best air fryer fried chicken

airfryer’s don’t actually fry they work by circulating hot air around food that’s been placed in a basket either tossed in a bit of oil or covered with breading that contains oil they’re essentially a counter top version of a full-sized convection oven which has a fan that circulates the hot air and can help food cook more quickly and uniformly your food won’t have the deep fried flavor that comes from being immersed in oil but air fryers turn out tasty food that’s a lot healthier you can spend anywhere from 55 to around $300 on an air fryer this model scored highly in our tests and cost just seventy dollars for the most part air fryers look similar so   our testing around three important features convenience controls and noise one big difference between models is basket size some are so small they require you to cook in batches which is a challenge if you’re cooking for a whole family in our air fire tests we saw models with a capacity of just two quarts and some that could hold almost six quarts but some claimed to be a lot bigger than they are our testers measured several that were over a full quart smaller than the manufacturer claimed on the box some stores have air fryers out of their boxes so check out the basket to ensure it will hold enough for your family we used 1 pound of chicken nuggets and fries in each fryer for our testing you can see how a pound about 25 nuggets fits in a large basket versus a small one what can you make it an air fryer certainly foods that are traditionally fried chicken wings popcorn shrimp french fries onion rings but in an informal exercise 8 GR staffers who took a fryer home for a week turned out loads of different foods for their families that aren’t considered fried you’re good like Brussels sprouts fish pizza and banana bread if you have a lot of food in the basket it’s a good idea to pause and turn the food occasionally to ensure that the hot air can reach all the surfaces to brown them see our testers also determine whether a fryer is easy to clean the holes that allow air to circulate and heat up the food can become Kate with fried bits of food the baskets should be easy to clean with hot water and dish detergent see our testers found some that require more elbow grease too many nooks and crannies take a close look at the air fryer you’re considering and you’ll see a big difference in controls there are models with a pair of simple dials making it easy to adjust the temperature in time others have digital touch pads with arrow adjustments and bright readouts if you appreciate shortcuts some fires have little icons so you can simply choose a pre-programmed item like meat fish or baked goods this fryer displays both Fahrenheit and Celsius see the numbers on this dial well see our testers couldn’t either watch for unreadable information on the fire and then we take a look actually a listen to how loud the fryer is testers use delicate sound measuring instruments to determine which are quiet and which ones can turn dinner conversation into dining din and when you shop take a close look at the warranty most have a warranty that covers the machine for a year or two but we saw warranties as short as 60 days for more information and a full list of our air fryer ratings