop devices are now an essential fixture in any modern kitchen, and as a viable alternative to conventional ovens and deep fryers alike, provide health benefits (and convenience) in spades. Hence the sudden influx in both supply and demand. But what’s the best air fryer for you?
Despite its newfound ubiquity, there are still plenty of people out there who aren’t quite sure what an air fryer is, what an air fryer does, what you can actually cook in an air fryer, and by extension, which option they should consider. That’s where this buyer’s guide comes in.
Our Picks For The Best Air Fryers In 2024
Philips Airfryer XXL
Specifications
If you’re looking for a new air fryer and price isn’t an issue, look no further than the Philips Airfryer XXL Premium.
It is, in our opinion, the best air fryer available at the time of this writing, and the primary reason has to do with size and function.
With a 7.3-litre capacity, you can cook an entire roast chicken, and tackle those heftier foods other air fryers might not be capable of handling in a single sitting.
Most of the complaints about the air fryer as an appliance seem to point towards the limited capacity of air fryer baskets in comparison to a full-sized oven. So a model like this goes a long way in solving that issue.
Philips also packs a bunch of technology into their flagship air frying product, like Smart Sensing technology that adjusts the time and temperature according to different pre-sets for different food types; a Keep Warm mode which allows you to sync all your cooking methods for better pacing in the kitchen; as well as a Twin TurboStar design for enhanced performance (cook certain foods with up to 90% less fat).
If this high-end device is too expensive and large than what you’d need, go for the Philips Daily Collection Airfryer, which is a slimmed-down and more straightforward version that strips away all the extra features but keeps the adjustable settings.
- Massive capacity to cook
- Lightweight and portable
- Smart Sensing Technology adjusts constantly optimises temperature
- Pricier than most air fryers
Ninja Air Fryer Deluxe
The Ninja Air Fryer Deluxe (also known as the Ninja Air Fryer Max) keeps things nice and manageable with a 5.2-litre capacity.
A wide temperature range and superior speed is the main reason to choose the Ninja Air Fryer Deluxe. The primary feature is MaxCrisp Technology, which delivers 240 degrees Celsius of superheated air in the ceramic-coated basket to cook food up to 50% faster than your typical fan oven.
On the exterior, you’ll find six customisable cooking functions to help with automation, e.g. max crisp, air fry, air roast, bake, and dehydrate.
- Decent capacity for cooking food in batches
- Heats up very fast
- Customisable cooking functions
- Heavier than most alternatives
Instant Pot Vortex Plus
The Instant Pot Vortex Plus is a serious candidate for the best air fryer you can buy in Australia.
Arriving with a hefty 10 litres of capacity and seven smart programs, there’s not much this top-rated air fryer can’t handle.
The standout feature here is an option to rotate for rotisserie-style cooking that would be ideal for meats and certain vegetables.
Design is also a nice bonus here, featuring a more squared stainless-steel body as opposed to a rounded one, giving you more cooking space in the basket.
- Massive capacity to cook food in batches
- Comes with a rotisserie function
- Square design can fit better into kitchen corners
- Slower to heat up than some alternatives
Kitchen Couture Digital Air Fryer
The Kitchen Couture Digital Air Fryer is all about user-friendliness, featuring one of the better interfaces of any air fryer.
The touch screen can quickly heat the appliance up to 200 degrees Celsius, getting the 7-litre basket nice and hot so you can heat food evenly across multiple cooking modes.
While it lacks the advanced technologies of the more expensive Philips Airfryer XXL, at just a touch over $100, it makes much more sense if you want to take advantage of the health benefits and convenience without investing too much.
- Heats up very quickly
- Easy to use touch screen
- Very affordable
- Can only reach 200 degrees celsius
Sunbeam DuraCeramic Air Fryer
Sunbeam has always been a reliable brand when it comes to affordable, high-value kitchen appliances. The brand’s flagship air fryer is no exception.
The Sunbeam DuraCeramic Air Fryer presents a strong option if durability and heat conduction is your main concern.
The air fryer basket is, however, quite small. But with a capacity of just 3 litres, that should still be more than enough to fit in a decent serving of veggies or fries.
