Top choices for healthier frying reviewed and tested

Air fryers are brilliant but one of the biggest issues with them is that you can usually only cook at one temperature or setting at a time. Not so with the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer, which brings you two individually controlled cooking zones, with their own pull out drawer.

You can cook individually, use the same setting on both drawers or, cleverly, use different settings on each drawer but have them synchronise to finish at the same time. There are options to air fry, max crisp (a 240C turbo setting), roast, reheat, dehydrate or bake.

Performance is excellent across the board, delivering crispy chips, succulent burgers and perfectly cooked corn. The only minor complaint is that while capacity is large, each drawer is the same size as a regular air fryer, so you can’t fit in larger ingredients, such as a whole chicken. This is a beast of an air fryer, but if you want the ultimate flexibility, it’s the best.

Reviewer: David Ludlow

Full review: Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer review

The Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer 10.4L AF500UK is a huge air fryer perfect for when you need to cook a lot of food at one time. 

Unlike a conventional dual-drawer air fryer, the FlexDrawer features one massive container with an optional divider that effectively turns the appliance into a dual-basket cooker when needed. 

This means that you can cook large amounts of one food using the full drawer or separate it into two zones using the divider to cook multiple items with different settings and timings. There’s even a Sync mode that ensures the two zones finish cooking at the same time, allowing you to have a complete meal ready for when you need it. 

The machine is equipped with an array of cooking modes, each with their own temperature settings and timers. The list includes Air Fry, Roast, Bake, Reheat, Dehydrate and demonstrate. There’s also a Max Crisp mode which produces super crispy results by cooking at 240°C. 

We found that hash browns came out perfectly crispy using the Max Crisp mode, while the roast setting produced moist chicken breast. We also tested the air fryer’s Dehydrate mode on some fresh herbs to keep them usable throughout the winter. 

The AF500UK’s large capacity is both a huge perk and the biggest drawback to this air fryer. If you’re in need of a larger appliance to cook large portions and complete meals, the AF500UK is powerful enough to produce excellent results and features a versatile two-in-one design. 

However, if you’re looking to cook smaller portions and don’t want to clean both drawers when you’ve only used one, a traditional two-drawer air fryer such as the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK may be a better choice. 

Reviewer: David Ludlow

Full Review: Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer 10.4L AF500UK

Not just an air fryer, but a complete cooker, the Ninja Speedi 10-in-1 Rapid Cooker and Air Fryer ON400UK is built to deliver nutritious food in as little as 15 minutes. It does this with its two layer cooking: base on the bottom (pasta, grains, rice, potatoes and so on), and protein on top (meat and veg) that is crisped up by the grill.

It works brilliantly, too. Mid-week we made halloumi kebabs and rice in one pot, in just 15 minutes. That’s good going, and there’s very little mess at the end.

What makes this product so good is its versatility. As well as Speedi meals, it can also act as a slow cooker, and it can sear food with the lid open. That’s handy for starting ingredients off before slow cooking, or for finishing meals: I cooked rice, and then added some pre-cooked beef strips, onions and peppers, sautéing the food to get it piping hot.

This is a proper air fryer, too, although topping out at 210°C it can’t quite get the crispiest of results that air fryers with a higher temperature can achieve. I do really appreciate the steam air fry option: this creates perfect chips that are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

My only minor issues are that the pot is hard to eradicate to shake ingredients (I used tongues instead), and that the crisper plate is fiddly to eradicate when using two-layer cooking. Those issues aside, this is a fantastically adaptable kitchen gadget, whether you want fast food or more traditional cooking.

Reviewer: David Ludlow

Full review: Ninja Speedi 10-in-1 Rapid Cooker and Air Fryer ON400UK

As with the other Proscenic products that we’ve reviewed, the Proscenic T22 is a smart product. It can connect to your Wi-Fi giving you control via the app or even Alexa. The app gives remote control, plus a load of recipes: you still have to do the prep and cooking, but you get step-by-step instructions and the air fryer will be set to the correct settings.

For starters, this can be useful, but once we were used to the air fryer, we found it easier to skip the app and use the controls on the front.

We have to say that the manual controls are a little confusing with lots of buttons for dedicated cooking modes, such as seafood, chips, fish and meat. A simpler layout would help, although once you’re used to the T22, it’s often easier to set a temperature and time manually.

Persevere and this air fryer can deliver some quality results: crispy chips and nicely browned sausages, not to refer faster cooking times and better results for frozen essentials. With a single 5-litre drawer, there’s a good amount of space for cooking for families, too.

Reviewer: Simon Handby

Full review: Proscenic T21

Most air fryers tend to look a lot appreciate deep fat fryers, but the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fry looks a lot appreciate a microwave oven. This design lets you spread out food, so that it’s evenly cooked, rather than having to shake food as you do in an air fryer.

