We Tested 6 Deep Fryers to Find the Best for Crispy, Crunchy Food

There’s nothing quite like a chicken wing pulled straight out of the fryer, when the battered exterior is golden and crunchy, and the interior is steaming and tender. “A fryer provides a really consistent, dry cooking method that makes things crispy and also keeps proteins moist,” says chef Ricky Arias of Manhattan’s Bar Lula. Sure, you can achieve that effect with a couple of quarts of oil heated until sizzling in your Dutch oven on your stove. But there’s good reason to introduce an electric deep fryer to your home kitchen for accomplishing this specialty job.

“I use deep fryers over Dutch ovens for capacity and control,” says chef Shannon Bingham of New Orlean’s Devil Moon BBQ. “With a good fryer, I don’t have to worry about hot spots or constantly having to futz around with the flame on the stove like I would with a Dutch oven.” With its lid, handled basket, and built-in thermometer, an electric deep fryer has one job to do: fry things correctly. It frees up your other cookware, preserving it for the braising, roasting, and sautéing you probably do far more frequently. 

If you get the right fryer, it’s a lot of fun to use; you’ll feel like a short-order cook, dropping the basket in and watching your French fries bubble to perfection. And with a design that allows you to fry with the lid closed and then hook the basket onto the side, so that the excess oil can drip from the fresh-fried food back into the container, it helps keeps your kitchen cleaner than it would be when you’re frying in an all-purpose pot.

In fact, the key to successful frying is cleanliness. As Bingham advises, “Be sure to filter your oil after every use to get more longevity out of it and remove any bitter burnt pieces leftover.” As it turns out, our favorite model made filtering the oil and cleaning the machine the easiest.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Deep Fryer

All-Clad 3.5-Quart Deep Fryer

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“When I'm looking at deep fryers, I prioritize ones that heat and cook evenly and are easy to clean,” Bingham says. The All-Clad fit the bill. Deep and narrow, it’s designed to save space and evenly cook whatever you put in it. But its real asset is its built-in cleaning function. Turn a knob, and the oil drains out of the container through a filter into a removable, hard-plastic box where it’s stored in the machine for future use.

The Best Budget Deep Fryer

Chefman 4.5-Liter Deep Fryer

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Given its gentle price tag, we were pleasantly surprised by the consistency and speed of the Chefman. A no-nonsense machine, it heated up much quicker than similar models. Due to its large capacity, it does require more oil than others (which can add up in cost over time), but its wide basket made maneuvering and frying foods easy and efficient. 

The Tests

• French Fries Test: We fried one pound of frozen French fries to see how the models handled a common food (and one that’s frozen!). We timed how long it took for the deep fryer to reach 350°F, what the fryer’s temperature dropped to when we added the fries, and how long it took to come back up to 350°F. We also recorded the amount of time it took each fryer to cook the fries to a crispy, golden brown.
• Deep-Fried Pickles Test: We made deep-fried pickles to see how the deep fryers did with a wet batter and a higher temperature. We recorded what the temperature dropped to when the food was added and how long it took to recover. 
• Fried Chicken Test (Winners-Only): With our favorite models, we made fried chicken to see how the deep fryer fared at cooking meat and achieving golden-brown wings within the time required by the recipe. 
• Usability and Cleanup Tests: Throughout testing, we evaluated how easy it was to remove the basket, grip the basket’s handle, and reposition the basket. We also evaluate how easy it was to drain the oil and clean the deep fryer.

What We Learned

Oil Clean-Up Was Everything, and the Model That Made This Task Easy Was Our Favorite

Thank goodness for the All-Clad! After we fried each batch of food in it, we just left it alone, and it drained and filtered the oil all by itself, funneling it into a convenient, hard-plastic box in the bottom of the unit, where it was stored to be added back into the oil container for future use. 

We loved this feature. Two manufacturers, the Cuisinart and the De’Longhi, tried to achieve some sort of help with draining by adding drain spouts to their machines, and the De’Longhi was more successful. We could position an external container beneath the open spout and just let the oil run out. But the filter on the spout was so small, we foresaw it getting clogged in the future. The Cuisinart was a disaster. Its spout is so short that a plastic tube attachment is required, and that awkward part fell off while draining, causing oil to spill all over the floor.

With help like that, we don’t want it. Instead of spouts, we preferred the wide, shallow containers of the Chefman and Secura, as they were easy to maneuver into a position for pouring oil through a fine-mesh sieve into an external container. Of these, the Chefman is preferable because its container is slightly easier to dislodge from its housing than the Secura’s.

