People ask me what size air fryer to buy and I always ask the same thing back. How many people are you feeding on an ordinary Tuesday? In this house the answer is two, me and Gary, and the Ninja AF101 has been sitting to the left of my range since early March doing exactly that job. Four quarts. That is the whole story, and it is why I keep telling couples to stop staring at the bigger models in the aisle and buy the size that matches their own table.
I ran a school cafeteria for twenty six years, so I have seen what happens when equipment is sized wrong. You buy for the crowd you imagine and then you cook for the crowd you actually have. A four quart basket is not a compromise for two people. It is the correct size, and I can make that case ten different ways.
The size that matches a table for two
Four quarts, four programs, a dishwasher safe basket. This is the model that has lived on my counter since March and has not gone back in the pantry once.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →The basket holds dinner for two with nothing left over
The listing says the four quart basket fits two pounds of French fries, and that turns out to be a decent stand in for dinner for two. Two chicken thighs and a couple of big handfuls of broccoli fill it without stacking. Stacking is what makes air fryer food come out pale and steamed instead of crisp, and four quarts is small enough that I cannot do it by accident. When there are more of us, I run a second batch. That happens about twice a month, which is a fair trade for a basket that fits my counter the other twenty eight days.
It earns its eleven inches of counter
My kitchen has about eight feet of usable counter, so every appliance has to justify the space it takes. The Ninja measures 11 inches wide, 13.6 inches deep and 13.3 inches tall, and it weighs 10.6 pounds. That is small enough to leave plugged in to the left of the range instead of hauling it out of the pantry closet. Anything I have to fetch off a shelf is a thing I stop using by week three. This one has not moved since the day I set it down in March.
Gary never has to scrub a sheet pan
The basket and the crisper plate are both dishwasher safe, and in a house where one person does the dishes most nights, that matters more than any cooking program. Before this, chicken thighs meant a sheet pan that sat in the sink soaking until morning. Now the basket goes in the rack with the plates. I wipe the outside of the unit with a damp cloth and that is the whole job. Nothing has stuck to the ceramic coating yet, and I have not been gentle with it.
Four programs cover nearly everything we cook
Air Fry, Roast, Reheat and Dehydrate, all chosen on a touch panel. Air Fry handles chicken thighs, salmon and roasted vegetables. Roast is what I use when I want the top a little darker than the air fry setting gives me. Reheat gets more use than I expected, which brings me to the next item on this list. That is close to the whole of what two people cook on a weeknight. I do not need a program for every food group. I need four that work and a panel that does not make me hunt for them.
Reheat brought leftover chicken back to life
Leftovers out of a microwave come back rubbery, and I say that as somebody who used one for thirty years. Five or six minutes in the basket at 350 degrees and the skin on a piece of roast chicken crisps again. Same story with a slice of pizza, which is the one thing Gary asks for by name. The unit runs from 105 to 400 degrees, so there is room to go gentle on something delicate. Reheat has quietly become the setting I would miss most if the thing died tomorrow.
My kitchen stays cool in July
Before this I crisped things in the wall oven, which heats the whole kitchen along with the food. In August that turns the room into a sauna and turns me into somebody who does not want to cook at all. The air fryer is a 1550 watt countertop unit using convection heat, and the heat stays inside it. I noticed the difference the first warm week and I have noticed it every summer week since. It is not a line on the box, but it changed how often I cook.
Two pounds of fries is exactly a Sunday grandkid portion
Four grandkids come for dinner about twice a month, and frozen fries are not a negotiation. Two pounds fills the basket and that feeds them. I run a second batch for the adults while the first one is being eaten out of the basket on the counter. Two batches in a four quart unit beats one crowded batch in a bigger one, because crowded fries go limp and everybody complains. If I were feeding six every night I would want more room. I am not, and I am not buying for a crowd that visits twice a month.
The low end of the range does real work
The unit goes down to 105 degrees, and the low fan speed at low temperature is what makes dehydrating work at all. I have done apple slices in the fall on the Ninja and a tray of parsley from the garden that would otherwise have gone into the compost. This is the setting I assumed I would never touch when I bought it. It turns out to be the one Gary mentions to his brother when the subject of kitchen equipment comes up, which it does more often than you would think.
Crisping without a vat of oil makes it a weeknight tool
The listing says up to 75 percent less fat than traditional frying. I am not going to argue with the number either way, because what matters to me is the part that has nothing to do with fat. It is that I do not have to heat a pot of oil, watch a pot of oil, or deal with a pot of oil afterward. A weeknight appliance has to be easy to start. This one is, so it gets used three or four nights a week, and being used is the only measure of an appliance that means anything.
The touch panel gives you nothing to guess at
The controls are a flat touch panel with the four programs spelled out across it, and the box came with a 20 recipe booklet that I read the first week. There is no chart taped inside a cabinet door and no dial to set against a number I have to look up. I pick a program, set a temperature and a time, press start, and pull the basket out to shake things halfway. My hands are 64 years old and my eyes are what you would expect at that age. The panel reads fine in a kitchen at six in the evening.
Eleven inches of counter, ten and a half pounds, four quarts. Eight months in and it has not gone back in the pantry once.
What I'd Skip
What I would skip is the bigger unit. My daughter Karen has a 5 quart in her kitchen and it is a fine machine, but it takes more counter and it takes longer to come up to temperature when there is only a small amount of food in the basket. For two people that is room you pay for and then clean. I would also skip the parchment liners sold alongside these, because they block the airflow that does the crisping in the first place, and the silicone basket inserts, which have to be washed by hand anyway. Buy the four quart Ninja, keep a roll of foil for the rare messy thing, and stop there.
Four quarts was the right call for our table
Eight months of use, three or four nights a week, and the basket still goes straight into the dishwasher. If you are cooking for two, this is the size that earns its counter.
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