Straight to the Point
The Instant Pot Vortex 2Qt Mini Air Fryer made evenly cooked crispy fries and wings with the quickest cook time. The Cuisinart 2.6-quart Air Fryer Oven is the only model I tested with a window. It also produced crisp and evenly cooked fries and wings with a slightly longer cook time.
Air fryers have become an essential appliance in many of our kitchens—they’re a game changer for frozen and previously fried foods. We’re air fryer enthusiasts and have tested them extensively. Not only are they great for cooking and reheating traditionally deep-fried foods, but they also roast veggies to perfection. Air fryer bacon comes out crispy with less mess, and air fryers can cook excellent baked potatoes (without having to turn the oven on for an hour)!
The downside? Some models are large and bulky, making them less ideal for small households and kitchens with limited counter or storage space. I tested six popular small air fryers with a capacity of four quarts or less to find models that quickly produced evenly crisp food.
The Winners, at a Glance
Credit: Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
Instant Pot is the winner in our review of standard-size air fryers. This smaller version cooked food the fastest, producing crispy fries after just 14 minutes and golden wings in 30 minutes. The petite two-quart basket was shallower than some other models, putting the food closer to the heat source. It also featured a wide surface area for more even cooking. It has a dial to control the digital panel and four cooking settings, as well as a “flip reminder” setting.
Credit: Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
This air fryer features a shallow basket with a wide cooking surface. It evenly browned fries and cooked succulent wings. It has a window and a light for viewing the food as it cooks, and the digital panel makes it easy to adjust the cooking time.
The Tests
The key to evenly cooked fries was a wide air fryer basket.
Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
- Setup Test: I washed and dried the basket and crisping rack of each small air fryer. I did a test run on each model by turning each on at 400°F for five minutes, allowing them to cool back to room temperature before starting the tests.
- Frozen Fries Test: I cooked a half-pound of fries in the air fryers with bigger baskets. I cooked six ounces of fries in the smaller COSORI Air Fryer 2.1 QT and a scant four ounces in the Nostalgia Personal Air Fryer 1-Quart. I cooked each batch for 15 minutes, shaking the basket once at seven minutes into the cooking time.
- Chicken Wings Test: I made one pound of chicken wings in each small air fryer. I tossed the wings in one tablespoon of oil, salt, and pepper, before arranging them in the air fryer baskets. For the smaller baskets, I placed drummettes upright against the basket walls. I cooked the wings for 12 minutes, flipped them, and cooked them for an additional 12 minutes before flipping them again. I then crisped them up for an additional six minutes.
- Cleanup Test: I hand-washed the baskets and crisping racks of each model after use. Then I ran the crisping racks of all models through the dishwasher on the top rack.
What We Learned
What Size Is a Small Air Fryer?
Small air fryers have petite capacities, enough for one to two people.
Serious Eats
The small air fryers I tested were all under four quarts, with the smallest holding just one quart and the largest holding 2.6 quarts. All of them were basket-style, featuring a removable basket with a handle for easy shaking, and included a crisping plate to elevate the food and allow air circulation. The crisping plates all featured perforations to allow airflow, as well as grooves to channel grease out. All of the crisping plates featured rubberized edges, helping them stay put. This made it easy to dump fries and wings into a dish without the plate coming loose in the process.
Basket Shape and Size Mattered
Wide surface areas were important because they reduced crowding.
Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
My winning models, the Instant Pot Vortex 2QT Mini Air Fryer and Cuisinart Air Fryer Oven, 2.6-Qt, both featured square baskets with a wide surface area. This reduced crowding and allowed for airflow, creating an even crispness on both the fries and wings. Both models produced a half-pound of crispy fries and a full pound of golden wings.
Round baskets, or ones that were taller than they were wide, like the Nostalgia Personal Air Fryer 1-Quart and COSORI Air Fryer 2.1 QT, had a smaller surface area. They held less than a half-pound of fries and less than a pound of wings. These models also had the smallest footprint of the bunch, but held the least amount of food and took longer to cook.
