Air fryers have become extraordinarily popular for their convenience, quick cooking times, and ability to crisp up food without any added oil. And our testing has shown that you can buy a high-performing air fryer for as little as $50, making them more accessible than most toaster ovens.
In this article
- How Hot is Too Hot?
- How CR Performed the Safety Tests
- What We Found
- Air Fryer Safety Recommendations
- Top Air Fryers From CR's Safety Tests
But our recent safety evaluation found that air fryers aren’t without their risks. Air fryers get very hot: Interior temperatures, where the food is cooking, can reach almost 500° F. That high heat gets transmitted to some of the exterior parts of the machine, causing users to burn themselves if they’re not careful. What’s more, this high heat also has the potential to start fires.
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To prevent this, many air fryer manufacturers include safety guidance (including tips on where to place the machines) in product manuals, and sometimes even on labels on the air fryers themselves. But whether it’s because those instructions aren’t adequately clear or because people just aren’t reading them, these warnings haven’t been enough to keep incidents from happening. Last year, more than 61 air fryer-related reports were published on SaferProducts.gov (the federal government website where you can fileproduct safetycomplaints)—the highest number to date.
In addition to these incidents, there were at least 41 air fryer models recalled in the past three years. Air fryer recalls usually happen because of defects or malfunctions: The recent Empower Brands recall, for instance, was due to a faulty connector between the air fryer’s two baskets, causing breakage and burn hazards. Last year, in addition to the Empower Brands recall, we also reported on recalls for models from Corsori, Insignia, and Magic Chef.
In light of these air fryer safety concerns, a team of lab technicians—helmed by Juan Alberto Arguello, PhD, a CR scientist who leads safety testing, and Ash*ta Kapoor, our associate director of product safety—set out to better understand the hazards of air fryers in order to help people use them more thoughtfully. They collected data on five air fryers in our ratings, measuring the temperatures of different parts of the air fryers as the machines heated up, cooked, and cooled down. The results show how dangerously hot air fryers can get while cooking—and how they stay hot for much longer than you might think.
How Hot Is Too Hot?
When you put food—like fries, chicken nuggets, or vegetables—into an air fryer’s basket, the machine cooks it by circulating hot air around the food, much like a convection oven. Although the hot air is targeted toward the food in the basket, other parts of the air fryer get very hot, too.
The temperatures of the external parts of air fryers are especially relevant when it comes to burn risk. You start to feel pain when you touch something at a temperature of 109.4°F—it would take prolonged contact to get burned at that temperature, but it’s possible. The higher the temperature of the surface you touch, the less time it takes for it to burn you, and the deeper the burn can penetrate your skin. Temperatures above 176° F can cause burns in less than a second. Needless to say, burns at even higher temperatures can lead to pretty serious injuries.
How CR Performed the Safety Tests
Our testing team ran three tests with five air fryers: Chefman Accufry RJ38-SQPF-5T2P-W, CRUXGG 6 qt. Touchscreen, Cuisinart AIR-200, Paris Rhône PE-AF014, and Sur La Table SLT-1805. We used these models because they are typical of most air fryers and represent a cross-section of the designs you’d find in the marketplace. All have a front-facing basket handle (the wider Sur La Table model has two), controls above the basket, and vents at the back of the appliance that emit hot air. Two—the CRUXGG and the Sur La Table—are what we consider large air fryers, with a capacity of 5 quarts or more.
Test 1
To find which spots can get dangerously hot, we placed thermocouples—thermoelectric devices that measure temperature—in multiple spots on and within each air fryer. We then ran the air fryers for 22 minutes three times, without food, at their maximum setting (400° F for all of them, except for the Rhône, which had a maximum of 392° F)—noting the temperatures of various parts through the cooking and cool-down process, including the heat emanating from the vent at the back; the top, sides, and bottom of the air fryer; and the basket, its handle, and interior.
