Which is the airfryer for me?

[Youvebeenframed]

I am a total air fryer virgin. I know nothing about them and have never even seen one in action.
That said - I’m aware they are raved about, like the sound of that they can do and think we may benefit from owning one.
Despite trawling the internet and scouring reviews I feel completely overwhelmed with information and can’t see which one may suit us best- can you help me to decide which may suit us best based upon your own experiences and our current cooking habits.

Just the two of us (DH and me)
We like to cook from scratch when we can - fish, chicken, pork, veggies.
Use Conventional fan oven for roasting veggies, meat, frozen chips, breaded chicken
Grill bacon and sausages
Make soups
Don’t bake cakes

thanks 🙂

I love my Ninja AF400UK. Has two drawers so different things can be cooked at different times. They can be synched though so something which takes a shorter time will be put on hold so they are ready together. Drawers are big enough to fit a medium chicken.

Ditto

I would steer away from one with lots of drawers and compartments. The Capacity for the individual units is often too small. With the air fryer you get the shelf and the base to cook on. Every body I know has upgraded to a larger model as they love them. Either one with a larger capacity or one with two compartments.
There are two of us, we also cook from scratch and we now own three air fryers because we found the need for a larger model.

If I was starting again I would be temped by the one with a pressure cooker facility. If you are concerned about space, we freed up lots because we no longer need oven pans. I have not used my oven for 2 years.

I’ve just bought a Philips 2 drawer which so far has been very good but I’ve nothing else to compare it to as it is my first one. Candid Clara on YouTube has lots of air fryer reviews and often compares different models as well.

I really like our ninja health grill which has a large rectangular dish. Great to cook
meat fish roasted veg, English breakfast. You could d a roast with veg around it.

There are grill , flat plate and air fryer settings .

Ninja dual. You can then cook two different things in. We only use the oven for roasts, pizza and cakes.

We started off with a cheapy round morphy richards one. Weve just upgraded to the Lakeland one which has one big drawer with a divider and you can have it as two separate cooking tems and speeds or one whole big drawer. One side fits a medium chicken and the other side does roast veggies.

Ninja with two drawers. Just get a ninja, there's a reason they're so well known

This is the one i bought on Black Friday
I was in two minds with ninja but liked that the drawers are different sizes
My first air fryer so still getting to grips with it

How much space do you have?

I would recommend the Ninja combi oven, its more than an air fryer. We never had an airfryer before

@FredaFox yes I got it reduced as well seems a good buy so far

So one with 2 compartments but no more than 2? 🤔

Is the grill option something you use a lot? We do grill bacon, sausages, mushrooms but can’t you air fry these? 🤔

Not a massive amount of space really - are they huge?

The Phillips seem to be a good price but I’m of the mind that I don’t want to buy another one when I’ve got used to it so might as well go all out on a Ninja (don’t know which one though) or Cosori?
🤯🤯

The ninja combi isnt massive but not small, but all of these things need space otherwise the cupboard above it gets hot (or condensation).

Yes we do - I do steak, chicken and burgers on the grill to get the barbecue/ grill taste. also bacon and the fat drains off.

Sometimes I use the flat plate to cook sausages bacon and then mushroom in the juices and then eggs. Takes minutes to cook full English in one ‘pan’.

You can get a half size air fryer basket to cover half the grill and do steak and chips.

The machine is super quick heating up. They are noisy though and cleaning the inside of the machine is not easy

It’s the faff with cleaning and the extra tools and bits that’s putting me off and I’m thinking is my trusty grill, baking tray and tin foil really that bad to warrant the expense 🤷🏼‍♀️🤯

OP,would you consider a multicooker?
It has slow cooker and pressure cooker (and air fryer as well)

You can steam the veg/meat, make yoghurt.

Pressure cooking is fantastic for making soups.

Costco Gourmia - absolutely fine capacity for the two of you. Decent value for your first air fryer. We’ve had ours for a couple of years now and no complaints. https://www.costco.co.uk/Appliances/Small-Kitchen-Appliances/Cooking-Specialty/Gourmia-76L-Digital-Air-Fryer-With-Light-Window/p/8686

Just get a dual drawer ninja

I just ordered the dual drawer ninja with smart cooking and a probe on offer from £269 to £179 (with a 10%off code) on the ninja kitchen website. Code was NINABANH7PG266I

Have a look for Barry Lewis on YouTube.
He's done a few air fryer videos now and I believe he's done cheap Vs expensive comparisons.

A basic, simple, cheap one with temperature and timer dial does a good job for a first one. £30 or so.

(The preset programs on more expensive ones are just a single press to set the temperature and timer instead of using the dials)

Yes I would 👍🏻 thanks
there are so many to choose from 🤯
The grill one sounds great too 🤔🤯

Mine has got a Max Crisp setting. Instead of a grill.it is brilliant and the setting I use most. Dead easy to clean. I have not had to buy any accessories.