10 Best Air Fryers With Racks And Shelves Including Buyers Guide [2023]

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Cooking multiple recipes at a time in an air fryer is not a challenge anymore. Try one of these best air fryers with racks and cook whatever you want.

Limited cooking capacity is the main factor restraining people from becoming fully dependent on an air fryer for their cooking needs. That’s where manufacturers focus on advancements in air fryer design to enhance the cooking capacity.

One such improvement in design is successfully embedding multiple racks in the air fryer. For more buying options check our top recommendations for the best air fryers for baking and selection of the best ceramic non stick air fryers.

10 Best Air Fryers With Racks And Shelves Including Buyers Guide [2023]

1. Instant Omni 19 QT/18L Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven – Latest Price
2. Instant Vortex Plus Best Stainless Steel Air Fryer – Latest Price
3. NUWAVE Brio Air Fryer Best With Grill Combo – Latest Price
4. CHEFMAN XL Air Fryer Best With Convection Oven – Latest Price
5. GoWise USA Deluxe Best Multifunctional Air Fryer – Latest Price
6. Cuisinart Best Non-Toxic Air Fryer – Latest Price
7. Instant Vortex Pro Best with Rotisserie Basket – Latest Price
8. Chefman Toast-Air Touch Best with Dehydrator – Latest Price
9. PowerXL Air Fryer Pro Best With Window – Latest Price
10. COSORI 12-in-1 Best Smart Air Fryer – Latest Price

Buying Guide For Choosing Air Fryers With Shelves and Racks 

When buying the best air fryers with racks to cook multiple things at once, the number of accessories available is not the only factor to consider. Because having an air fryer with multiple racks, but not in a suitable size or with lesser cooking functions, would only bring more loss than benefit. 

Below are the factors people should know when narrowing down the best air fryer to cook multiple things at once.

Cooking Accessories 

Racks and dividers are the ultimate must-have accessories, especially when choosing an air fryer to cook multiple things at once. Stainless steel racks divide an oven-style space horizontally, while dividers divide space vertically, often in basket fryers.

Grills, mesh racks, skewers, and rotisserie assembly, are some other cooking tools in case of diverse meal ranges. Make sure you choose an air fryer with a package of necessary cooking racks to avoid additional costs. 

Size

The size of an air fryer is directly relatable to your cooking needs it can cater to at a time. It is the ultimate factor that determines the cooking capacity of an air fryer.

A small air fryer with racks is ideal for personal use, traveling, or living in camps or recreational vehicles. A large family or gathering can rely on a large air fryer that holds multiple racks simultaneously. 

Design

The design aspect can also help people judge if this air fryer with shelves is worth it. Air fryers with baskets are a great choice when cooking small-portion fast food or meals that require frequent shaking, such as French fries, veggies, and chicken wings.

An oven-style air fryer allows stacking multiple shelves at once, while the air fryer toaster combo often comes with multifunctional presets. It also suggests that the design of an air fryer you choose says much about its functionality other than air frying.

Hence, it is wiser to set up a clear criterion of what cooking functionality different air fryer designs offer and then choose accordingly.

Cooking Functions and Features

The amenity of multifunctional cooking is what most people look for when considering an air fryer. Luckily, there are quite a several models when it comes to air fryers with racks coming with different cooking presets.

Also, air fryers with pre-programmed settings for popular recipes save much of your time. An air fryer has a glass door with an illuminated interior that allows you to see through the cooking process.

Easy to Clean

Always choose an air fryer that has removable parts, easy to clean either with hands or in the dishwasher. The air fryer’s interior and shelves should have a chemical-free nonstick coating to prevent food from sticking to its surface. 

1. Instant Omni Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven Combo

Instant Omni versatile air fryer aids in cooking a diverse range of meals within the auspicious 19QT capacity. There are endless possibilities to cook flavorful delights, whether rotisserie turkey on oven racks or baking cookies and air fry wings.