Test 2
Since our first test confirmed that the air fryers’ handles remained at a safe temperature throughout cooking and cool-down, we focused our second test on the other parts you’re likely to touch while using the machine: the basket’s exterior, and the upper front of the air fryer. (In many models, that upper part is where the controls sit, but you also might find yourself handling it as you open the basket, especially if the basket is difficult to release.) Again, we ran the air fryers at their maximum setting, but this time for 60 minutes, roughly the time it would take to roast a chicken.
Test 3
For the third test, the team cooked French fries with olive oil, and then olive oil on its own to see if either would increase the heat intensity on those various hot spots, or cause the air fryer to emit smoke—the latter a likely occurrence, observed our air fryer testers, if excess fat was used or if the basket wasn’t cleaned before cooking.
What We Found
Our results made one thing very clear: Certain parts of an air fryer can get hot enough to cause a bad burn within seconds—and they’re parts you might easily touch while the air fryer is running: the basket’s exterior and the vent in the back of the machine itself. What’s more, some areas took more than 60 minutes to return to room temperature. The only parts that remained at a safe temperature to touch with bare hands were the handles.
These results held true for all five of the air fryers we tested. We logged the highest temperature reached by each part of each air fryer, then took an average for every single part, represented in the illustration below.
Air Fryer Hot Spots
Hover your cursor over the dots on the air fryer to see the average temperature reached by each area during operation. While the handle remains safe to touch (blue dot), other areas can get hot enough to cause burns within minutes (orange dots)—and some within seconds (red dots). The hottest areas, of course, are inside and surrounding the basket, where the heat is directed.
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The interior of the air fryer basket got the hottest, of course—reaching an average of 428° F. But the back of the air fryer, where the vent is located, can get alarmingly hot, too. While it averaged 193° F, the maximum reading we recorded was 232° F—that’s hot enough to pose a problem if the back of the air fryer is close to another object or even the wall, especially if it’s directly in front of the outlet that the air fryer is plugged into. "The vent blows out hot air and potentially some grease as well,” says Larry Ciufo, a senior engineer who oversees testing for a range of appliances at CR. This dischargedair can be hot enough to damage the insulation on the air fryer’spower cord. “If the insulation is damaged, it can pose afire,shock, or electrocution hazard,” says Ciufo.
The basket’s exterior—which users might touch, in addition to the handle—is also risky: In our tests, the exterior averaged 180° F but was capable of reaching a maximum temperature of 206° F—high enough to cause a burn within seconds.
Air Fryer Safety Recommendations
So what does this mean if you have an air fryer, or you’re thinking about buying one? Here’s what we recommend in order to use your air fryer as safely as possible:
- When using an air fryer, allow at least 5 inches of space between the back of the air fryer and the wall (or any other object or surface).
- Use the air fryer only on a surface that can handle high temperatures. Most kitchen countertops are safe, but items like plastic placemats are not.
- While the air fryer is cooking, avoid touching any parts of it other than the handle. Otherwise, use oven mitts or heat-proof gloves.
- Leave space around the air fryer and keep it out of reach of kids and pets until the machine completely cools down. All parts are generally safe to handle after about an hour.
Top Air Fryers From CR's Safety Tests
The air fryers we used in our safety evaluation were also part of our performance tests. Though all the models we tested scored well for performance, below are the models that earned our CR Recommended designation.
You can navigate to our full air fryer ratings to see how other models performed in our tests, and consult our air fryer buying guide if you’re shopping for an air fryer for the first time.
Clarification:The information about how an operating air fryer might damage its power cord has been updated. The article was originally published April 19, 2024.
Molly Bradley
Molly Bradley is a home and appliance writer at Consumer Reports. Before joining CR in 2023, she managed the editorial team at Digg, and has devoted her career to helping readers navigate the world and make their lives a little easier, elucidating topics in technology and culture. Molly earned a master’s degree in writing from Bennington College and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her cat, Saltine. Follow her on X @mollyguinn.
