How to Choose an Air Fryer: Size, Capacity & Features
If you’re buying your first air fryer, choosing one can be far more confusing than it needs to be. There are tiny ones, enormous ones, single drawers, double drawers, models with shelves, windows, probes and enough buttons to make you wonder whether you’re buying something to cook chips or fly a plane.
The right air fryer isn’t necessarily the one with the most functions or the biggest number on the box. It depends much more on how many people you’re feeding, what you actually want to cook and, perhaps most importantly, how much kitchen worktop you’re prepared to sacrifice to it.
Having used air fryers for everything from air fryer roast potatoes and sausages in the air fryer to air fryer cauliflower and cheese toasties, there are definitely features I’d pay more attention to now than I would have when I first started using one.
So, rather than telling you there’s one “best air fryer” for everybody, this is what I’d look at before spending your money. These tips will help you to choose an air fryer that is suitable for you.
What size air fryer do I need?
Capacity is probably one of the first things you’ll notice when comparing air fryers, usually measured in litres. Unfortunately, litres don’t tell you everything.
Two air fryers with similar quoted capacities can have completely different shaped baskets. A wide basket might let you spread food out in a single layer, whereas a deeper, narrower basket may technically hold the same volume but give you less usable cooking area for some foods.
Think about what you’re likely to cook rather than simply buying the biggest number you can afford.
If you’re mainly cooking a portion of chips, vegetables or lunch for one person, you probably don’t need an enormous machine dominating the kitchen. If you’re hoping to cook most of a family dinner in it, a small basket could become frustrating very quickly.
Air fryer for one or two people
If you’re cooking for one or two people, a smaller single-drawer air fryer can make a lot of sense.
It takes up less room and you aren’t heating a huge cooking space for a relatively small portion of food. For things such as a cheese toastie in the air fryer, a portion of vegetables or a couple of sausages, you don’t necessarily need anything enormous.
I’d still look carefully at the dimensions of the basket rather than capacity alone. If you regularly cook something that needs to lie flat, width may be more useful to you than a tall, deep basket.
Also think about whether your circumstances might change. Buying the tiniest possible air fryer because you currently cook for one might be a false economy if you regularly have someone else eating with you.
What size air fryer is best for a family?
For a family, I’d concentrate on usable cooking space rather than manufacturers’ claims about how many portions a machine can cook.
“Serves six” isn’t especially helpful when six portions of chips take up a completely different amount of room from six chicken breasts.
Think about the foods you genuinely expect to make. If you want to cook one component of dinner in the air fryer while using the oven or hob for everything else, you may not need a particularly huge machine.
If your plan is to cook the majority of dinner in it, capacity becomes much more important.
This is also where dual-drawer models become interesting because you can cook two foods at different temperatures or for different lengths of time.
Single drawer or dual drawer air fryer?
This is probably one of the biggest decisions I’d make before looking at individual models.
A single-drawer air fryer is simple and can give you one good-sized cooking area. Depending on the model, that may actually be more useful for large items than having the same overall capacity divided between two narrow drawers.
A dual-drawer air fryer gives you two separate cooking zones. I particularly like that idea in our house because I’m vegetarian while Stuart and Ben eat meat. Having separate drawers makes it much easier to cook veggie sausages on one side and meat sausages on the other without juggling different pans or cooking one after the other.
They’re also useful when two parts of dinner need different temperatures or cooking times. Sync functions on some machines can arrange for both drawers to finish at roughly the same time, which is one of those features that sounds a bit gimmicky until you’re trying to get everything onto plates together.
Dual models aren’t automatically better, though. They’re generally wider and each individual drawer may be narrower than the basket in a large single-drawer model.
If you’ve already decided that two drawers would suit you, I’ve got a separate dual air fryer buying guide where I look at that type in much more detail.
Measure your kitchen before you choose an air fryer
Please do this one! It’s very easy to look at a product photo online and completely underestimate how much worktop an air fryer occupies.
Check the width, depth and height of the machine you’re considering and then actually measure that space in your kitchen.
Remember that an air fryer also needs appropriate ventilation around it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. It isn’t simply a question of whether you can physically wedge it between the kettle and the toaster.
Think about the drawer as well. Will you have enough room in front of the machine to pull it fully open?
If you plan to put it away between uses, ask yourself honestly whether you will. A heavy appliance that’s awkward to get in and out of a cupboard can very quickly become something you can’t be bothered to use.
Think about the shape of the basket
This is something that’s easy to overlook when you’re concentrating on litre capacity.
Imagine putting your usual food into the basket.
Would your toastie lie flat? Could you spread roast potatoes out? Would the dish or tin you already own fit inside?
If you regularly cook food that benefits from being spread out, the floor area of the basket can be more important than having lots of vertical space.
A big number in litres doesn’t automatically mean a big flat cooking area.
Do you need an air fryer with a window?
A viewing window is one of those features that can be genuinely useful if you’re the sort of person who opens the drawer every three minutes to see whether dinner has burnt.
Being able to look at the food without pulling the drawer out can be handy, particularly when you’re learning how quickly your particular air fryer cooks.
I wouldn’t choose an otherwise unsuitable air fryer purely because it has a window, though. Capacity, basket shape and how well it fits your kitchen would all come higher on my list.
Are air fryer presets important?
I wouldn’t make presets a major deciding factor.
