Over the previous decade, the air fryer has grow to be a staple of the American kitchen. Roughly 60 % of households in the USA now personal an air fryer. There are numerous cookbooks, equipment, even precise meals merchandise designed to make the expertise of air frying higher and simpler. Sadly, there’s been a lot much less innovation relating to the air fryer itself, particularly from a design perspective.
This grew to become abundantly clear to me a number of months in the past. About midway by way of my salmon’s cooking time, I heard the fan on my low-cost Sprint air fryer utterly give out. After I opened the machine, the fish was nowhere close to carried out, and it was clear that the air fryer’s heating aspect was struggling. Unable to search out any documentation of a guaranty and even keep in mind the place I’d purchased it, I chucked the busted air fryer into the trash and pulled up the Amazon app on my cellphone to seek for a brand new one.
I didn’t like what I noticed. The primary outcomes on Amazon returned a slew of almost similar air fryers in two classes: pod-shaped machines in black, purple, or gray plastic, or huge toaster-oven-shaped varieties accessible in chrome steel. There have been additionally dozens of air fryer manufacturers — Ninja, Instantaneous, Cosori, Sprint, Nuwave, Breville, Phillips, Toshiba, and Hamilton Seaside amongst them — all with various critiques on their efficiency. And since this was an equipment that might sit out on the counter always, I wished to search out one thing that match each the size and the aesthetic of my small house kitchen. As such, the hunt continued.
My scrolling stopped, although, once I got here throughout the Fritaire, which seems like no different air fryer I’d seen earlier than. As a substitute of a steel basket, Fritaire’s egg-shaped air fryer employs a glass bowl to carry the meals, which the model claims makes it simpler to scrub and helps customers keep away from the chemical substances inherent to the nonstick coatings on most air fryers. It’s additionally “self-cleaning,” that means that customers can dump soapy water instantly into the bowl and permit the machine’s fan to swirl it round with air earlier than tossing the water and wiping it clear. Aesthetically, it boasts just a little little bit of an Atomic Period, Jetsons-esque vibe, and is offered in a spread of colours, from basic black to newer choices like mauve and lavender.
Fritaire founder Andreas Hansen first grew to become conscious of air fryer cooking in 2020, when the COVID pandemic despatched gross sales of the equipment skyrocketing. At all times a tinkerer, Hansen, who has an in depth background in product improvement, ordered a number of air fryer fashions from main manufacturers like Ninja to check them at residence. He appreciated the way in which they cooked, however his spouse hated the look of all of them. “She didn’t like several of them, and it wasn’t due to efficiency,” he says. “She stated that all of them seemed the identical. They’re black, they’re grey, they’re boring, they’re ugly. That simply sparked a necessity for me to see what else folks don’t like about air fryers.”
Hansen started studying by way of dozens of detrimental critiques of air fryers on platforms like Amazon, and observed tons of reviewers agreed along with his spouse. He additionally observed some frequent complaints in regards to the methods during which air fryers are designed — people who purchase the pod-shaped air fryers don’t like that they will’t see how their meals is cooking inside and that they’re tough to scrub, for instance — and so he got down to design an air fryer that might keep away from all these criticisms.
It was when Hansen began to search for producers for his design — which prioritized attractiveness and performance equally — that issues bought tough. Rapidly, he discovered why so many air fryers, even after they’re offered by completely completely different manufacturers, look so comparable. Many air fryers are made in China, and a single producer could produce air fryers and different small home equipment, or elements for these home equipment, for a number of manufacturers. “Even the large manufacturers purchase from them,” Hansen says.
The opposite drawback that Hansen rapidly encountered was that his plan to supply extra colours was sophisticated by the way in which that air fryers work. As a result of they’re mainly countertop ovens, producers need to deal with the new air that may inevitably make contact with the air fryer’s plastic items. “There’s a purpose that air fryers are often not colourful, and that has to do with warmth discoloration,” he says. “Mainly, the plastic will get cooked over time. White plastic will flip inexperienced, inexperienced turns into yellow, and so forth.” Black may even discolor over time, however it’s a lot much less noticeable than lighter colours. Hansen labored for almost eight months to discover a plastic that wouldn’t be impacted by warmth discoloration, and he nonetheless needed to accept making the machine’s deal with in black plastic.
