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- Best small air fryers: At a glance
- How we test air fryers
- The best small air fryers to buy in 2025
- 1. Tower T17023 2.2l: Best air fryer for small kitchens
- 2. Tower Vortx 5l Digital: Best small air fryer for most people
- 3. Ninja Air Fryer Pro 4.7l AF140UK: Best small Ninja air fryer
- 4. Ninja Crispi 4-in-1: Best small air fryer for easy storage
- How to choose the best small air fryer for you
While air fryers offer a quicker, healthier way to cook, they often take up a lot of worktop space due to their large internal capacity. The best small air fryers bring all the excellent cooking performance of their larger siblings while taking up much less of your precious kitchen real estate. And while they may be more petite, my favourite tried and tested air fryers have proven they can still reliably produce generous portions of sides and main meals.
To learn more about how air fryers work, what features to look out for, and what price ranges you can expect, check out the handy buying guide I’ve written further down the page. Beneath the buying guide, you will find our product round-up that includes reviews of my favourite space-saving air fryers.
Best small air fryers: At a glance
| Best for small kitchens | Tower T17023 2.2l (~£45) | |
| Best for most people | Tower Vortx 5l Digital (~£40) | |
| Best small Ninja air fryer | Ninja Pro 4.7l AF140UK (~£130) | |
| Best for easy storage | Ninja Crispi 4-in-1 (~£180) |
How we test air fryers
All the air fryers featured in our roundups and reviews go through a thorough testing process before they make it onto our site, as we aim to assess whether all their features, functions and accessories work as described.
For our standard air frying tests, we cook portions of everyday food items like chips, chicken breast, vegetables and ready meals, gauging how well a given air fryer performs on these items regarding cooking speed, external crispness, doneness and juiciness. Alongside manual cooks, we also tried all the preset cooking modes available on the appliance, noting their accuracy and effectiveness.
Finally, to assess an air fryer’s stated capacity, we also run one test with the appliance filled to the brim to check whether it can still produce consistent, quality results.
READ NEXT: Best air fryers for two people
The best small air fryers to buy in 2025
1. Tower T17023 2.2l: Best air fryer for small kitchens
Price when reviewed: £45 | Check price at Amazon
- Great for… a simple, cheap option
- Not so great for… extra bells and whistles
If you’re looking for a properly compact air fryer, look no further than the Tower T17023. Measuring 24 x 19 x 27cm (WDH) and weighing just 3kg, the T17023 is the smallest and lightest air fryer I’ve tested by a decent margin. The other side of the compactness coin, of course, is that the T17023 has a smaller capacity than the other air fryers on this list. However, I still found it could still fit up to 500g of frozen chips or a pair of chicken breasts, making it a solid option for whipping up sides or extra portions of proteins.
The T17023 will save you space and cash, matching its small stature with an incredibly dinky price tag. Despite being budget-friendly, the T17023 still proved itself up to snuff in terms of quality and performance, feeling well-built and sturdy during setup and producing solid results when tested on a range of items, including bacon, hash browns, spring rolls, chicken breast and mixed vegetables.
While it doesn’t offer extra functions or presets, the T17023’s manual controls are straightforward and help keep the appliance simple, cheap and fuss-free.
Read our full Tower T17023 2.2l review
Key specs – Size: 24 x 19 x 27cm (WDH); Power: 1,000W; Capacity: 2.2l; Accessories: Removable crisper tray
2. Tower Vortx 5l Digital: Best small air fryer for most people
Price when reviewed: £40 | Check price at Tower
- Great for… a well-priced, roomy option
- Not so great for… doesn’t have a particularly premium look and feel
Thanks to its cuboid shape, which makes it easy to slot into corners and next to other items, and the fact that it’s taller than it is wide, the Tower Vortx 5l Digital remains relatively compact while maintaining a large capacity. The Vortx Digital’s 5l basket is a bit of a marvel given its slim profile, nearly matching the capacity of larger models like the Ninja 5.2l Max and giving it enough space to cook sides for multiple people or even something like a small whole chicken.
In terms of features, the Vortx 5l is pretty straightforward, offering users temperature and time controls and pre-sets for items like steak, seafood, chips and more. I accessed all these settings via the slick touch buttons on the air fryer’s control panel, which proved quick and easy to use. In testing, the Tower Vortx Digital performed surprisingly well given its very reasonable price, producing delicious results on halloumi fries, bacon, chicken breast and honey-glazed carrots.
Read our full Tower Vortx 5l Digital review
Key specs – Size: 27 x 33 x 32cm (WDH); Power: 1,400W; Capacity: 5l; Accessories: Removable crisper tray
3. Ninja Air Fryer Pro 4.7l AF140UK: Best small Ninja air fryer
Price when reviewed: £130 | Check price at Ninja
- Great for…compact, powerful and easy to use
- Not so great for… More expensive than many single-basket options
The Ninja Air Fryer Pro is a great option for anyone with limited kitchen countertop space who still wants to get a high-performing air fryer from a top brand. At 28.5 x 36 x 26.5cm (WDH) the Ninja Pro is a little wider and deeper than the Tower Vortx, but its more squat build means that it can more easily slot under kitchen wall units or be placed into storage in a small cupboard.
While petite, the Ninja Air Fryer Pro still maintains a very roomy 4.7l basket, which our reviewer even found spacious enough to cook a whole chicken in. It also packs in plenty of cooking power, with a maximum operating temperature of 210°C and four cooking modes, which are Air Fry, Roast, Reheat and Dehydrate. In testing, our expert found the Pro easy to use and was impressed with its performance on various items like fries, chicken and hash browns.