Using the smart control panel, you can easily set up the precise cooking temperature and timer according to your recipe instructions. With a wide temperature range that goes up to 450°F, you can make the most out of its multiple cooking modes, from roasting to baking at just one touch.

Comparing Instant Omni with the Instant Vortex model, Omni possesses a large capacity and higher wattage (1800 watts) and temperature range (Vortex only goes to 400).

However, it takes a little longer to heat, and its interior doesn’t have a Teflon-based coating and it is also slightly more expensive than the Vortex model. If you are a big family and don’t have budget issues, the Instant Omni air fryer toaster combo is an excellent choice for you.

The safety elements like auto shut-off and overheat protection let you use the appliance without worrying about overcooking or the risk of the air fryer catching fire. So, there is no need to stand alongside the appliance while it cooks your favorite food.

Its removable parts are dishwasher safe for deep cleaning, food debris stuck within the door opening is where the problem arises. 

One thing that our experts highlighted while testing was the plastic-like smell of the air fryer that didn’t go off easily. Also, the touch display panel is more challenging to use than advertised and sometimes takes several touches to respond.

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2. Instant Vortex Plus Best Stainless Steel Air Fryer

Instant Vortex Plus is basically an extension of the baseline of Vortex models that were only basket-style air fryers. It is more sophisticated oven-style model with the integration of 6 cooking modes, a one-touch display panel, EvenCrisp technology, and overheat-safety features.

It has a clearcook window with a light that let you see how the food is cooking. This design aspect can help in preventing your food from overcooking or burning.

The unit amazed us with its quick preheating time. It only took 3 minutes to preheat and at the end it beeped to let us know it is time to add the food.

Compared to the Omni fryer that we listed above, Vortex Plus owns a rotatable rotisserie basket and a removable door.

Though it gives an edge to Vortex Plus, however, slow cook, toasting, and convection setting are some functions that are available only in Omni fryers. As long as you don’t need presets for these cooking functions, Vortex Pro is a reliable unit with good value for money. 

According to our experts, this particular air fryer with multiple racks turns a bit clumsier to handle, as it does not have enough weight on its bottom.

So, one must use both hands when inserting and pulling out the basket. It is another reason that even with a space-friendly design, our experts are doubtful about its stability on the kitchen counter.

It even features a loud beep at the start and end of the cooking process, which we eventually choose to turn off.

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3. NUWAVE Brio Best Air Fryer Grill Combo

NUWAVE Brio air fryer smart oven has set the bar high with 50 memory slots for saving your favorite recipes and 4 unique rack positioning.

Considering NUWAVE has too many programmable features, it’s impressive how smartly they’ve displayed everything on the smart panel.

Temperature (50°-425°), wattage level, probe setting, timer, light, preset, or cooking stage, you can adjust everything at one touch of a panel. It means relying on guesswork can let you miss out on precision in cooking settings.

Its linear-T technology controls temperature and power fluctuation for every second and helps obtain perfect results.

Nevertheless, this model of Nuwave is one of many to consider when looking for an air fryer with shelves.

There is an air fryer toaster oven of NUWAVE with 30-QT capacity, possessing the same feature and functions but of an advanced level.

Of course, that air fryer version is too pricey for families with average air frying usage.

One element that impresses our expert the most is the integrated temperature probe that automatically ends cooking once it confirms the desired doneness from the inside.

Furthermore, the Nuvawe air fryer comes with 100 presets to facilitate beginners with pre-programmed recipes. The oven light and transparent window eliminate the fuss of checking food continuously to prevent being overcooked.

Our expert wasn’t satisfied with its buildup. Its door gives a feel that it can come off at any time. So we have to place a thumb over it while opening it.

Moreover, the deep crevices on the door have holes that are difficult to clean if debris gets trapped inside.

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4. CHEFMAN XL Best for Large Family

Chefman is the best air fryer to cook multiple recipes at once for your entire family on special occasions, thanks to its extra-large 20-lit capacity.

It gives ample space to stack multiple racks (drip tray, crumb pan, wire rack) in an air fryer without affecting its uniform air circulation.