Buttons for chips, chicken, vegetables and other foods can be convenient, particularly when you’re new to air frying, but ultimately an air fryer is mostly about controlling time and temperature.
Once you’ve used yours for a while, you’ll probably find yourself adjusting those anyway because foods vary and different machines cook differently.
I’d rather have straightforward controls I understand than twenty impressive-looking presets I never touch.
My how to use an air fryer for beginners guide explains the basic controls if all those buttons are currently putting you off.
Is a sync function worth having?
If you’re buying a dual-drawer air fryer, I think this is one feature worth understanding.
The two foods you’re cooking may need different times and temperatures. A sync function can allow the machine to start one drawer later so they finish together.
That can be much more useful than trying to remember that one side needs switching on seven minutes after the other while you’re also making the rest of dinner.
There may also be a match function that copies the same settings across both drawers when you’re cooking a larger quantity of the same thing.
The exact names and way these features work vary between manufacturers, so check the model you’re considering rather than assuming every dual air fryer works identically.
Do you need lots of cooking functions?
Air fryers are now sold with increasingly long lists of functions: air fry, roast, bake, reheat, dehydrate, grill and goodness knows what else.
Before paying extra for them, think about whether you’ll actually use them.
Reheat is something I can see plenty of people using. Dehydrate might sound exciting, but if you’ve never once felt the urge to dehydrate anything before buying an air fryer, I’m not convinced a button is suddenly going to turn it into your favourite hobby.
Look at what each function actually does rather than being impressed by the number of them.
Check how easy the air fryer is to clean
This is decidedly less exciting than comparing touchscreens, but you’ll appreciate it later.
Look at how the basket and crisper plates come apart, whether there are awkward corners for grease to collect in and what the manufacturer says about washing the removable parts.
Don’t assume something is dishwasher-safe without checking the instructions for that model.
I have a full guide to cleaning an air fryer because keeping on top of the basket and drawer is considerably easier than eventually trying to remove several weeks of cooked-on grease.
Think about replacement parts
This wouldn’t necessarily be the first thing that occurred to me when buying a kitchen appliance, but it’s worth considering as you choose an air fryer.
The basket and crisper plate are the parts that get the most wear, particularly if they have a non-stick coating.
Before spending a lot of money on an air fryer, I’d have a quick look at whether replacement baskets, plates or other frequently used parts are available from the manufacturer.
I’d much rather replace a worn basket in a few years than throw away an otherwise perfectly functional appliance.
Do you need air fryer accessories?
Probably fewer than the internet would have you believe!
There are silicone liners, racks, tins, skewers, dishes and huge accessory packs available, but you don’t need to buy a box of gadgets at the same time as your first air fryer.
Use the machine first and see what you actually need.
The dimensions of the basket matter here too because accessories aren’t universally sized. Something advertised for an air fryer may still be completely wrong for yours.
My air fryer accessories guide goes through the things that can actually be useful.
Check the cable and where you’re going to plug it in
Before buying, think about where the nearest socket is as well as where the air fryer will sit.
Air fryers are high-powered electrical appliances and should be used according to the manufacturer’s instructions. I wouldn’t plan on running one from an extension lead simply because the place you’ve chosen on the worktop doesn’t have a convenient socket.
If you’re arranging your kitchen around a new air fryer, make sure it has a sensible, safe place to live rather than working that out after a huge box arrives.
What about oven-style air fryers?
Not every air fryer has a drawer. Some look more like compact ovens and use shelves or trays.
These can give you more flexibility for certain foods and may suit someone who wants a larger cooking area, but they’re a different experience from pulling out a basket and giving everything a shake.
Again, think about what you actually cook. I’d choose the style around the food and household rather than deciding one design must be better for everybody.
Which air fryer brands should I look at?
There are lots of established brands selling air fryers in the UK, and the market changes quickly enough that I wouldn’t buy purely because a particular model appears on somebody’s “top ten” list.
I’d compare the specification you need, warranty, availability of replacement parts, independent customer feedback and the current price.
I’ve also used and reviewed individual appliances on Just Average Jen where I have genuine experience of them. My Swan Duo Layer air fryer review, for example, is based on actually using that machine rather than simply comparing its product description.
That distinction matters to me. If I’m telling you what an air fryer is genuinely like to live with, I want to have used it.
What should I check before buying an air fryer?
By the time you’ve compared twenty nearly identical black boxes online, it’s very easy to forget what you were originally looking for.
I’d come back to a few basic questions: how many people are you usually cooking for, what foods do you want to make, how much worktop space do you have, would two separate cooking zones genuinely help and which extra features would you actually use?
Then check the dimensions, usable basket space, controls, cleaning instructions, warranty and current price of the models that fit those requirements.
That should narrow the choice considerably without you needing to decide which of 47 preset buttons looks most impressive.
What to cook when you’ve bought your air fryer
Once you’ve chosen one, don’t feel you need to attempt anything complicated for the first meal.
Something familiar is a much better way to learn how quickly your particular machine cooks. My air fryer recipes and cooking tips page brings all my recipes and guides together, while my air fryer tips and mistakes page covers the little things that make a difference once you’ve started using it.
You could try air fryer sausages, air fryer cauliflower, air fryer sweet potato fries or air fryer roast potatoes, depending on what you fancy.
And if you unpack the thing, put it on the kitchen worktop and then realise you haven’t got the faintest idea which button to press, my beginner’s guide to using an air fryer is probably the best place to start!
