If you live alone, are a couple or just struggle to prepare home-cooked meals, then an air fryer can make all the difference. They take the hassle and mess out of cooking and produce healthy and hearty options you otherwise may not bother making. We judge the air fryers on how well they cook the food, how crisp the finish is, how long food takes to cook, how easy the machine is to use, how easy is it to clean, and how many extra capabilities/functions it has.

One of the benefits of basket/drawer air fryers is that they’re really easy to set up as they don’t have many parts. Using the easy touch screen control, select from 10 pre-set programs to meet all your cooking needs. The pre-set programs include Fries, Vegetables, Bake, Fish and even Dehydrate. Powered by rapid air technology which circulates hot temperatures of up to 220˚C, this air fryer requires little to no oil to deliver impressive cooking results. And with the fast hot air circulation, this Russell Hobbs SatisFry Air Fryer provides up to 47% reduction of energy use when compared to a conventional oven 1. There’s no one-size-fits-all model. Depending on how many people are in your household, you may require cookers of different dimensions.

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These default temperatures and times are also programmed into the device so, after choosing a cooking function, in many cases, you can just press “go” (aka I) to get started. As stated by BBC Good Food, rather than cooking with oil, air fryers circulate hot air around the food and, through convection, create crispy exteriors with minimal fat.

Although this air fryer perhaps didn’t cook chips as well as some of the other ones that I’ve tested, and the instruction manual could definitely do with some expanding, it has got many great qualities. We pre-boiled the cut up potatoes in a pan of water for 4 minutes, then rinsed and thoroughly dried them. My warning would be to watch the baking times and temperatures as I think these could have burnt if I hadn’t turned the temperature down, but that just shows how efficient the fryer is. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the instruction booklet that comes with the fryer.The device was not only super easy to use and clean, it made cooking fun and everything came out perfectly. I was particularly impressed with how it cooked the pain au chocolat as it was so much better than the oven. The only frustration was not being able to cook them all at once, but I would certainly try layering them next time to see if the bottom layer still cooked as well. Despite the reduced fats and subsequently decreased calorie intake, foods fried within an air fryer are still fried foods. So do make use of the alternative settings on your device and eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats and grains to ensure a balanced diet. Which air fryer is best for home use? We then loaded them into the basket in layers, giving them a couple of sprays of oil between each layer. The time was set for 25 minutes, as suggested in the instruction book, and the temperature at 200°C. I was keen to see how good the air fryer was at baking, so decided to put it to the test with some accidentally vegan Jus-Rol Pain au Chocolat.

I think if you were totally new to the world of air fryers, you might be left with a few questions if you want to do anything more than cooking the basics with the basket and crisping plate provided. Easy to use and easy to clean. Our air fryers come with removable crisping plates and baskets so you can simply remove them and pop them in the dishwasher. And with little or no oil to dispose of, they’ll be no fighting over whose turn it is to do the dishes! It has a digital display with 10 pre-set functions, and promises to help you bake, grill, defrost and dehydrate, whilst saving energy. The Satisfry Medium Air Fryer has a 4-litre capacity, so it’s aimed at those looking for a medium-sized machine. On the taste test, the results were clear. The air fryer had baked the pain au chocolat much more efficiently. They were ready in a shorter amount of time, the layers of the pastry had puffed up better and were more clearly defined, they had a nicer shine to the top, and they were crisper.

Ease of set up

Because this is a medium fryer, it wouldn’t fit all six pain au chocolat in on one layer, and I didn’t want to test it unfairly by layering them. So I decided to cook three pastries in the fryer and three in the oven. This would also allow me to see how differently they cooked. The Satisfry range also has an intuitive design, meaning each one is easy to use allowing you to set it to the time and cooking function you require at the touch of a button. Pre-set functions mean you don’t have to think too much about how to cook your food - so even if you’re not a confident cook, an air fryer will make everything taste just right.