We loved its Rapid Heating Mechanism; even while using multiple racks, it ensures even crispiness, provided cooking racks are rotated halfway through the timer.

From savory side dishes to baked breakfast recipes, its 7 cooking functions enable you to choose your favorite recipe setting with a single push.

One unique aspect of the CHEFMAN air fryer is the manual setting of taste and shade with knob adjustment. You can select any desired toast shade from light to dark brown.

Auto-shutoff and beeping functions prevent the meal from overcooking or burning.

The previous version (CHEFMAN air fryer XL 20L) also features a dual functionality mode for automatic transition between cooking modes, which, unfortunately, this model lacks.

Nonetheless, both air fryers score the same if your only concern is cooking various meals at once.

So, when testing, we naturally expect cooking more food altogether, but it didn’t go well. Though it can stack multiple racks, the CHEFMAN air fryer is highly suitable to fulfill the cooking needs of two people.

Our team of experts suggests that CHEFMAN should have made the oven door removable to enhance its cleaning-friendliness. Without a removable door, food crumbs can accumulate within the crevices, potentially compromising the door’s closure and leading to heat leakage.

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5. GoWise USA Deluxe Best Multifunctional Air Fryer

GoWise is a made-in-USA air fryer. It has a large 12.7-quart capacity with rotisserie accessories to cook perfectly-taste protein meals for your whole family. The digital touch screen showcases 16 quick presets with the option of temperature setting, timer, light turn off/on, and rotisserie function.

A wide temperature range of 90-400° eliminates the need for guesswork, and users can cook anything of their preference on three given positions of racks.

For post-air frying cleaning rituals, the air fryer stainless steel interior with nonstick accessories, which makes the process easy as pie.

One downside of this air fryer is that the tumbling action of the cylindrical rotisserie basket can cause the oven door to open in the middle of cooking. 

Our experts assess its interior oven light could be of great use if we can turn it on directly rather than relying on the cooking mode to start first. It can be very beneficial when setting in a rotisserie assembly or cleaning it.

We also find its cooking operation a bit noisier than other fryers we tested in our studio. 

Though its cooking results are to die for, we also hear great things about its newer version (GoWise USA 14.7-QT air fryer). That one has a larger capacity, while its dual heating element gives further control over how cooking needs to be done. But, contrary to our chosen GoWise model, that one is more expensive

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6. Cuisinart TOA-60BKS Best BPA-Free Air Fryer

The Cuisinart multi-rack air fryer features a 0.3 cubic-foot cooking capacity, seven cooking modes, and a high-powered heating mechanism. Cuisinart air fryer integrates 4 adjustable dials for temperature, timer, cooking function, and toast selection.

A durable stainless steel body with brushed-black dials makes the panel ideally visible for an easy selection of cooking settings for beginners and senior citizens. Its steel finishing also makes cleaning a breeze.

According to our experts, unlike other air fryer brands, the oven rack doesn’t pull out automatically when you open the door. It means you need to wear mittens to handle the racks.

Its glass window and illuminated interior allow you to oversee the cooking process without frequently banging on the door.

Here, we do want to draw a comparison of our picked Cuisinart 60A with the 65A model. 60A model offers a manual setting, while the 65A one works with a digital interface to toggle settings.

Also, 60A allows for a 50-degree increase compared to 65A, with only a 5-degree jump. It makes Cuisinart 65A more flexible as you can set the cooking temperature with more precision.

Contrarily, Cuisinart 60A shows improvement in zero noise operation, and its toasting functionality is a total win to depend on. Another reason for choosing 60A was its budget-friendliness with decent performance than the 65A version.

What we disliked is the oven light turns off once you open the door to check on the food, preventing you from having a visible look at the meal.

Just like the temperature settings, Its timer dial also has the same limitation. The dial offers a five-minute increment, meaning precision could be compromised in some recipes.

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7. Instant Vortex Pro Best with Rotisserie Basket

The design of the Instant Vortex Pro air fryer is quite compact, incorporating 9 versatile cooking functions. This all-in-one appliance allows you to enjoy cooking modes of bake, broil, reheat, toast, roast, dehydrate, air fry, proof, and rotisserie. 