Our Place, the model identified for its aesthetically pleasing cookware just like the virally well-liked At all times Pan, additionally took a definite strategy to designing its personal air fryer. Its Surprise Oven is priced at $195, decidedly dearer than the everyday pod-shaped air fryer that usually sells for round $100, and appears like a petite toaster oven. It’s additionally accessible in a number of stylish colours — heat, orangey Spice and funky Blue Salt, amongst them — and its look has earned the oven viral fame on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Many creators name it the “grownup Simple-Bake oven,” referring to the favored ’80s cooking toy, and that description isn’t too far off.
When she started fascinated about what her model’s air fryer would seem like, Our Place CEO Shiza Shahid instantly eschewed the pod-shaped design. “The standard air fryer design is actually cumbersome and hyper-specific,” she says. “[This design] is simply a lot extra helpful. It allowed us to make the Surprise Oven not simply an air fryer, but additionally an oven you’ll be able to bake in. It’s additionally a toaster. You are able to do a lot extra in it, it’s a extra versatile and approachable design. And, after all, the cherry on high of the cake is that it seems good.”
As a result of Shahid’s firm employs an in-house design staff, it allowed Our Place to develop a design that was actually distinct. “The way in which most kitchenware manufacturers design merchandise is that they buy it from factories who’ve already carried out that work. It’s very uncommon for a corporation to have their very own in-house product design staff,” Shahid says. “It’s not simply in air fryers, it’s throughout the board. Each frying pan seems the identical, each toaster seems the identical. It’s a class that has lacked innovation for a very long time, each in type and in supplies.”
There could be a purpose for that lack of innovation past manufacturing effectivity. Maybe, the pod-shaped air fryer is the superior design, and that’s why so many manufacturers have gone with it. I made a decision to place that concept to the take a look at by requesting three completely different air fryers from their producers and evaluating them on their efficiency: the Our Place Surprise Oven, the Fritaire, and a fundamental Toshiba pod-shaped mannequin. My plan was to air fry hen nuggets, bake a cookie or two, and roast half-bags of frozen broccoli in every equipment. I assumed — and feared — that the cumbersome pod machine would produce essentially the most even cooking.
The outcomes, nonetheless, had been shockingly comparable — besides when it got here to baking. All three air fryers produced crisp nuggets and properly charred broccoli florets, however neither the Toshiba nor the Fritaire fashions got here with a baking sheet that might have labored with the cookies, so I wasn’t in a position to replicate that take a look at. The Surprise Oven baked an okay cookie, however it gained’t be changing my bigger oven in that respect.
I additionally bought a mixture air fryer and toaster oven from Drew Barrymore’s well-liked housewares line Stunning, which is offered at Walmart. As its identify would possibly point out, Stunning’s merchandise are all aesthetically pleasing, accessible in a number of colours, and made with luxe finishes like gold-painted handles. Priced at round $100, this oven did look nice on my counter, however it cooked very inconsistently, at all times burning the toast within the again left nook, and the outside of the machine felt dangerously scorching even after a fast cook dinner. It additionally rapidly fell sufferer to that warmth discoloration that Hansen talked about. Inside only a few weeks, its mild sage exterior turned an disagreeable brown across the edges of the door. I reached out to Stunning for extra perception into why I could be having these points, however didn’t hear again.
Each air fryer I attempted got here with its personal gripes. The Fritaire mannequin was annoying to make use of as a result of I needed to take away the complete high half of the egg-shaped machine — which incorporates the heating aspect — each time I wished to test on my meals. Its plastic additionally felt flimsy, and the included rotisserie attachment was cumbersome and irritating to make use of. The Toshiba cooked fairly evenly, however was an actual ache to scrub, and the nonstick coating contained in the basket constructed up an unappealing movie of carbonized grease. It was additionally the ugliest of the three, a giant hulking hunk of black plastic. Our Place’s Surprise Oven was arguably essentially the most enticing and best to make use of of all three, however it nonetheless suffered from uneven cooking and a finicky timer knob.
In the end, I nonetheless have all three of those air fryers, however the Surprise Oven is the one one which’s earned a everlasting spot on my counter. Name me shallow, however I’d relatively have to fret about inconsistently browned hen nuggets than crowd up my counter with an unpleasant black equipment that I’ve to take a look at each single day. For essentially the most half, the Surprise Oven roasts my veggies and bakes my salmon simply tremendous. Each infrequently, I’m aggravated by how usually I’ve to stir what’s inside or by the necessity to flip the tiny sheet pan round only for my potatoes to roast evenly. However I assume these are the sorts of compromises all of us need to make if we actually can’t reside with out an air fryer.