Some Machines Were More Efficient Than Others at Heating to Temperature

Though every model has a temperature gauge and a means of showing that the oil has heated to the proper degree, an external thermometer can help verify the temperature. We found that, despite “Oil Ready” buttons lighting up, none of our fryers heated to the temperature we programmed them to. Our external thermometer (a ThermoWorks ChefAlarm) belied every temperature knob and LED display. The Chefman, for instance, hovered at 324°F when programmed at 350°F and wouldn’t go higher. The Cuisinart wouldn’t budge past 347°F. Though this didn’t, in the end, affect the flavor or texture of the food, it is an inconsistency that makes the machines’ gauges seem less than trustworthy.

The De’Longhi heated up the quickest and cooked the fries in nine minutes. Most achieved golden fries in 10 minutes. According to our external thermometer, however, a couple of the machines took so long to get anywhere near the required temperature that we nearly threw in the towel. The Secura was the biggest offender. After nearly an hour, it still hadn’t come up to 350°F, the proper temperature for cooking frozen French fries, and when we threw the fries in anyway, the temperature of the oil plummeted more than 150°F before recovering. Truth be told, the oil in the All-Clad plunged to 244°F at one point, too, but because it hit the correct temperature to begin with and recovered quickly, it cooked the fries to perfection in 10 minutes' time.

Straightforward Designs Worked Better

Cooking in a tub of boiling-hot oil is work enough; you shouldn’t have to master complicated bells and whistles in order to deep fry. Simply put, the Cuisinart deep fryer is over-designed. It seems to have been made in order to fit the multiple parts of the rotisserie function into the oil container. But the container itself was too big to fit even into our deep farmhouse sink, and it did not sit flush on the counter when we removed it from the housing. That made clean-up awkward. We much preferred the machines with simple, box-shaped containers that fit into our sink and that we could rest on our countertop when we removed them from their housing. 

The same principal applied to the time and temperature gauges. Breville’s heating unit was over-designed, with pre-set temperatures that were complicated to override. Though we liked the looks of the De’Longhi’s LED display, the pre-set, 9-degree increments of that model were confounding. We preferred the simple knobs that allowed us to program the temperature and time to the settings of our choice.

The makers of the Secura boast about another over-design problem: “triple baskets.” The unit comes with, not just one big basket, but two small ones that fit side-by-side and can be used as an alternative to the larger one. That seems like a good idea: fry shrimp in one basket and onion rings in the next. But, in reality, the twin baskets are so small that they’re impractical and threaten to crowd foods—a drawback for even frying. 

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Deep Fryer

“My best advice for using a deep fryer would be to be safe and clean,” Arias says. Self-filtering and self-draining, the All-Clad 3.5-Quart Deep Fryer addresses both concerns. It keeps the hot oil away from your hands, and it separates the oil from the burnt bits of food that would otherwise spoil it for future use. It’s also easy to use, with a straightforward control panel.

The Best Deep Fryer

All-Clad 3.5-Quart Deep Fryer

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What we liked: This deep fryer is self-filtering and self-draining. It funnels the oil through a filtered vent into a box beneath the container, storing it for future use while leaving the leftover bits of fried food in the container for easy cleaning. That’s a boon for home cooking when you don’t have the time or wherewithal to deal with liters of used oil. It also came up to temperature fairly quickly and, with its nice, deep container, did a good job of frying items to a golden brown.

What we didn’t like: Regardless of the Oil Ready Light’s illumination, the temperature on the dial did not match the temperature of the oil, according to the reading on our external thermometer. The temperature on our external thermometer tended to bounce up and down several degrees with this model, making an accurate assessment of temperature difficult. That did not prove too big a hindrance to successful frying, but it was an inconsistency—one, in fact, shared by all the fryers. 

Price at time of publish: $210.

Key Specs

• Parts: Frying basket; lid; control unit with heating element; removable oil container with built-in filter; removable oil box
• Care instructions: Basket, container, lid, and oil box are dishwasher-safe; unit is self-filtering and self-draining; turn knob to “Automatic Oil Filtration” setting and allow 2 hours to drain; turn knob to “Oil Box” to remove oil box for draining
• Notable features: A patented oil filtration system cleans and stores used oil
• Temperature settings: 300°F to 385°F
• Cord length: 25 inches
• Dimensions: 18.2 inches long x 13.7 inches wide x 14.7 inches high
• Weight: 16.5 lbs
• Wattage: 1500
• Oil capacity: 3.5 liters

The Best Budget Deep Fryer

Chefman 4.5-Liter Deep Fryer

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What we liked: Pared down to its elemental function, this is a straightforward, easy machine to use. There were no confusing bells and whistles. It came up to frying temperature fairly quickly, and the wide container and basket allow plenty of room for pieces of food to fry evenly all around. 