It may confuse some people why we choose to place Vortex Plus ahead of the Pro model while the latter integrates more cooking functions.

The thing is that Pro offers a toasting function, but there is no bottom heating element. It means you need to turn sides, and that’s the same way even the Plus version allows you to toast by tuning in cooking settings. 

The same goes for proofing because Vortex Plus can also do proofing with the lowest temperature setting available.

In our testing, both score the same in terms of functionality, with only a slight difference in cooking performance. 

Now, you all can see the difference between Vortex Pro and Vortex Plus air fryers. In contrast to the Plus model, Vortex Pro will let you perform slow cooking, toasting, and bread-proofing functions.

Though a heating element is on top, its built-in EvenCrisp technology assures uniform airflow across the food for a nice golden finish.

For drawbacks, its trays pull out quite easily, while the rotisserie bar has ends that are too blunt to handle. Hence, this air fryer with shelves scores a little low in design aspects, but the cooking results are pretty satisfying.

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8. CHEFMAN Toast-Air Best with Dehydrator

This 20-quart capacity air fryer by CHEFMAN makes a great deal as a 4-in-1 appliance for air frying, toasting, oven cooking, and dehydrating. You can bake, broil chicken, or reheat leftover food with the help of the programmed preset available in this model.

The elements and working of the one-touch digital panel are almost the same as we observe in our other listed appliances.

What makes this particular air fryer model of CHEFMAN stand apart is the automatic and timely transition of presets when cooking different things at once.

It means you can assemble any two of your meals for cooking at once, and one preset will follow the other automatically. All you need is to set the phase cooking program and leave the rest to this multifunctional appliance.

When you are done with cooking, with a crumb tray and dishwasher-safe removable parts, it takes minutes to clean up.

The appliance allows you to try a variety of recipes. Thanks to the multipurpose accessories, which include a baking rack, dehydrating racks, a basket, a broiling pan, and a slide-in crumb tray. 

Comparing Chefman Touch Air Fryer with the older variant, we found out its basket has vents, while the previous one was designed with no vent and can be filled with gravies or sauces for specific recipes.

Secondly, the new unit is a bit loud compared to the previous one with basket style.

What we disliked was, tossing the food was a challenge. We eventually took out the basket to flip each food piece for the other half of the cooking time.

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9. PowerXL Pro Best 6 Quart Air Fryer

The state-of-the-art manufacturing of the PowerXL Pro air fryer with multiple features can replace many kitchen gadgets such as grills, deep fryers, toasters, and whatnot.

Interestingly, PowerXL has this integrated superheated turbo cyclonic swirl of hot air in two of their special edition (PowerXL fryer Maxx) models.

Those models were in the capacity of 4 and 7 quarts but without the convenience of accessories such as rotisserie assembly. And, the unit we list is more like a medium-sized one that is assembled with accessories to facilitate cooking multiple things at once.

Even though its capacity is relatively small than other listed units, the package of useful accessories compensates well for cooking different foods.

The glass door is removable, while the interior housing has a metallic finish, making cleaning quite effortless.

This unit is equipped with all the necessary accessories and features a convenient one-touch preset, making it best air fryer for preparing rotisserie and dehydrated meals. You will receive three recipe books for free that contain detailed, step-by-step guides for air frying, rotisserie cooking, and dehydration.

We tried chicken tenders using all three racks to assess their claim of cyclonic airflow for uniform cooking. As per result, the top rack gets the most of the heat, so it cooks rather quickly than the bottom rack.

If that sounds a problem, you can deal it with changing rack positions or rotate food position to obtain uniform crispy texture.

In conclusion, our experts were quite happy with the air frying result of this air fryer.

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10. COSORI Best Smart Air Fryer

Last but not least, we have an air fryer toaster oven combo by COSORI that actually has a whopping cooking capacity of 26 quarts, the biggest among them all! 

