Compare the Best FryersJanuary 2019

Fryers use very hot oil to cook food quickly and thoroughly - the food is quickly cooked by the hot oil, often resulting in a crispy outside, but a tender inside. Most people connect home fryers with chips - allowing you to easily recreate the crispy, fluffy chips found in restaurants and cafes. However they can be used for many other different types of food, including fish, vegetables, samosas or chicken. Due to the high temperatures involved in the cooking procedure, modern fryers have significant safety features to minimise the chance of accidents, and contain pre-set modes for the most commonly-cooked foods.

Capacity

All our fryers have a food capacity, measured in kilograms. The larger the capacity, the more food you can cook in one go - this may be especially useful for large families. However larger fryers also have a significantly larger footprint, and so will take up more counter space in your kitchen.

Power Levels

All of our fryers are given a power level, rated in watts. The higher the wattage, the more power the fryer has. This translates to faster and more efficiently cooked food, but also to higher electricity bills. Fryers tend to be quite power hungry, so it may be prudent not to automatically buy the device with the highest power - a good mid-point between power and cost-efficiency is important.

Low Fat & Air Frying

While traditionally deep fat frying has been seen as an immensely unhealthy form of cooking, there are several healthier options available. Low fat fryers are specially designed to use less oil than standard fryers, meaning the resulting food has a lower calorie count, and is therefore healthier. Under these systems a single teaspoon of oil will suffice for an entire portion of chips, so the calorie count can be a mere fraction of what it would be using a traditional method.

A growing section of the healthy frying market is so-called ‘air’ fryers - a range of cookers that use superheated air to fry the food instead of oil. Because they use very little or no oil (some models use a very small amount of oil to 'kick start' the air heating) the resulting food is far lower in calories and fat. Indeed, tests have shown that with a 300g portion of chips, airfrying reduced the calories from 717 to 576! Also, because they don’t use oil you don’t have to worry about disposing of the used frying oil - which makes them far more ecologically friendly as well.

Generally speaking these low-fat and air fryers are more expensive than their traditional counterparts. However, given how much lower in both calories and fat the resulting food is, the health benefits may far outweigh the extra expenditure.

Fryer Prices

Fryers range in price from $15 to $1,767 and in total we found prices for 71 fryers. The average price of a new fryer is $170 and the 80% of fryers are priced between $36 and $344. The cheapest fryer that we found is the Oster CKSTDF102 at only $15, and the most expensive is the Rosewill RHAF-15003 at $1,767.

Fryer Brands - Price Range

The average price of Rosewill fryers is $502 which is the highest average price of all fryer brands. Rosewill fryers range in price from $58 to $1,767.

Duronic fryers range in price from $308 to $308, and the average price of Duronic fryers is $308 which is the second highest average price of all fryer brands.

Cecotec fryers start at $207 and their most expensive fryer costs $207. The third highest average fryer price out of all brands is Cecotec fryers with an average price of $207.

Fryer Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 39 expert reviews and 3,829 user reviews for fryers and used this information to evaluate the average rating for each brand of fryer. The top three fryer brands are Tefal, Philips and DeLonghi. Tefal has an average rating of 82%, Philips has an average rating of 78% and DeLonghi has an average rating of 64%.

Biggest Fryer Retailers

We found 76 current offers for fryers from eBay making it the biggest fryer retailer. That is over 4 times bigger than the second biggest retailer, Newegg US for whom we found 17 current offers for fryers. The third biggest retailer is Air n Water with 9 current fryer offers.

When Are Most New Fryers Released?

We looked at the release dates for new fryers over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any obvious trend. The biggest month in 2018 for new fryer releases was February, with 13 new fryers released that month. In 2017 most new fryers were released in August, with 16 new fryers released that month. September was the biggest month in 2016 for new fryers, with 65 new fryers released that month.

How Fast Do Fryer Prices Drop After Release?

On average fryers drop in price by 4% in the first 6 months after release. If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of $1 on a typical $35 new fryer by waiting 6 months before buying.

Powers

'Power' is the power level of the fryer, measured in watts.

Across the range of fryers, the powers range from 140W to 10,000W. The powers of the majority of fryers range from 1,400W to 1,700W. The fryer with the biggest power is the TriStar FR-6937, which is a 3,600W fryer and is on sale for $344.08. The TWINBIRD EP-4694PW, which is priced at $0.00, has the smallest power and is a 680W fryer.

Fryer Food Capacities

'Capacity' denotes how much food the fryer can hold at once, measured in kilograms.

Across the range of fryers, the fryer food capacities range from 0.3kg to 17kg. The fryer food capacities of most fryers range from 1kg to 1.5kg. The fryer with the biggest fryer food capacity is the Tower T17004, which is an 8kg fryer food capacity fryer and is available at $0.00. The Nesco DF-12, which can be purchased for $36.15, has the smallest fryer food capacity and is a 0.4kg fryer food capacity fryer.

Low Fat Frying Functions

A low-fat frying function serves to fry food using only a fraction of the oil normally used.

The number of new fryers that do and are fryers without a low fat frying function is roughly the same. 166 fryers out of 346 do are fryers with a low fat frying function and 51% of fryers are fryers without a low fat frying function.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Fryers?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying fryers. For each retailer it shows the total number of fryers where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying fryers. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was eBay. 66 of their fryer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Fryers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for fryers by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of fryer prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's fryer prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was eBay. 86.8% of their fryer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.