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Why are air fryers all of a sudden so hard to come by? They seem to be selling out everywhere, with big brands Ninja, Philips and Gourmia now as rare as gold dust. This time-saving kitchen gadget only entered the market a decade ago. They caught on fairly quickly ($412 million dollars were spent on them in the US in 2019), and saw a surge of interest during lockdown, when influencers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok showed how they could reduce the amount of oil used in cooking.
That persuaded health-conscious 20-somethings that they were worth a look. But now there’s a second, even bigger boom in air fryer popularity and this time it’s not just millennials but parents and grandparents. This time, the killer app is money-saving while still achieving crispy food with a fried finish and less oil used in the process.
To find out exactly how air frying cuts your energy bills, and for our reviews in full, see below. We’ve also included how much each costs to run per hour under to the current energy price cap. If you already know how air fryers save you money, here’s a quick look at our top five:
Which are the best air fryers in 2024? At a glance
Why does an air fryer use less energy than an oven?
It’s down to two factors: size and time. Air fryers are considerably smaller than conventional ovens. They generally range from around two to eight litres in volume (although models as large as 24 litres do exist). The less air there is, the less energy is required to heat it up.
Then there’s the convection technology, which ensures the heat and vapourised oil is very evenly distributed to every part of your food. Taken together, these features mean that air fryers can typically save you around 30 minutes in cooking time. A meal cooked for an hour in a typical 2,000 Watt electric oven would use two kiloWatt hours of energy – but if you could cook the same meal in half an hour in a 1,000 Watt air fryer, it would use just half a kiloWatt hour.
This is suddenly very relevant. The first time we reviewed air fryers, during lockdown, one kiloWatt hour of electricity cost just 18p. The current price under the government’s Energy Price Guarantee is 27p.
If buying an air fryer, however, make sure it’s big enough to feed your whole family. Having to do two lots of cooking will negate its time- and energy-saving benefits. You will also have to balance its capacity against storage: some can be quite big.
All other things being equal, it is still cheaper to cook with gas, which at the time of writing cost 7p per kiloWatt hour, although the size and age of your gas oven may make still make it less efficient than the best modern air fryers.
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