The oven can also use its Element iQ tech to direct power where it’s needed to eradicate cold spots in food. In practice, it worked perfectly, leaving us with evenly cooked home chips that had a crispy outside and fluffy inside.

And, the size the oven means that you can use it for larger items, including chicken legs or even an entire pizza. Just be careful with the preset options, as we found that our pizza began to burn after 15 minutes, although the programme was set for 20 minutes.

With a higher-than-average temperature option of 230C, rather than the usual 200C, the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fry can cook food faster than many other air fryers, although it does take a bit longer to heat up.

Comparatively expensive, this model won’t be for everyone, but its unique design lends itself to foods that other air fryers can’t even think about.

Reviewer: Rachel Ogden

Full review: Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer review

The Tower T17076 Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 Digital Air Fryer can tackle an impressive range of cooking tasks, assisted by plenty of accessories. These enable the appliance to work as a grill, griddle, toaster or mini-rotisserie. It’s straightforward to work, has an impressive 11-litre capacity and features a selection of automatic programmes for grilling, roasting and baking, as well as a function for dehydrating fruit.

The rotisserie oven-style window sets the Tower T17076 10-in-1 apart from other air fryers. Being able to view food while it’s cooking is a boon, even if you’re not grilling a whole chicken. Accessories include three air-flow racks (which allow you to cook food on three levels at the same time), a rotisserie fork with handle, 10 skewers with rotating wheels, a wire rack, a reversible grill plate (functions as a hotplate and a griddle), two heat-proof silicone mitts and a drip tray.

Performance was on the whole good: chips were nicely browned and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. We also had great success cooking slightly oiled corn on the cob using the grill plate on top of the wire rack. To try out the rotisserie function, we put halloumi, courgette and pepper pieces onto the skewers fitted into the rotating wheels. The griddle also produced excellent results, making the Tower T17076 10-in-1 a fine all-rounder.

Reviewer: Helen Harjak

Full review: Tower T17076 10-in-1 Digital Air Fryer review

Everything from an air fryer to a slower cooker and pressure cooker, the Ninja Foodi Max OL750UK is an all-round brilliant multi-cooker. Thanks to its clever design, there’s no need to change lids for different modes, while the temperature probe adds a new level of precision cooking.

This sizeable cooker can air fry, grill, pressure cook, steam and more. Results across the board are fantastic, but you’ll need to ask yourself whether you realistically need this much cooking space and number of functions before you buy it.

Each mode offers different cooking options and is exceptionally easy to use via the simple controls. A temperature probe is included; stick this into your food and select from the preset options (chicken, pork, lamb and beef, plus, where appropriate, target levels from rare to well done), and the OL750UK will automatically stop when your food is perfectly cooked. This helps take the guesswork out of cooking and got us perfectly-cooked steak.

Cooking for 20 minutes at 200ºC, with 125ml of water in the bowl, chips were evenly cooked and had a nice crispy texture to the outside, while the inside remained soft and moist. Quite possibly, this is the best that we’ve seen any air fryer perform. Frozen hash browns and grilling rump steak were also cooked to perfection. Pressure cooking works well, too, reducing the amount of time it takes to cook a lot of food.

The Ninja OL750UK is a bit of a monster, taking up a lot of space. However, it isn’t wasted space since this is a jack-of-all-trades multi-cooker.

Reviewer: David Ludlow

Full review: Ninja Foodi Max OL750UK

Combining and air fryer and grill in one appliance makes a lot of sense: it doubles up of the number of uses and, for the grill in particular, keeps smoke and smells inside the appliance. Mostly, products appreciate this are very expensive, but the Salter Aerogrill is cheaper than a lot of air-fryer only cookers.

Inside, there’s space for a 6-litre air fry basket, which is enough space to cook for large families. For grilling, there’s a grill plate that drops into place, which is big enough to take large skewers of food, plus whole steaks and portions of fish.

Salter provides default programmes for common foods, such as chicken and meat, which set the Aerogrill to the correct temperature; you just have to select the cooking time. Alternatively, there are two options: you can set the Aerogrill manually, or you can use the provided temperature probe to shut the device down automatically when your food is at the right temperature.

General air fryer foods (chips, hash browns, burgers and the appreciate) were cooked exceptionally well, although we did have to add a bit of cooking time beyond the suggest to some food types. Using the grill, we found that its heat was slightly uneven, but moving food around manually when turning it was enough to overcome this problem.

More expensive air fryers can cook faster and more evenly, but for the price, the Salter Aerogrill is hard to beat, adding versatility with its grill.

Reviewer: Simon Handby

Full Review: Salter Aerogrill