Air fryers have become a common feature in many Swedish kitchens in just a few years. Social media is awash with both custom recipes and stories of creative uses of air fryers.
Technically speaking, an air fryer works in practice like a hot air oven, with a heating element in the roof of the oven and a fan that sends the heat around in the small closed space. Therefore, it is also important that the hot air reaches the food to be cooked. Otherwise, you run the risk of the dish being unevenly cooked with a burnt outside and raw inside.
The advantage of an air fryer is that it is both faster and uses much less energy compared to a traditional hot air oven.
On behalf of Nordic media, Testfakta has tested eight popular air fryers on the Swedish market in a laboratory. Over time, the volume of air fryers has become larger and we have chosen to test devices in size XL, with a capacity of up to six portions.
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The tests are carried out at the independent French laboratory Eurofins ATS in Aix en Provence. The test covers how well the food is prepared, quality and durability, ease of use and energy consumption and noise level. The cooking step has been tested and evaluated for French fries and chicken drumsticks.
The report from the laboratory summarizes the outcome with all fryers achieving the expected result, without any major mishaps. But the test still shows clear differences between the products, which are not unimportant for those who are faced with a purchase decision.
– Electrolux, for example, is heavier, noisier and generally more difficult to handle, says Félix Simonnet, test leader at Eurofins ATS.
The Electrolux, by far the most expensive air fryer in the test, gets the second worst rating when the taste panel assesses French fries cooked according to the machines' instruction manuals. Only Philips gets a worse rating for its french fries. The potato quality is topped instead by the test winner OBH Nordica and the lesser-known brand Princess.
When the panel later cooked chicken drumsticks, it turned out that an air fryer that's good for french fries isn't necessarily as good for chicken, so Cosori was the clear winner.
Electrolux and Philips also stood out negatively from a user perspective because parts of the appliance's exterior became so hot that you risk burning yourself.
Gunilla von Heland is food editor at the food magazine Allt om mat and has noticed the great interest in air fryers. Chicken drumsticks are her personal favorite for cooking in the airfryer.
– It's quick and easy and they also get very crispy on the outside while the juice inside remains, says Gunilla von Heland.
According to her, for a smaller household, an airfryer can be a good alternative to a traditional oven or a microwave.
– A family with children may need the children to be able to fix some dinner themselves before the parents are home. Then the air fryer works very well for semi-finished products such as fish sticks.
– What you have to think about when using your air fryer is precisely that the hot air cooks the food. Therefore, it is good not to put things on top of each other, in which case you should make sure to stir.
After the extensive testing, the laboratory noted some features that had been desired for user convenience.
– It would be practical if you could prepare the food and set a time when the air fryer should start cooking. Then it would be easier if the keep-warm function that some air fryers have could be set in advance, says Félix Simonnet.
