It’s hard to beat the golden, crispy texture of deep-fried food. For many, deep frying is something that is left to restaurants and professional cooks. But savvy home cooks know that the best deep fryers that are compact enough to fit on a countertop but powerful enough to feed the entire family are available at reasonable prices. The At Least We Fried guide to the best deep fryers is intended to help you choose the fryer that will best fit your needs.
In our opinion, the best deep fryer is the Secura Stainless Steel Triple-Basket deep fryer. You can read our complete review here. This fryer is near the top for wattage and oil volume, and it offers the best features out of all of the models we have reviewed. You can click the link below to go to our in-depth review of our favorite fryer.
The Best Deep Fryer of 2021
Our review of the best deep fryers for 2021 focused on kitchen-sized electric deep fryers that were intended for indoor use. This guide does not include the best turkey fryers, air fryers, or propane-powered deep fryers. After combing the planet for the best deep fryers available we’ve narrowed it down to our ten favorites. Read on below for our methodology, our top picks, and At Least We Fried’sin-depth review of our three overall favorites. We have also selected our pick for best small fryer and the best deep fryer for the enthusiasts out there.
Our Pick: The Secura Stainless-Steel Triple-Basket Deep Fryer
Read Our In-Depth Review of the Secura Stainless-Steel Triple-Basket Deep Fryer Here!
We reviewed countless deep fryers across every price range, and they were all special in their own way. (Editor’s note: We should hold dear to us any device that is capable of bringing us hot, tasty onion rings) However, the unit that stuck out was the Secura Stainless-Steel Triple-Basket Deep Fryer.
The Secura Triple-Basket Fryer offers 4.2 liters of oil volume and 1700 watts of power. This combination of wattage and fryer size make feeding larger groups easy thanks to the short turnaround time on the oil reheating.
What sets this model apart are the loads of features it offers. First and foremost, this fryer comes with three separate baskets: two standard sized baskets and one extra-large basket. Most large fryers only offer these baskets as sold separately which provides you with a great value. It also includes other great features including an odor-reducing lid, a safety timer, and adjustable thermostat.
Quick Hits
- 4.2 Liter Fryer Oil Capacity
- 1700 Watts
- Large deep fryer
- Interchangeable fryer baskets
- Easy Cleanup
Runner-Up: The Cuisinart CDF-200
Read Our In-Depth Review of the Cuisinart CDF 200 Here!
The Cuisinart CDF 200 is a no-nonsense deep fryer perfect for the serious home chef or the inexperienced beginner. This option won’t wow you with special features, but what it does is offer excellent performance at a reasonable price. At 1800 watts, the Cuisinart CDF 200 has the maximum wattage allowable in most U.S. homes. It has a large oil capacity that enables cooking large amounts of food at once. Most importantly, it has the highest marks for maintaining oil temperature between uses. This is important, given that cooler oil can lead to fattier foods.
Quick Hits
- 1800 Watts
- 4-quart oil capacity
- 2.3 pound food capacity
- Maintains temperature after use
- Designed for easy cleanup
Third Place: The Presto 05466 Dual ProFry Immersion Element Deep Fryer
The Presto Dual ProFly Immersion Element Deep Fryer makes it into our top three based on one thing: pure power. The ability to fry large amounts of food quickly is what this unit is known for. It offers the maximum wattage most U.S. homes are able to support, and it has the largest oil capacity of any fryer we’ve reviewed. The convenient double-basket setup allows for cooking multiple dishes at once, making it more versatile than many units on the market.
Quick Hits
- 4.7 Liter Fryer Oil Capacity
- 1800 Watts
- Large food capacity
- Double fryer baskets
- Easy cleanup
Best Small Deep Fryer: The Presto FryDaddy
Read Our In-Depth Review of the FryDaddy Here!
When it comes to small deep fryers, our favorite is the Presto FryDaddy. This unit only holds four cups of oil and lacks any major features. It doesn’t include a fry basket but does come with a handy silicon strainer that is useful for removing food from the hot oil and straining it. Despite the lack of features, it does a great job of maintaining oil temperature for such a small model. The FryDaddy is compact and easily transportable. It also comes with a airtight lid that allows you to store your used oil in the fryer itself.
When it comes to value, the FryDaddy is second to none. It is regularly the lowest-priced fryer available on Amazon despite its popularity.
Quick Hits
- Four-cup oil capacity
- Maintains a steady temperature of 360 degrees Farenheit
- Light, compact, and easy to clean
- Oil can be stored within fryer itself
The Easiest-to-Clean Fryer: The TFal FR-8000
See our in-depth review of the T-fal FR8000 fryer here!
