Air fryer chicken wings
These chicken wings cooked in the Ninja air fryer were a thing of beauty. David Watsky/CNET
Chicken wings are almost universally loved and a very popular item to air fry. The goal for an air-fried wing is crispy outside and skin with a juicy inside. To test each oven's air fry ability, I cooked three frozen wings on air fry mode at 450 F for 30 minutes, turning them every 10 minutes. I let each oven come to full preheat before putting the wings in and then photographed them immediately after pulling them out. Naturally, I tasted them too, when they were cool enough to eat.
Success here depends on high heat and good fan circulation of that hot air, which means faster cooking. The faster an air fryer cooks and the more effective the super convection is, the faster the outside skin will crisp, making it less likely the chicken will be dry inside.
The Ninja Foodi oven won the great wing war by a feather, with the crispiest wings after 30 minutes. They were also perfectly juicy inside and had no real visible burning. The Cuisinart also nailed the wing test, but I actually had to pull them after about 25 minutes because they were fully done. They even had some burnt skin but not enough to bother me. The Breville and Crux also did well with good browning and crispy skin, while the KitchenAid finished sixth and the Calphalon seventh with not enough browning or crispiness for my taste.
Air fryer french fries
The Ninja and Breville cooked french fries to a golden brown the fastest without burning. David Watsky/CNET
This second air fryer test was designed to illuminate the pure power and speed of an individual oven's air fry function, but also its ability to cook evenly. I placed a handful of frozen fries (McDonald's style) on air fry at 450 F and timed how quickly each one got to that golden brown color that we all covet. Because speedy cooking and convenience are key features of the countertop air fryer oven, faster equals better. All of the oven subjects (except for the Cuisinart) reached the desired doneness eventually, but some performed the task much more quickly and consistently than others.
Breville won the fry test with perfectly golden fries in six minutes. I set the Ninja to a slightly lower temp (390 F) per its manual, and in eight minutes I had perfect fries (a very close second place and it likely would have won or tied if I'd set it to 450 F). KitchenAid also took eight minutes on 450 F while the Crux took nine minutes to get there and the Calphalon took 12. The Cuisinart was actually the fastest at just three minutes, but it burnt the edges of the fries and didn't cook evenly. At this point, I began to suspect the Cuisinart has an unusually intense air fryer function, for better or worse.
Broiled salmon
... continue reading