Little Details Had Big Impacts
We appreciated clearly labeled buttons and dials.
Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
Design and small details made some air fryers stand out: Features like rubberized edges on the crisping plates might seem minor, but they helped keep the plate from sliding when shaken and when dumping food onto a plate (in the case of fries).
Basket depth and width also came into play, with short and wide baskets holding more food with less chance of crowding versus tall and narrow baskets. Likewise, baskets that were too shallow didn’t do a great job of circulating air, resulting in less even browning and noticeably longer cooking times. Additionally, digital panels with clearly labeled buttons were easier to use than fully analog models.
The Criteria: What to Look for in a Small Air Fryer
Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
A small air fryer should have a compact design but still serve at least one to two people. The best small air fryers had wide cooking surfaces that efficiently and evenly crisped and browned foods. Look for models that feature a crisping plate that has rubberized edges so it doesn’t slip or slide when shaking the basket. Both of the winning models also featured a “flip reminder” function with an alert partway through cooking time. A display window is a nice but unnecessary feature.
Our Favorite Small Air Fryers
Credit: Amazon
What we liked: This air fryer made the most evenly cooked and consistently crispy fries and wings in the least amount of time. Fries were evenly golden and crispy after 14 minutes and wings in 30 minutes. It has a wide, square basket and digital panel with a knob for easily adjusting time and temperature, just like its bigger sibling, the Instant Vortex Plus 6-Quart 6-in-1 Air Fryer, the winner of our review of larger air fryers.
What we didn’t like: Like its bigger sibling, it has an automatic preheat function that adds a couple of minutes to the cooking process. I tested it as prompted and by just adding the food from the start (before the preheat function), and both resulted in evenly cooked food. Basically, preheating isn’t necessary; it only cooks food a little faster than if it’s added from the start.
Key Specs
- Stated capacity: 2 quarts
- Dimensions: 11.26 x 9.02 x 11.73 inches
- Temperature range: 120°F-400°F
- Time range: 1-60 minutes
- Type: Basket
- Settings/presets: Air fry, roast, bake, reheat
- Warranty: 1 year
Credit: Cuisinart
What we liked: This air fryer cooked food evenly and featured a wide, square cooking basket. It also includes a “flip reminder” setting. This was the only small air fryer that I tested with a viewing window, which is great for checking on doneness without having to open the air fryer. The control panel even features a “light” setting with an automatic timer, allowing you to see into the fryer as it cooks. This air fryer produced crispy and golden food.
What we didn’t like: While this small air fryer cooked fries to an even crispness and wings to a golden crunch, it took a couple more minutes to get to air-fried perfection than the Instant Pot.
Credit: Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
Credit: Serious Eats / Cindy Rahe
Key Specs
- Stated capacity: 2.6 quarts
- Dimensions: 13 x 13 x 8 inches
- Temperature range: 400°F max
- Time range: Up to 60 minutes
- Type: Basket
- Settings/Presets: Air fry, roast, bake, reheat
- Warranty: 3 years
The Competition
FAQs
How much can you fit in a small air fryer?
Small air fryers we tested made one to two servings. We tested to see if the air fryers would hold eight ounces of fries and a pound of chicken wings.
How many people is a small air fryer good for?
Small air fryers are good for one to two people. If you want to serve more people, check out our review of standard-size air fryers.
How do you clean a small air fryer?
The basket and crisping plate of all the models we tested are dishwasher-safe on the top rack. All models also cleaned up easily with hot, soapy water and a gentle scrubbing.
Why We’re Experts
- Cindy Rahe is a baker, recipe developer, writer, and photographer with over a decade of experience.
- She has written recipes for Betty Crocker and Simply Recipes, as well as Cook Smarts.
- For this review, Cindy tested six small air fryers by cooking loads of frozen fries and wings.