We are a fan of the T-fal FR8000 in general. This fryer offers 1700 watts of power, as well as an adjustable thermostat. However, where it really shines is the ease with which this fryer can be cleaned. The T-fal FR8000 includes a frying pot and basket that can be submerged in water and are also dishwasher safe. The highlight of this unit is the built-in oil filtration system. The system filters the oil into a built-in storage tank, allowing for easy removal of food debris. This filtration system also has the added benefit of extending the life of your oil. This model is quick to clean and powerful enough to feed small or medium groups of hungry people.
Quick Hits
- 1700 Watts
- Volume
- Powerful Oil Filtration System
- Easy cleanup
- Adjustable thermostat
The Best Deep Fryer for Chicken Wings
After reviewing the best deep fryers on the market, our favorite fryer for chicken wings is the T-Fal 8000. The T-Fal 8000 has a built-in oil filtration system and does a good job of maintaining the ideal cooking temperature.
Our Choice: T-fal FR8000 Deep Fryer
This is the perfect deep fryer if you’re just cooking for yourself or a small family. You can cook about 2 and a half pounds of chicken wings (just enough for a meal). The sleek design doesn’t take up a lot of counter space, so it’s the best bet if you’re living in an apartment or condo.
And this deep fryer does its job so well that even inexperienced or clumsy cooks will get perfect results each time. You can easily adjust the thermostat, and the immersed heating elements mean the oil temperature never drops. It doesn’t spatter or drip, and the handles don’t get hot. It’s foolproof and mess-proof.
One of the best features is that you don’t waste oil. It has a patented oil-filtering system that strains out any debris and stores your clean oil for future use. You save on oil, and you don’t have to worry about transferring the oil when you’re done cooking. When you’re ready to clean your fryer, just toss the parts into the dishwasher. Easy peasy!
What is a deep fryer?
Also known as a deep fat fryer, a deep fryer is the kitchen appliance designed specifically for deep frying food in hot oil. While it’s possible to deep fry food on a stove top, the process can be messy, tedious, inexact, and potentially unsafe. Oil spills over open flames can lead to flare-ups and even kitchen fires. Thankfully, deep fryer manufacturers design their products to involve submerged heating elements instead of open flames, and they are typically much easier to operate and clean up than cooking in a large pot on the stove.
Deep frying is a cooking method that has been used for millennia but has seen an explosion in popularity in recent years. It may seem counter-intuitive, but deep fat frying is actually considered a form of ‘dry cooking.’ Dry cooking is any cooking method that doesn’t involve the use of water. While deep fried food is submerged in hot oil, there is no water used. (Editor’s note: Oil and water don’t mix is more than just an old saying!)
The Science of Fried Food
Whether it is sautéing vegetables, shallow-frying chicken, or deep-frying donuts, any food cooked in hot oil is technically fried. Deep frying is a method in which food is completely submerged in oil hot enough to cook it. While you might assume dunking food in a vat of oil would leave you with a greasy mess you’d be wrong so long as the oil is hot enough. The magical part of deep-fried food is the interaction between the surface of the food and the hot oil. As food is submerged into the oil, the hot oil begins to evaporate the moisture in the surface of the food. This leaves the exterior of fried food crispy and golden, as the sugars and proteins in the food brake down and leave the golden exterior and distinct flavor fried foods are known for.
A major advantage of deep frying is that the exterior of food cooks evenly, given that oil is able to penetrate every nook and cranny. While the exterior of food is typically crispy and golden, the interior of food is often cooked more to the consistency of baked food. This allows for some of the really fantastic deep-fried concoctions including deep fried ice cream. The crispy, golden exterior is flavorful on its own but also serves to lock in the flavor inside the crust. Who knew science could be so delicious?
Common Deep Fryer Parts
Every deep fryer is different. Some involve little more than a heated pot that can get oil up to 350 degrees. Others come with a long list of features like oil filtration and odor neutralizers. All fryers have a few major parts in common though.
The pot– Also referred to as a vat, the pot is the largest part of most deep fryers. Typically enameled, it is the part of the fryer that holds the hot oil. In higher-end models, this part is often dishwasher-safe and can be removed from the fryer.
The basket– Nearly every fryer comes with tools to remove food from the hot oil. While some smaller models only come with slotted spoons, most fryers include fry baskets that can be lowered or raised into the hot oil and greatly simply deep frying.
Heating element– The heating element is the part of the fryer that actually generates the heat for the oil. With electric deep fryers, the element converts the electric power into heat, which in turn heats the oil. Inexpensive fryers typically have the element built into the pot, while higher-end models usually have a heating element that submerges in the oil and can be removed from the pot.
