Does a higher-wattage air fryer cook faster? That’s the question I’ve been asked a couple of times recently in the comments of my videos, particularly in relation to the Ninja Dual Zone (2470w) versus the Cosori dual basket (1750w) I have used both extensively and settled on the Cosori as our family air fryer, although I’ve never noticed a difference I wanted to be able to give a proper answer so I decided to do some tests in our kitchen.
Air fryer wattage cooking tests
Test 1: Cooking frozen pastries in an air fryer
For this first test I started with the Cosori Dual Basket and cooked a Pain Au Chocolat and a Pain Au Raisin on BAKE at 180c for 13 minutes. After that, I took the Pain Au Chocolat out and turned the Pain Au Raisin over for another couple of minutes.
I then swapped the air fryers over and repeated the test with the same time, temperature and setting in the Ninja Dual Zone. The pastries side by side on the cooling rack showed that the Ninja had cooked faster than the Cosori, although when we cut into them the Ninja’s were less well done inside, but that may have been because they had less time on the cooling rack to continue rising
Fastest air fryer in this test
Ninja
Test 2 : Cooking chicken breasts
For this test, I started with two almost identical-sized chicken breasts, straight from the fridge, bathed them in olive oil and a little lemon juice and put them in both air fryers at the same time on 180c for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes I tested them with a temperature probe and the one in the Cosori had just reached 74c (the correct temperature for cooked chicken) whilst the one in the Ninja had already passed this temperature and the internal reading was 85c. Both chicken breasts looked similar on the outside
Fastest air fryer in this test
Ninja
Test 3: Homemade fries
The final test involved homemade fries. We were eating these for supper and so my husband on his continual quest for “perfect” fries part-baked them for 15 minutes, before freezing them for a couple of hours and then sticking them back in the air fryer for 8 minutes. Once again there was a noticeable difference in the two results
Fastest air fryer in this test
Ninja
Which air fryer cooked faster?
It’s easy to see that the Ninja cooked faster in all our tests, but the important thing to remember is that both the air fryers cooked quicker than a conventional oven and the difference between these two models was marginal, so if you love other aspects of the Cosori dual basket such as it’s touch control display and the windows in the drawers, don’t let that put you off purchasing.
Further thoughts
The one thing I didn’t do in these tests was use both drawers of the air fryers simultaneously. Given that the Cosori was nearly using maximum power for one drawer whilst the Ninja was only using half its power for one drawer, it’s probable that the gap between the Ninja’s and Cosori’s performance would be even more marked with the entire unit being used at the same time.