- Solid design
- Limited capacity
- Expensive for such a small capacity
- Can only reach 200 degrees celsius
Tefal Ultimate Fry Deluxe
Tefal is one of the more reliable brands when we’re talking about the best-reviewed air fryers on the market. Topping their range is the Ultimate Fry with a 2-in-1 basket system to maximise the relatively paltry 1.2 L capacity of its basket.
Much like Philips, Tefal has patented its own specific airflow design, dubbed Air Boost technology, which helps wrap hot air around the basket evenly for optimal results regardless of what’s being cooked.
The 60-minute auto-shutoff feature is also quite handy for anyone who may be concerned with having such a high-heat device sitting on their kitchen counter. But the real reason to gravitate towards this air fryer is not just the massive capacity… it’s the eight cooking modes.
Aside from the usual — frozen fries, bake, defrost etc. — the Tefal Ultimate Fry Deluxe comes with two comfort modes; either keeping the food warm in the basket until the meal is ready to be served together or delaying the start to better align whatever you’re working on in the kitchen.
If you want something more affordable, the Tefal Easy Fry Classic is another acceptable option in our books; one of The Good Guys’ top sellers priced at $200. You will, however, have to make do with just 4.2 litres of capacity, though that’s still more than some of the other options on this list.
- Auto shut-off feature is very helpful
- Eight cooking modes
- 2-in-1 basket system
- Quite a tight capacity
Ninja Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer
Much like the Tefal Ultimate Fry Deluxe, the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone gets by mostly thanks to twin cooking compartments that make it feasible to cook two different things at once with the same airflow.
Think of it now: meat in one basket with some spuds crisping up in the other — that’s dinner sorted in a fraction of the time it’d take in the oven.
Together, the two compartments make up 7.6 litres of cooking capacity, which is more than enough to finesse a late-night meal for two.
- Two nicely sized compartments
- Heats up fast
- Quite heavy compared to alternatives
Magic Bullet Air Fryer
The Magic Bullet from Nutribullet is as simple as they come and is the second most affordable option on this list. You’ll only need to fork out $80 for this one, which is probably why it’s the best-selling air fryer on The Good Guys.
That isn’t to say you’re compromising here. While you’re sacrificing all the bells and whistles of something like the Philips Air Fryer XXL or the Tefal Ultimate Fry, the Magic Bullet actually has one of the best designs of its more expensive counterparts.
The relatively slim body fits well on a kitchen counter and the simple temperature dial is a nice, precise way of controlling heat without having to hit physical buttons over and over again.
The biggest issue is the paltry 2.5-litre capacity, so you’ll have to adjust your expectations if you think this appliance is going to help you handle those heartier feasts for the family.
- Very affordable
- Slow to heat up
- Can only reach 200 degrees celsius
Nutribullet XXL Digital Air Fryer
Most people are aware of Nutribullet as a brand, given the company makes the most reliable compact blender in the game. That kind of trust in Nutribullet should be extended to their surprising expansion into this market, which includes this 7-litre model that’s capable of up to 200 degrees Celsius with eight pre-set cooking modes.
The $279 price point is the most attractive thing here, sitting comfortably in the middle of a range, but still offering enough space and features that could easily contend with the priciest options from the likes of Philips, Ninja, and Tefal.
- Great price for a decent capacity
- Easy to use
- Can only reach 200 degrees celsius
Is an air fryer actually healthy?
The health benefits of using an air fryer, as opposed to frying in oil, are numerous.
The cooking method manages to cut some of the harmful effects of oil frying out of the equation, resulting in around 70-80% fewer calories and a substantial decrease in fat. This is because this appliance uses hot air to heat the food.
Reports that an air fryer doesn’t use any oil at all, however, are false. You’ll need at least some oil for most of the food you’d cook in an air fryer, although the application would be a bit different.
It’s perfectly fine to use 1-2 teaspoons for most air fryer recipes, but instead of submerging the ingredients in oil, you’d simply brush them with oil or toss them in a tiny bit of oil before adding them to the appliance’s basket.
Air frying foods require minimal oil when compared to using a deep fryer, achieving similar crispy results without the bloated health consequences. That alone makes investing in an air fryer worthwhile, and that’s before we get to the convenience and versatility of these fried food buckets (and yes, anything cooked in one of these appliances is still classified as fried food).
A study on air fryers and fried potatoes showed that air frying lowers the amount of acrylamide produced by up to 90%. This is the reaction that comes about when you fry potatoes (or other starchy foods) in oil.
