I've found the best air fryer for couples and it's under £50 too

There are very few air fryers that can boast a compact footprint, smart features, and flawless cooking for under £100, but the Cosori Lite Air Fryer can. It's one of the best air fryers that I've tested and it's especially perfect for small kitchens.

On my hunt to find the best air fryers for every kind of kitchen, I've covered Instant, Ninja, Philips, and Cosori. Running the same tests on all of them, I've found a few Cosori signatures that the brand never fails to deliver on. First, they're speedy. Second, they're super cheap. And finally, they're perfect for beginners. One of their best models is, of course, the Cosori Lite.

I used this to make chips, roast vegetables, cook frozen fish fingers, and reheat pizzas. This petite powerhouse servedup perfection each and every time. In fact, I think it's the biggest rival that the best Ninja Air Fryers have seen in years.

Specifications

Unboxing

I should emphasise the 'Lite' part of the Cosori Lite here because it delivers on every sense of the word. The small cardboard box is light, easy to lift, and it didn't take up much room in the hall. Once out of its packaging, the air fryer is exactly the same. It's slim, svelte, and perfect for small kitchens. I tested the Cosori in a matte grey shade, which looked surprisingly smart, especially considering the price tag. 

You'll get a piece of plastic film on top of the Cosori that tells you all about setting it up. Using this, you can scan a QR code to download the Cosori app on your phone. You don't have to do this to use the air fryer, but if you're a beginner, it's helpful for suggesting recipes, offering guidance for cooking times, as well as for stopping the air fryer remotely, although you can't start it remotely. I even managed to link this up to a Google Assistant and control the air fryer using my voice. There's definitely a knack to this part (you need to enunciate flawlessly), but it gets great results.

Who would it suit?

The Cosori has broad appeal, thanks to the tiny price tag, compact footprint, and surprisingly spacious 3.8L cooking basket. If I had to imagine the perfect kitchen for one of these, it would be smaller, since the Cosori is great for space saving. You'll be in a household of one or two people (I couldn't cook more than two portions of chips at once) and you might also be quite techy. Don't get me wrong, the presets are incredibly easy to use and I wouldn't hesitate to hand this over to a beginner, but the fact that you can link this up to your home assistants and control the air fryer through an app is an extra that only the tech-savvy will make good use out of.

If you know you need to cook for a whole family or, you want to have dual zones (for different foods in different cooking settings), there are plenty of other options on the market. They might not be as cheap, or even as smart, but they'll better suit bigger, hungrier homes.

What is it like to use?

It's rare that air fryers can be techy and complex as well as they can beginner-friendly, but the Cosori Lite gives it a great go. The app is really helpful for talking you through setting up and using your air fryer, but even without that, there are straightforward icons that correlate with useful pre-sets for all the different foods you might want to cook as well as buttons on the side for adjusting the time and temperature settings on your Cosori Lite.

Test 1: chips

An air fryer is worth nothing if it can't whip up a good batch of chips, so I started out with some French fries from the freezer. I had to wait for four minutes whilst the air fryer pre-heated. During this time I could smell a chemical, burnt plastic smell.  However, I had pre-rinsed the basket, so I knew I wasn't accidentally melting some film in the air fryer. It isn't unusual for an air fryer to have this smell, even if it isn't pleasant.

The Cosori suggested that chips would need seventeen minutes, so I pushed the drawer shut and left it to its own devices. Halfway through, the Cosori beeped (hinting that I needed to shake my chips for an even colour) and when I pulled out the drawer, I thought the chips looked brown enough already. I gave them another five minutes (13 minutes in total) and then pulled the drawer out. The chips were consistently golden with a nice crunch on the outside and a fluffy inside. Had I left them for the full seventeen minutes, I think they would have been a little too crunchy for my liking, so I'd recommend cutting down the cooking time on all of your chips.

Test 2: fish fingers

What are chips without some fish fingers (and ketchup)? Not a lot, in my opinion, so I also pulled some frozen fish fingers out of the freezer. This combination is the perfect lazy evening dinner, so I was hoping that the Cosori would be able to help me out.

I could fit four fish fingers in the basket in total. You could pack a couple more in, but I'm not sure you'd get the same air-frying quality, so I stuck with four, which is just enough for two people (as long as you have plenty of chips (beans, and peas). The Cosori Lite was still hot from the chips, so I popped these in and set the Cosori running at the same 170 temperature that it cooked the chips at, but checked in on them after ten minutes. They looked hot and crispy, so I transferred them to the plate and tucked in.

The breaded outside had crisped up wonderfully. The warm insides were steaming hot too. So, I could get fish fingers and chips, from the freezer onto the table in 25 minutes. That's pretty good going for such a tiny air fryer.