Thermostat– The part of the fryer that controls the heating element is the thermostat. Some fryers have an automatic thermostat that triggers the heating element when the temperature of the oil gets too low. Other models have adjustable thermostats, which allow you to control the exact temperature of the oil.
Our Criteria for the Best Deep Fryer
When selecting our favorite deep fryers we focused on four primary qualities each deep fryer has: oil volume, wattage, features, and price. While a lot can go into the decision to purchase a deep fryer, these are the qualities that allow for the best side-by-side comparisons.
Oil Volume
Oil volume is the maximum amount of deep fryer oil your deep fryer is able to cook with. The amount of oil a fryer can use is important for a few reasons. First, a higher oil volume correlates to a higher food volume. The more hot oil you have, the more food you can cook at a time. This means you can generally correlate between a fryer’s oil volume and the number of people you can feed. There is another important variable to that however: wattage.
Wattage
Wattage is the measure of electrical power in your deep fryer. The higher the wattage your fryer has the more juice goes into the heating element. This directly affects not only how long it takes your fryer to heat up initially but also how much time in between batches you have to wait before you can fry again. Wattage can’t be considered in a vacuum, however. While 1400 watts of power is plenty to heat up 4 cups of oil it may struggle to heat 16 cups.
Features
There are more features than you can shake a corn dog at when it comes to deep fryer. Everything from multiple baskets to oil filtration systems are available depending on the unit. While it’s hard to quantify these special features, we do our best to cover them all.
Price
It’s no surprise that the cost of a deep fryer is also a major consideration, and it’s one that can vary greatly. On the low end, cheap deep fryers can go for around $20 while home deep fryers are nearly commercial grade can go for hundreds of dollars.
Tips for Perfect Deep-Fried Chicken Wings
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Brine them.
Brining is a simple process of soaking meat in an ice-cold salt and water solution. It flavors the wings so they taste good even without any sauce or glaze, and helps them stay moist regardless of how they’re cooked. So you get this perfect fried chicken wing that’s crunchy on the outside and juice on the inside. For three pounds of chicken wings, you need a brine made of 6 cups of ice water and one-third cup of salt. Refrigerator for four hours. Other recipes will add sugar, hot sauce, garlic cloves, hot sauce, or herbs – it’s all up to you!
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Double-fry.
First fry the chicken wings at around 250 degrees Fahrenheit to get the meat juicy. Leave them to rest on a rack (some chefs recommend freezing them overnight, and dredging in a new coat of flour). Then, flash-fry them at around 350 to 375 degrees Fahrenright to get that crispy, crunchy coating.
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Use a deep fryer.
It’s hard to get perfect wings with a frying pan unless you fry in small batches. If you overcrowd a pan, the oil temperature drops and the chicken wings get soggy, And if you use too little oil, the chicken wings cook unevenly. Deep fryers take out all the guesswork because you can control the temperature.
The Bottom Line
Deep-fry fanatics already know that equipping your kitchen with a dedicated deep fryer goes a long way in simplifying both cooking and cleanup. As we discussed, not every deep fryer will meet every need for every home cook. The important thing is to identify what is most important to you in selecting the best deep fryer for home use.
If there is one thing that is critical across all deep fryers, it’s consistent oil temperature. Oil that isn’t at the appropriate temperature can ruin your food, rendering any bells and whistles your deep fryer might have completely meaningless.
If your goal is to fry wings before a ballgame or fries for a small dinner party, the Secura Stainless-Steel Triple-Basket deep fryer is our recommendation. It can easily prepare food for 8 – 10 people and does an excellent job of maintaining oil temperature. With the multiple basket options, you have the ability to easily fry two separate dishes at once. All in all, it will check all the boxes for most discerning home chefs.
Is price as well as compactness your primary concern? The FryDaddy may be your best option. This model is one of the best options for deep fryers under $20 and requires the least counter space of any model we’ve reviewed.
Finally, If you want a high-quality fryer that offers longer oil life and easy cleaning, the Tfal FR-8000 may be your best bet. It has similar wattage and oil volume to many of our other favorite models, but its major advantages the unique oil filtration system. With cleaner oil your food absorbs less fat and the life of your oil is much longer.
Did you find the At Least We Fried ultimate guide to the best deep fryer helpful? Sound off in the comments below! Want more deep fried goodness? Check out our 9-Step Guide on How to Use a Deep Fryer as well as our guide to the Best Oil for Deep Frying. Or would you rather scour our delicious recipes? We have plenty!