If you think you might require a little more space or want to avail of extra cooking modes, then the Ninja Air Fryer Max Pro is another option worth considering. This upgraded model includes a very spacious 6.2l cooking basket and adds two cooking programmes, a Bake setting and the brand’s signature Max Crisp mode, which can boost temperatures to 240°C to quickly crisp up frozen goodies.
Read our full Ninja Air Fryer Pro 4.7l AF140UK review
Key specs – Size: 28.5 x 36 x 26.5cm (WDH); Power: 1,750W; Capacity: 4.7l; Accessories: Crisper plate
4. Ninja Crispi 4-in-1: Best small air fryer for easy storage
Price when reviewed: £180 | Check price at Ninja
- Great for… portability, storage, easily reheating leftovers
- Not so great for… expensive, no temperature selection
The Ninja Crispi is one of the most unique air fryers we’ve tested. Instead of the usual, stationary base unit with a cooking drawer, this air fryer comprises a “PowerPod” lid – which contains the heating mechanism – and two separate, different-sized, glass cooking containers. You simply put your food in the glass bowl, then pop the PowerPod on top, and you’re ready to start cooking. The beauty of the Crispi is that you can just put a normal lid on the container once you’re done, making it easy to store, transport, and reheat leftovers.
Operating in a small kitchen, myself, I found the Crispi to be nicely petite – especially when using the 1.4l container – and easily fit on my limited countertop. The Crispi’s innovative design, with its removable heating unit and stackable containers, also proved much easier to put away in a cupboard or drawer compared to traditional air fryers; perfect for kitchens where space is at a premium.
Despite its unconventional construction, the Crispi still performs like a regular air fryer, with four modes: “Keep Warm”, “ReCrisp”, Roast, and Air Fry. In testing, I was able to use the Crispi to cook up everything from spring rolls and fries, to roast vegetables and even a whole chicken. Overall, I was impressed by this small, odd air fryer’s performance, though I was still a little disappointed at the lack of a temperature selection function, especially given the Crispi’s fairly lofty price.
Read our full Ninja Crispi review
Key specs – Size: 30.5 x 34 x 34.5cm (WDH); Power: 1,700W; Capacity: 1.4l and 3.8l; Accessories: PowerPod lid, x2 cooking vessels/storage containers, x2 container lids, x2 crisper plates, adaptor lid
How to choose the best small air fryer for you
How do air fryers work?
Air fryers cook food via convection, meaning they heat food via the rapid circulation of hot air. This cooking method is highly efficient, as it ensures the maximum surface area possible is exposed to heat and can ultimately save you time, space and money on your energy bills.
Though this cooking method doesn’t require any oil, which is handy if you’re trying to stick to healthy meals, it produces excellent results with smaller amounts than with other cooking methods. Thanks to a scientific process known as the Maillard reaction, a dash of oil while air frying can produce golden, crispy treats that are almost on par with the deep-fat fryer at your local chipper.
Want to know more about the ins and outs of air frying? Read our full-length guide to these compact kitchen appliances.
What features should I look for in a small air fryer?
Due to their compactness, small air fryers don’t tend to pack in as many features and functions as their larger counterparts. However, any good quality air fryer should have wide-ranging time and temperature settings, with most models worth their salt also offering pre-set options for common foods like chips, chicken and vegetables. Other features to look out for are solid, well-put-together bodies, clear digital control panels, easy-to-read LED displays, and dishwasher-safe, non-stick crisping plates.
READ NEXT: Best dual air fryers
To give you a fuller picture of what an air fryer can do, I also want to look at what features larger, more premium models can offer. The Instant Vortex Plus (~£150), our overall favourite air fryer, offers clear viewing windows, internal lights, and a more exhaustive range of cooking modes. Dual drawer models specifically also offer handy sync settings, which allow you to set separate drawers to finish in unison regardless of cooking time or temperature. Other features that caught our attention include internal stirring paddles, like the ones present in the Tefal ActiFry Genius+ (~£220), rotisserie functions, available in some oven-style models like the Tower Xpress Combo 10-in-1 (~£140) or the Proscenic T31 (~£160), and high-temperature modes, like the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone’s (~£220) Max Crisp setting.
Looking at functionality, we can also consider fully-featured multi-cookers which have air-frying capabilities. A product like the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 SmartLid (£300) can air fry, grill, bake, sauté, slow cook, steam, dehydrate, pressure cook and more. The Ninja Speedi (£250) offers similar settings alongside its handy Speedi Meals mode, which allows it to combine functions to whip up meals quickly. For example, it can air fry chicken while steaming rice, all in the same cooking basket.
READ NEXT: Best multi cookers
How much should I spend on a small air fryer?
Due to their smaller size and generally more stripped-back features, compact models can usually be picked up at much lower prices than your average air fryer – making for another great reason to plump for a space-saving appliance.
Budget-friendly small air fryers can be secured for anywhere between £30 and £100 if you buy at the right time from the right retailer. If you want extra bells and whistles or a sleeker, more sturdily designed option, I recommend picking up a dependable mid-range air fryer for between £100 and £150.
If you decide to pivot to one of the more tricked-out air fryers mentioned above, you can expect to pay somewhere between £150 and £220, while a fully-fledged multi-cooker may set you back somewhere between £200 and £300.