Test 3: Mediterranean vegetables

Stuffed full of fish fingers and chips, I thought it would be a good idea to test out some healthier options. I let the air fryer cool down whilst I chopped peppers, onions, courgettes, garlic, and aubergine. I tossed this in a little olive oil and some spices and then put them into the Cosori basket. I had only used a tablespoon of oil for 3 peppers, two courgettes, one onion, and one aubergine, but I could see some of the oil gathered in the bottom of the basket. Nonetheless, I let the air fryer preheat (four minutes again) and then set it to cook the vegetables for twelve minutes.

When I checked in on them at six minutes, I could see some light charring on the edge of the vegetables, but I left them in this time, keen to see what would happen if I let the Cosori have its full-time cooking my vegetables. At twelve minutes, they came out perfectly. The vegetables were soft and tender with some nice crisping at the tips. The only downside was that, as I tipped the vegetables out of the basket, the oil that collected in the base poured out too. It didn't look very appetising, so I'd recommend picking up a silicone spoon to scoop out your ingredients if this is the kind of meal you'll cook on repeat.

Test 4: reheating

I tested the reheat function on all of the food actually, but the one I wanted to shout about the most is how it handled pizza. I had some leftovers from the night before, so I popped a few slices in the drawer (it can't take more than four, perfectly tessellated slices) and left them for ten minutes at 160 degrees. When I came to pull the drawer out, the Cosori Lite had done a wonderful job of re-melting the cheese and crisping up the base, without drying out the sauce or any of my veggies. It's an impressive result that I wasn't expecting.

Cleaning

The Cosori Lite drawer is dishwasher safe, but I have a small dishwasher and this took up nearly half of the bottom rack. If you don't mind that, stick it in, because the dishwasher did a great job of leaving the drawer sparkling clean (although on some rounds it still felt a little greasy).

Instead of letting this dominate my dishwasher space, I put this in the sink and washed it with Ecover, because it's a more gentle washing-up liquid. The non-stick meant that all oil slipped out of the drawer. It was really, very easy. 

How does it compare?

I did something a little bit mean. I put the Cosori next to the iconic Instant Pot 4-in-1 Air Fryer to see how it fares against the market leaders. The Cosori Lite and Instant are exactly the same price and, whilst the Cosori looks taller and bigger, the Instant actually has a bigger 5.7 lite capacity, compared to the Cosori LIte's 3.8. 

I was surprised at how often I found myself reaching for the Cosori instead of the Instant Pot. The control panel on the top of the appliance, rather than on the face, suits how I work in the kitchen much better. Plus, the four pre-sets on the Instant cover air frying, baking, roasting, and reheating, as opposed to the Cosori's which are more food-specific. I preferred the precision pre-sets on the Cosori and found that it cooked my food faster, but still as well as the Instant.

These two compact air fryers do, however, fall into the same category as the Ninja MAX AF160 which is Ninja's most compact model. This one has a 5.2L basket, so it's almost as big as the Instant, but not quite. However, it comes with much more diverse presets (you can even dehydrate in it)  and it's still super compact. Yes, it is £30 more than the other two. And, yes, it is also a little bigger, but it's still small, robust, and it feels very capable. The Cosori hasn't quite clinched the top spot for me in terms of small air fryers, but it certainly wins on the smart features.

Should you buy it?

If you want a small, smart air fryer, I couldn't point you in a better direction than the Cosori Lite. It's the perfect size for couples or singles and will have your food ready in the fastest time of all the air fryers. Just make sure not to overcook or undercater with this.

How we test

I'm the air fryers expert over at woman&home, which means that I'm responsible for how we test all of our air fryers. I have a standardised process that the team and I follow for any air fryer review, so that you (and we) can make direct comparisons between all the models on the market, choosing the best ones for every kind of kitchen.

Before I get cooking, I do my research. I'm always looking for the latest and greatest released on the air fryer market. As soon as I see one that I think you'll like, I call it in to the woman&home test kitchen. Once there, I can whip out the chips.

I like to test every air fryer on chips, frozen fish fingers, roasted vegetables, reheating, cooking bacon, and then also roasting a chicken, if possible. This generally gives you a good idea of how your air fryer can handle different tasks. The chips and fish fingers need to be cooked from frozen until they're crispy and piping hot. I don't want them to be dried out though, since they won't make for good eating. The bacon should be succulent and crispy, but not so crispy that I could snap it in half. The vegetables should be charred, tender, and delicious to eat.

In the case of the Cosori Lite, I couldn't find a roast chicken small enough to test, but that's an example in and of itself. The Cosori can't cook your roast dinners (or it'll only be able to do it in parts).

Once I've done all of my cooking, I'll wash up the air fryer and I'll let you know how easy that is to do as well as whether you can just bung it in the dishwasher. You'll be much less inclined to use your air fryer if it's impossible to clean.

After all that, I'll think about how the air fryer compares to other models on the market. Then, I'll let you know whether it's good value, who it would suit, and I'll put in anything else that I think is relevant to you and your air frying needs. Finally, I'll give you my verdict on whether it's worth buying.