Best Deep Fryers of 2026

There's no basket. The FryDaddy gives you a slotted scoop instead: you lower food in with it, lift it out with it, and there's no hinged handle to snap off, which is the part that takes most cheap fryers out of service. We liked it more than we expected. Nothing to hook on the rim, nothing extra to scrub, and the oil stays where it is the whole time.

At 1200 watts it comes to heat quickly for its size, and the thermostat does the thinking. There's no dial, just automatic cycling at frying temperature, and that's the trade: no 325°F for a delicate batch, no higher setting for a second pass, so it's a fries, wings, onion rings, and doughnuts machine and not much else. The tub is ceramic nonstick and PFAS-free inside and out, which is why cleanup is a wipe rather than a soak.

Three pounds and roughly the footprint of a toaster means it can live in a cupboard or stay out on the counter, and the snap-on lid lets you keep the oil in the unit between uses instead of funneling it back into a bottle. It's the least fussy fryer here, and the one we reach for when there are two of us and one potato.

This is the fryer you buy when the crowd is bigger than the counter. Nineteen cups of oil, one 12-cup basket for a big load, and two 6-cup baskets so the shrimp and the onion rings don't share timing, which is why it's here instead of a bigger single-basket machine.

An 1800-watt immersed element is the other half of the story. Power is what brings oil back up after a cold basket goes in, and that recovery is the difference between crisp and greasy on the second and third batch of the night. It's also the thing we noticed most: the oil climbs back fast enough that a queue of hungry people doesn't become a queue of soggy fries.

The baskets hook over the oil pot to drain, the vented lid keeps splatter off the stove, and the element lifts out so the pot and baskets can go in the sink afterward. The dial is old-school analog and reads approximately, so check the oil with a thermometer on your first few batches rather than trusting the marking.

At 1.1 liters and three-quarters of a pound of food per basket, this is the smallest fryer we recommend, and that's the point. It's about the size of a toaster, so it fits a cramped counter or a cupboard shelf, and it uses so little oil that changing it isn't an event. For a couple, or one person who wants fries twice a month, that's the right trade.

The parts are better than the size suggests: the basket, lid, and handle are dishwasher safe, the bowl is nonstick die-cast with a pouring spout, a charcoal filter in the lid keeps the smell down, and the warranty runs three years, the longest in this group. The 1000-watt element is the least powerful here, so give frozen food room in the basket and a minute to recover between batches. A small volume of oil cools fast and comes back fast, but it can't do both at once.

Open the little door on the front of the Livenza, hold a container under the spout, and the oil drains out at counter height. You never lift a full tub and never balance it over a funnel, and the basket, bowl, and lid go into the dishwasher when you're done.

The rest is a solid stainless machine: 1800 watts, a basket wide enough for a whole fish fillet, and a cool zone under the element that keeps crumbs from scorching and the oil usable longer. Check that the valve is shut before you pour the oil in. Leave it open and you'll be wiping the counter for half an hour, which is the one piece of care this design asks of you.

That's why it stays on our list right next to the T-fal, which solves the same problem a different way: the T-fal filters and stores your oil, this one gets rid of it. If your oil tends to sit in the fryer until it smells off, the machine that drains it out is the better answer for you.

Four and a half liters of oil and 1700 watts, for less than the smallest fryer here costs. On paper this Chefman is the value pick of the group, and if you need a big batch on a tight budget it's the obvious place to start looking.

It's thoughtfully laid out, too. The oil container lifts out for changing, the basket clips onto the side of the unit so food drains while you plate, and the lid with its viewing window lets you watch the color come up without opening anything. A timer at this end of the price range is a nice extra rather than a given.

What separates it from the T-fal isn't the frying, since food comes out of this one just as crisp, it's the hardware, and the timer knob and basket handle are the two parts to treat gently. We keep it as the value pick for big families rather than the best all-rounder: at this capacity the money is saved somewhere, and here it's in the fittings rather than the cooking.

If the T-fal is more machine than you want, this is the middle of the road done well: 3.2 quarts of oil, 1500 watts, and a basket that holds about 24 ounces of food, which is a family of two or three's worth of fries or a couple of rounds for four.

We like it best as a first fryer for a small household. Everything except the heating element and the cord is dishwasher safe, the basket hooks on the rim to drain, and the 265°F to 375°F dial covers wings, fries, and doughnuts without a preset you'll never touch.

The caveat is temperature under load. Drop a full basket of frozen fries in and the oil falls hard and takes its time climbing back, so fry less than the basket will hold and give it a minute between rounds. Read the capacity as two generous servings rather than four and it's a pleasant, tidy machine that does exactly what it claims.

Two 2-quart baskets sit side by side in this Elite, in separate compartments, so the fish and the chips never share oil. That's the whole idea, and nothing else here does it. The Hamilton Beach gives you two baskets in one pot, which is great for timing but doesn't keep flavors apart.

In practice it's a portion-control machine. Each side is sized for a couple of servings, which suits a household that fries a little at a time, and the 1700-watt element is quick for the volume it's heating. Elite's own guide says to fill the baskets no more than two-thirds full, which is worth following, since a split tank has less oil per side to absorb a cold load.

Heat is the thing to check early. With less oil on each side, the temperature drops fast when food goes in and climbs back slowly if the thermostat is running low. Run a thermometer in the oil for your first few batches, and if the temperature stalls well below the dial, that's a unit to send back rather than work around.

For most kitchens a single tank with more oil is simpler and fries better, so we don't push this one at everyone. But if two people in your house want two different things fried, or you cook fish and don't want the next batch tasting of it, it's the only machine in this group that solves that problem.