What we didn’t like: This unit will give you no help with draining and clean-up. You basically are on your own, pouring the cooled oil through a fine-mesh strainer into an external container for future use. The filters that do fit into the lid didn't seem very effective for odor or particle elimination.

Price at time of publish: $70.

Key Specs

• Parts: Frying basket; lid; removable filters; removable control unit; removable oil container
• Care instructions: Wait 3 hours until oil is cooled and then drain container; do not store oil in unit; oil container and basket are dishwasher-safe; clean the lid with using a sponge and soapy water; rinse and dry all thoroughly; clean the heating element with a damp cloth; ensure that all components are dry before placing them back inside the fryer; the filters need to be replaced after repeated usage; replacement filters are provided
• Notable features: There are two filters within the filter chamber; the white one filters oil and the charcoal filter helps keep odors at bay
• Temperature settings: 250°F to 375°F
• Cord length: 30 inches
• Dimensions: 12 inches long x 6.25 inches wide x 11.25 inches high
• Weight: 7.13 lbs
• Wattage: 1700
• Oil capacity: 4.5 liters

The Competition

• Breville Smart Fryer: This compact fryer took a long time to heat up, and then our external thermometer's temperature careened upwards, as the fryer heated to far greater than its dial was set for. That’s a scary scenario. Also, the heating unit is pre-programmed, and changing the temperature and time from those settings is not intuitive. 
• Cuisinart Extra-Large Rotisserie Deep Fryer: Not only does this model guzzles oil and time, taking too long to come up to proper temperature, but this huge, unwieldy fryer has some design problems that make safety an issue. The basket has sharp metal parts. The container does not sit flush on a counter or fit in the average home kitchen sink. And the plastic tube that attaches to the drain spout is ill-fitting and falls off easily. All of that makes it difficult, and potentially dangerous, to drain and clean. The rotisserie attachment might be nice for deep-fried turkey aficionados, but that doesn’t make up for its shortcomings.
• De’Longhi Livenza Deep Fryer: We liked the snug lid, the LED display, and the drain spout on this unit. Unlike the Cuisinart, the spout did not require an external tube for draining, and that made the task fairly easy. But, the temperature settings only allow for 9-degree increments in Fahrenheit, so programming it for exactly 350°F or 375°F is impossible. 
• Secura Triple-Basket Deep Fryer: This unit looks nearly identical to the Chefman, but the difference is in the heating unit. The Secura’s took a ridiculously long time to come up to temperature—so long, in fact, that were we not testing but, instead, trying to fry for our culinary pleasure, we would have abandoned it long before it heated and ordered out instead for our fries!

FAQs

How do you use a deep fryer?

Using a deep fryer is fairly straightforward. You drop the container into the housing, attach the heating element to the housing, pour in the oil, plug the unit in, cover it with a lid, and wait until it comes up to temperature. Then you sink your food into the hot oil with the help of a fryer basket. When filling the basket, says Bingham: “My advice to anyone using a deep fryer is to add less food than you think. Overcrowding the fryer will prevent food from cooking evenly and can make pieces of food stick to each other.”

How do you clean a deep fryer? 

Cleaning depends on the model. The best ones have an easy means of emptying the oil. Others leave you on your own to pour the oil from the container through a fine-mesh sieve to filter it for future use. After you’ve dealt with the oil, you’ll want to use soap and water—or the dishwasher, if the manufacturer says the model is safe for that—to wash the housing, basket, and container, eliminating oil residue that would otherwise affect the flavor of later batches of food. The heating unit can’t be submerged, so it must be wiped down. Every part should be dry before you re-assemble and use your fryer again.

What happens if you put ice in a deep fryer? 

Ever cook a bag of frozen French fries? When you place them in the deep fryer, they sizzle, and the oil bubbles up. The extreme clash in temperatures, from the frozen fries to the boiling oil, causes the sluggish molecules in the frozen food to jolt into action. It’s subtle because you’re cooking your fries in small batches. But throwing a bunch of pure ice cubes into a fryer is a recipe for disaster. The molecules that have slowed into a solid state in the freezer careen into liquid form instantaneously, and then start to vaporize, increasing pressure in the fryer, and causing the oil to boil over explosively. Not good. 

Can you cook frozen foods in a deep fryer? 

You can cook frozen foods in the deep fryer. Just be judicious about how much you put in at once, and the reaction when the cold items meet the hot oil won’t be overwhelming.

How do you dispose of deep fryer oil? 

Allow the oil to cool to room temperature in the container of the fryer, and then drain it into a disposable container, such as plastic deli tub, and fasten the lid on. Then you can throw it in the trash bin.