Research links acrylamide to greater chances of getting cancer. This is why more home cooks are increasingly opting for a large-capacity air fryer to handle big batches of French fries, even if they don’t use it for anything else.
Don’t go thinking these appliances are dietary hall passes, though. There’s a lot about this method of cooking that just can’t avoid certain processes. Another study showed that using fish in the air fryer actually raised the number of COPs (cholesterol oxidation products) produced.
This is a substance formed when the cholesterol in protein breaks down during cooking, which has been connected to coronary heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. It’s worth noting this seemed to be offset when adding ingredients that can act as antioxidants, such as parsley and chives.
Air fryers are less likely to destroy nutrients, hence why they’re generally better for healthy eating. Obviously, you’re going to lose at least some nutrients, but the rate of nutrient depletion is slowed since vegetables are exposed to dry air in air fryers — not moist air.
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Understanding Air Fryers
What is an air fryer?
An air fryer — also known as an air fryer toaster oven when referencing models such as the Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster and the PowerXL Air Fryer Oven — is essentially a compact countertop convection oven that’s capable of replicating a deep fryer and, of course, an oven by circulating extremely hot air. This chemical reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. But more on that later.
While this provides a way for you to enjoy all your favourite junk food-adjacent treats without submerging them in oil, just a touch of oil before you throw said treats into your air fryers or air fryer toaster ovens certainly doesn’t hurt the process.
How does an air fryer work?
As touched upon in the section above, air fryers function in a manner similar to that of convection ovens, using a fan to circulate hot air around the food.
The key distinction between an air fryer and a traditional oven is the reduced size, which means a higher temperature reaches its target quicker; standard features like a perforated tray also help heat circulate faster. As such, cooking times can be greatly reduced.
Again, as mentioned earlier, the lack of oil typically makes air-fried food healthier when compared to their deep-fried equivalents.
Do note that you cannot slow cook or pressure cook in air fryers. This is a completely different beast when it comes to countertop cooking.
What can you cook in an air fryer?
While the full extent of capabilities will vary depending on the brand and price point, more crucially, air fryer basket size and maximum cooking temperature, generally speaking, an air fryer can cook anything an oven or deep fryer can.
Most air fryers won’t have any issues handling frozen foods such as chicken nuggets and mozzarella sticks; nor will they struggle with meats such as chicken breasts, chicken wings, and steaks — the latter of which I can personally attest to though don’t recommend by any means — fish, or vegetables, for that matter.
Anything that needs to be re-heated can also obviously go into air fryers. And in some cases, such as leftover fries or leftover pizza, it’s quite clearly the superior option to your bog-standard microwave.
What we say is this: given the vast array of air fryer recipes available, you certainly won’t run out of delicious meals to cook up.
What size air fryer should you buy?
Air fryers come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s important to consider how exactly you plan on using your air fryer, i.e. what you want to cook in it, and the number of people you’ll be preparing food for.
If you only intend to reheat leftovers in your air fryer, or perhaps you live alone, then a small air fryer should do the trick.
But if you want to use an air fryer to cook entire meals, then it might be worth picking out a larger-capacity air fryer.
Something else to think about is the bench space available in your kitchen. A bigger air fryer might not leave you with enough space to prepare the rest of the meal.
Here’s a rough guide to how an air fryer’s capacity translates to the food it can deliver in a single cookin’ sesh:
- 1-2 people: A small air fryer between 1 to 3 litres
- 3-4 people: A family-sized air fryer between 3 to 6 litres
- 5-6 people: An extra-large air fryer between 6 to 8 litres
- 7-9 people: A multifunctional air fryer that can range from 8 to 28 litres
How did Boss Hunting select this list of the best air fryer models in Australia?
The BH office is lucky enough to go hands-on with many gadgets throughout the year, including air fryer ovens.
Between us, we’ve spent some quality time going through several of the following air fryers to get a good idea of what does and what doesn’t make a good air fryer; as well as getting acquainted with the range of common air fryer features like the automatic shut off and pre-set cooking functions.
For those that we haven’t been able to test out, either due to lack of availability or other practicality-based reasons, we’ve scoured the online air fryer reviews and other secondary resources to determine what justifies an inclusion.
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