These are our top air fryer oven recommendations

If you’re in the US, you can buy this appliance under the Breville brand name. In the UK, it’s Sage.

The smart oven air fryer is a microwave-sized countertop air fryer oven with ten separate cooking functions: toast (6 slices), crumpet, grill, bake, roast, warm, pizza, air fry, reheat and slow cook. The model we tested is in a bright, brushed stainless-steel silver, although there are other colour options: there’s a choice of eleven in the US. It’s high quality and beautifully made and will be an aesthetic asset to your worktop, unlike many competing models.

It has an LCD display and button and dial controls. Inside the oven are three shelf heights and it comes with a set of high quality accessories: a 30cm/12in pizza pan, a wire shelf, a grilling rack, a roasting pan, an air-frying basket, and crumb tray.

But it’s when cooking that this appliance really shines, producing crispy and flavourful food. This may be down to the ElementIQ system, which uses a smart algorithm and sensors to control the temperature perfectly and evenly. You’re paying more for its high quality build and performance but if your budget can stretch to it, we think it’s well worth it.

This Cosori air fryer oven has a 13QT/12L capacity and comes with a range of accessories to help you make the most of its 11 functions: a drip tray, a baking tray, two air fryer trays, a rotisserie basket, and a rotisserie spit with spiked fork and a handle. All accessories have a non-stick coating and, aside from the drip tray, are dishwasher safe.

It’s controlled via a touchscreen panel, from which you can choose one of the cooking functions (air fry, roast, broil, bake, pizza, toast, reheat, warm, dry, proof and rotisserie) and adjust time and temperature. The air fryer oven has a cooking range of from 30°C/90°F (for proofing dough and yoghurt-making) to 220°C/430°F (air frying and roasting). Different cooking modes will also use a low or high fan speed and each one has a time range. The toast setting has the option to choose darkness level as well as a flip reminder.

During testing, we were impressed with its speed and the quality of its cooking but the tradeoff for its budget-friendly price is that it’s a little noisy and rattly in operation. About that price: there is usually a voucher deal on Amazon, which will give you a significant amount off the RRP/MSRP.

This air fryer oven is one of the largest we’ve tested, with a whopping 26QT/24-litre capacity. It’s also one of the rare air fryers made from stainless steel (along with other food-grade metals), which means it looks a lot better and brighter on your kitchen counter than many of its rivals. But you’ll need plenty of room to house it.

This HySapientia model is cheaper to run than you may think, especially if you’re cooking for a larger group. You can cook an entire family meal in it, and it’ll cost much less than in a traditional oven. It produces very crispy food as well – perhaps because there’s plenty of room for hot air to circulate. It comes with plenty of accessories, including a rotisserie spit – making it a versatile option.

However, its huge size means you’re heating up much more space than you need to if you just want to cook a couple of fish fingers for the kids. And we didn’t love its control panel. It’s largely dial-operated, where a touchscreen would be preferable, and makes a lot of annoying beeps as you choose your settings.

If looks are important, the Smeg Multifunctional Oven is the appliance to go for. But you’ll need deep pockets as it’s twice the price of any of our other recommendations. You’ll also need plenty of counter space: when the door is open, it’s large enough to overhang a standard kitchen countertop.

But it has a huge 30-litre capacity and a menu of preset programmes, allowing you to do everything from proofing dough and baking, to roasting potatoes and steaming vegetables. There’s a tank in the top so you can add water for steaming. We loved its versatility and thought its cooking results were good.

We were less enamoured with its multifunctional controls – you’ll need to keep the instructions handy until you learn to programme it. And its interior and cooking accessories are time-consuming to clean. They’re not dishwasher-safe either.

The Tefal Easy Fry air fryer oven is faster and cheaper to cook in than a conventional oven and has a huge, 20-litre capacity. It’s versatile as well, with ten cooking functions and seven preset programmes, including bake, grill, toast, roast and pizza, as well as two manual modes for toasting bagels and reheating, plus an automatic keep warm setting.

It comes with all the accessories you’ll need, including wire racks, an air fryer basket, a crumb tray and food tray. These aren’t dishwasher-safe, however, so you’ll need to clean them regularly by hand to prevent cooking residue build-up.

The oven itself isn’t quite as easy to clean as a standard air fryer, and it doesn’t have a shake/turn function midway through the cooking programme. You’ll also need plenty of counter space to house it. But if you’re a big or busy household, it’ll give you more options and a simpler way to cook.

The Breville Halo Air Fryer Rotisserie Oven comes with a mesh drum, for cooking food such as chips, as well as a rotisserie spit. Its 10-litre capacity is large enough to cook a joint of meat, but not so overwhelming that it seems wasteful to cook small volumes of food.

It’s versatile as well: it can do everything that a traditional air fryer can, and then some. The rotisserie spit is good for a whole, 1.3kg chicken and the drum can hold 750g of chips.

It has touchscreen controls, and you can opt for one of the pre-set cooking programmes (chips, chicken, vegetables, and steak) or one of the manual options (air fry, bake and dehydrate).  

Another handy feature is that it’ll switch itself off after cooking, so your food won’t be burnt to a crisp if you get distracted during the cooking process.

If you’re determined to cut down on countertop clutter and tend to use a microwave more than an air fryer, this appliance could be what you need. It can oven cook, grill, microwave and air fry, and its handy presets can combine a few of those methods for faster, crispier results. Plus, there are plenty of presets, such as defrost and reheat, which are ideal for busy lifestyles.

It has a good range of nine air fry presets, including steak, burgers, vegetables and fish/prawns. However, unlike standalone air fryers, there’s no suggested air frying temperature for each one.

In our tests, we found that air frying is the weakest of its functions, quite literally: its lower, 1000W air fryer power means that it’s much slower than dedicated air fryers. Much better are the combined functions, for example the chicken programme, which uses microwaving and convection heat together, and which produced perfectly cooked chicken, with a crispy skin.

What this air fryer offers – beyond a huge, 15-litre capacity – is a rotisserie and smart features. It can do a lot but it takes up a correspondingly huge chunk of space in your kitchen and, at 1700W, it won’t be as cheap to run as a smaller air fryer. If you’re looking for an air fryer that you can use in place of an oven, this could be what you’ve been searching for. It also comes with all the rotisserie equipment and accessories you’ll need.

Via the smart features, you can switch the oven on, control the temperature and programme remotely, which is useful if you need to be in another room. You’ll also have access to a library of recipes if you need cooking inspiration.

Bear in mind that the app is not particularly polished and the air fryer itself isn’t as robust as Ninja alternatives.