Given that COSORI holds such a huge cooking interior, its air circulation mechanism is made high-powered to shorten cooking time by 30%.

The fact that CASORI integrates 2 fans and 6 heating elements while offering a high-temperature range makes it quite obvious where this claim comes from.

Its instruction guide suggests you can cook food in two layers to fit in bread slices, a whole turkey, or a family-size pizza. But its cooking performance is not only limited to this, as it contains a dozen (12) cooking functions. 

It has an integrated mechanism of Rapid Heat Circulation for uniform cooking plus features a smart LED display with an adjustable knob.

Unlike other air fryer models, COSORI manufacturers only added a wire rack and fryer basket with the food tray as bonus accessories.

However, COSORI has made cooking smarter in a literal way as it provides users with a VeSync app to download on their phone or connect through Alexa.

So, you can control your air fryer oven at one touch of your mobile or voice assistance without actually being in front of the appliance. Despite the App syncing, its control is not entirely hand-free because we had to initially twitch some buttons to get things started.

Our experts are of the opinion that the absence of overheating protection element has made this air fryer handling a bit difficult for beginners, particularly.

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FAQs

Are basket or rack air fryers better?

Both have their pros and cons when used as a cooking accessory in an air fryer. Baskets are useful for small size meals like potato fries or chicken wings that need frequent shaking for a crispy texture. Conversely, using a rack in an air fryer is ideal for large-sized meals or cooking multiple recipes at a time.

Do you need a special rack for the air fryer?

Though there is no special requirement, stainless steel rack woven in mesh design is the ultimate preference of air fryer users. It allows uniform hot air circulation across the food, resulting in an even crispy texture with a nice golden color. 

Can you put a rack in an air fryer?

While racks are an optional accessory, they help enhance the functioning of air fryers by expanding their cooking space. Racks in an air fryer increase the space to add more food in one cooking session without overcrowding it for uninterrupted airflow.

How do you use an air fryer with shelves?

Each air fryer has its own set of instructions for users, still, these are some steps people can follow on how to use an air fryer with shelves. 

• Preheat an air fryer to approx 350° for a few minutes before putting in the food. 
• Make sure to insert the required air fryer shelves within the slots in the inner walls.
• With frozen foods, it is better to defrost frozen meals at room temperature before loading them in an air fryer.
• Flip the food pieces halfway through the timer and at the appropriate distance for uniform circulation.
• After the cooking procedure finishes, wait for the appliance to cool down for proper cleaning.

What is the purpose of the rack in an air fryer?

A rack in an air fryer gives the elevation needed to cook food from every surface. Layering food over a rack makes it receive hot air flow from every direction to cook with an even crisp coating. Using a rack along with the basket also gives you the freedom to cook multiple layers of food at once in an air fryer. 

Can you cook multiple things in the air fryer at once?

Yes, it is very doable to cook multiple things in the air fryer at once with the right strategy. All you need is to make use of a cooking accessory or the divider to stack foods within the fryer’s capacity.

Either place two side-by-side baskets and a divider within one large basket or stack multiple layers of racks to cook various foods simultaneously. 

Do you need a bottom rack in an air fryer?

Though it’s not needed, you can place a bottom rack with the top and middle rack to cook multiple meals simultaneously. The bottom rack lifts food up for 360° swirls of hot air for even cooking. Or even an empty bottom rack with oven-safe cooking paper can prevent crumbs of grease from messing with the interior surface.

Wrapping Up!

Air fryers offer a great replacement for traditional ovens to cook food quickly in healthier, no-oil frying. But the best air fryers with racks further enhances its usefulness because of the functionality to cook a variety of food simultaneously. These oven-style air fryers are more reliable for everyday cooking and go a long way if chosen mindfully after thorough research. That’s why we have only picked up the best air fryer models with racks to avoid the fuss of batch cooking.

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Rostey

My current affair with air fryers led me to create this blog. I am the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of KitchenHanker.Com. A website dedicated to providing high-quality, unbiased reviews of the best air fryers in the market, tips, and tricks for using the air fryer.

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