6 Best Small Air Fryers, According to Our Lab Testing

• Phillips 2000 Series Air Fryer 4.2 L: This air fryer has an impressive 13 cooking functions and performed well in our tests for crispy, even browning. However, it has a smaller basket than our top picks.
• Our Place Wonder Oven: Our Place's model is a cute, retro-style air fryer toaster oven, but we found the controls difficult to use and noticed a slight chemical smell when it heated.
• Dash Digital Tasti-Crisp Air Fryer 2.6 Qt.: This small air fryer has a minimal footprint, but its small basket made flipping food during cooking difficult, and it didn’t crisp or brown food as well as expected.
• Dash Flip & Fry Digital 2-in-1 Grill + Air Fryer: This new appliance has an added feature of working as an indoor grill, which may be a benefit to some. However, it didn’t brown our fries or wings as well as other options.
• Dash Compact Air Fryer: Dash's small air fryer is a solid compact option for one to two people. However, we found the basket a little too small, and it doesn't have as many cooking modes as our picks above.

In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, we’ve tested over 50 air fryers of all shapes and sizes. We evaluate their ease of use and how well they cook foods that home cooks typically prepare in an air fryer.

✔️ Wings and French fry tests: We air fry frozen fries and chicken wings to see how quickly they cook and how evenly browned and crisp they become. We also evaluate how moist and tender the food comes out.

✔️ ️Grilled cheese and mozzarella stick tests: We air fry grilled cheese sandwiches and frozen mozzarella sticks to assess how evenly the machines melt cheese and produce a gooey, cheese-pull worthy result with a crispy exterior. This test also lets us know if the fan is so strong that it blows food around inside the basket.

✔️Ease of use: We evaluate each model’s control panel and buttons, including cooking modes, temperature settings, alerts, and how easy it is to operate the basket or trays inside. Finally, we consider how easy the machine and its parts are to clean and maintain.

✔️ Size: Average air fryers have a capacity of around six quarts. They can cook enough food for about four people at a time. The small air fryers on our list have a capacity between two and four quarts. They're great for one or two people. They take up less counter space, and we find them easier to clean since the baskets are smaller and often fit in a dishwasher.

✔️ Style: Like average-sized air fryers, small air fryers come in basket-style or toaster oven-style. Basket styles allow you to air fry smaller ingredients that benefit from shaking, while toaster ovens have trays with more cooking surface so that you can spread more food in a single layer. More cooking surface allows for more even browning and crispier results. The toaster oven trays are also a little easier to flip food on, since they have shorter walls, and they're typically made of stainless steel, versus nonstick like the baskets. Air fryer toaster ovens also offer more versatility since they're equipped to bake, toast, and more, like a standard countertop oven.

✔️ Mechanical vs. digital display: Air fryers with dials versus buttons and a digital display cost less than their counterparts. They work perfectly well, but are often less precise. They also typically offer fewer bells and whistles, such as pre-programmed settings and halfway timers that remind you to flip your food, among other features.

✔️ Settings: Often, when an air fryer offers an extensive range of settings, it includes programs with pre-programmed time and temperatures for commonly air-fried ingredients. Usually, you can further adjust these settings. They can be helpful if you're new to air frying, but the more you use your appliance, the easier it will be to use the manual function. Another thing to keep in mind with settings is that they often indicate how low or high an air fryer can go. For example, a dehydrate setting might mean the air fryer can cook at 100ºF or less. Keep warm is usually around 200ºF, air fry typically maxes out around 400ºF, and roast or broil is usually higher.

While the advertised capacity remains relatively the same amongst small air fryers, what you can fit in them depends on the shape and size of the basket.

Round air fryer baskets offer less cooking area than square air fryer baskets. From our experience with small, 2-quart air fryers, you can fit two to three chicken thighs snugly. You can also pile in a pound of fries, though 8 ounces yields more consistent results. You can fit at least a pound of wings, which is about 10 medium pieces. Square baskets can fit a little more and offer more room to spread ingredients out.

The Cuisinart air fryer toaster oven we recommend can fit up to 2.5 pounds of food, according to the brand.

The packaging often provides a good indication of the food's capacity, but we recommend consulting the user guide for recommended amounts.

Always consult the manufacturer's recommendations for cleaning. For many of our picks, the removable parts, such as the basket and tray, can be popped into the dishwasher for cleaning. That said, washing by hand with mild soap and warm water may extend the life of the nonstick coating. The appliance exteriors can be wiped clean with a damp cloth.

Nicole Papantoniou is the director of the Good Housekeeping Kitchen Appliances Lab, where she oversees all content and testing related to cooking tools, gadgets, and appliances. She has been testing air fryers since before they made their way to the U.S. market. As the lead air fryer tester at Good Housekeeping, she has tested a wide range of air fryers, including basket-style, oven-style, and air fryer toaster oven models, as well as those built into ovens, microwaves, and more. She has developed recipes for air fryers and uses them often at home.

Lizzy Briskin is a product tester and contributor to the Good Housekeeping Kitchen Appliances Lab. She’s a trained chef and recipe developer who has tested dozens of air fryers of all shapes and sizes. She prefers making toast in an air fryer to any other appliance (you can pre-butter it!).

Raena Loper is a contributing analyst for Good Housekeeping and worked alongside Nicole to test air fryers for the Kitchen Appliances Lab. Raena has tested air fryers, toaster ovens, food processors, and more.