Comparing top Breville and Cuisinart models
Breville and Cuisinart are two of the most respected makers of countertop appliances, so it’s no wonder they offer impressive air fryers. They cook more efficiently than standard ovens and toaster ovens and make fried favorites like french fries and chicken nuggets with little to no oil.
If you’re trying to decide between a Breville and a Cuisinart air fryer, you may have a hard time choosing. That’s because the two brands’ air fryers are somewhat similar. Both have air-fryer ovens, which have a greater capacity than basket-style air fryers, and both offer functions beyond air-frying.
You should know that Breville air fryers are typically larger, and all have digital controls that allow you to select precise temperatures. Some Cuisinart models feature only analog knobs, giving you less control over the temperature you set.
To help us settle the Breville versus Cuisinart air-fryer debate, the BestReviews Testing Lab evaluated models from both brands. We cooked popular foods like frozen french fries, chicken wings, hot dogs, Brussels sprouts and bacon in air fryers from each brand, noting how long each model took to air-fry and the overall crispiness of the finished product. We also considered how easy the air fryers were to operate and clean, how much food they could hold and how much counter space they required.
Ultimately, we found that the Breville Joule Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro and the Cuisinart TOA-65 Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven were the top-performing air fryers from each brand. The Breville Joule earned our top spot because of its extra-large capacity, highly efficient and even air-frying and versatile 10-plus cooking functions.
Breville vs. Cuisinart: What they do well
Breville and Cuisinart air fryers are high-quality appliances with sturdy construction and convenient features. However, while they excel in some of the same areas, each brand offers unique benefits.
Breville benefits
- Capacity: Of all the air-fryer ovens we tested, Breville models offered the largest capacity, with some providing 1 cubic foot of interior space. Each was large enough to hold a 2-pound bag of frozen french fries in its air-frying basket with room to spare, and each could fit a 14-pound turkey. Their large capacity makes them ideal for large families and frequent entertaining.
- Versatility: All Breville air fryers are oven models. As such, they offer a wide temperature range that supports cooking functions beyond air-frying. Some Breville models have as many as 13 cooking functions, which means they can air-fry, toast, bake, broil, roast, slow cook, dehydrate and more.
- Easy to use: All Breville air fryers have simple knob controls paired with an LCD display. This combination makes it easy to choose a cooking function and set a precise cooking temperature and time.
- Efficient air-frying: Breville air-fryer ovens were some of the most efficient of all the ovens we tested. The Joule needed just 13 minutes to get french fries crisp and golden and 18 minutes to prepare chicken wings with crispy skin and juicy interior.
- Sleek design: Breville air fryers typically have a streamlined design and a stainless steel finish that looks great in nearly any modern kitchen.
Cuisinart benefits
- Air-fryer options: Like Breville, the majority of Cuisinart air fryers are oven models. However, Cuisinart also offers basket-style air fryers, so you have options based on your preferred capacity and available space.
- Versatility: Cuisinart air fryers offer cooking functions beyond air-frying. Some models have as many as 13 cooking functions including baking, broiling, roasting, toasting, slow cooking and dehydrating.
- Intuitive controls: Many Cuisinart air fryers have simple knob controls in an intuitive layout that makes them easy to operate with just a quick glance at the owner’s manual. Other models pair knob controls with an LCD display that makes it even easier to set a precise temperature. Some Cuisinart air fryers have a digital display with touch controls that are easy to use as well.
- Air-frying presets: Cuisinart air fryers have air-frying presets for popular air-fried foods such as french fries, chicken wings, chicken nuggets, frozen snacks and vegetables. They provide a cooking temperature and time to remove the guesswork from air-frying.
- Attractive design: Like Breville air fryers, Cuisinart models are fairly compact with a stainless steel finish that blends well with most kitchen decor.
What they could improve
While Breville and Cuisinart air fryers are made of high-quality materials and offer impressive features, they have some issues that may not make them the best fit for all kitchens.
Breville drawbacks
- Large footprint: Because Breville air fryers have such large capacities, they are usually larger than other air fryers. Thus, they require quite a bit of counter space and may not fit well in smaller kitchens. And, like other countertop ovens, they require several inches of clearance on each side and on the top. Keep this in mind when looking at an air fryer’s dimensions to see if it would fit your space.
- Price: Breville makes some of the priciest air fryers on the market. That said, they are larger and more versatile than many air fryers, so you may be willing to pay a little more for the improved capacity and additional cooking functions.
Cuisinart drawbacks
- Imprecise temperature settings: Because many Cuisinart air fryers have knob controls without an LCD display, it can be difficult to set a precise temperature for air-frying and other cooking functions. This can lead to uneven cooking or overcooking if you don’t watch the appliance closely.
- Difficult cleanup: Cuisinart air fryers can be hard to clean because they don’t have nonstick interiors. Some models don’t have dishwasher-safe accessories, either, so you must wash everything by hand.
Top Breville models
Our favorite Breville air fryers are the largest-capacity models Breville offers. They also have the most cooking options, providing 13 easy-to-use functions and presets.
The Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro isn’t just our favorite Breville air fryer; it also earned the top spot among all the air fryers we tested. We had no trouble fitting an entire 2-pound bag of frozen french fries in its air-frying basket with some space left over, and it’s also capable of housing a 14-pound turkey.
Despite its generous capacity, we easily found a spot for this appliance in our testing area. The knob controls and LCD display made it easy to operate, and the door window and interior light helped us survey our food as it cooked.
The Joule’s air-frying performance impressed us in terms of both efficiency and overall results. Its cooking times were among the shortest of all the air-fryer ovens we tested; it needed just 13 minutes to make frozen french fries crispy and golden and 18 minutes to turn out chicken wings with a crisp exterior and juicy interior. Furthermore, it only needed nine minutes to get bacon super crispy — and with less grease than traditional bacon-cooking methods.
The Joule was also successful with its other cooking functions. For example, we toasted two slices of bread to golden brown in just over three minutes, and we baked chocolate chip cookies with crispy exteriors and soft centers in 11 minutes. The reheat setting also worked well to warm a leftover chicken parmesan gyro in just 10 minutes.
This air-fryer oven is Breville’s only Wi-Fi-enabled model, allowing it to connect to the Breville+ app. The app contains hundreds of recipes to inspire you and also offers an AutoPilot setting. The setting works with select multifunction recipes from the app and walks you through the various steps, changing the oven’s settings as needed. We used the setting to make the Extra-Crispy Bar-Style Tortilla Pizza, which was easy to prepare and had a wonderfully crisp, browned edge and perfectly melted cheese.
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is similar to the Breville Joule. It’s large enough to hold a 14-pound turkey, 9 slices of toast or a 13-inch pizza. We fit 2 pounds of frozen french fries in its air-frying basket with room to spare, so like the Joule, it is ideal for a large family or regular entertaining. It offers 13 cooking functions, so in addition to air-frying, it can toast, bake, roast, broil, slow cook, dehydrate and more. Additionally, it has the same intuitive knob controls and LCD display as the Joule, so it was easy to use right out of the box.
The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro’s air-frying performance compared well to the Joule’s, though it wasn't quite as efficient. It needed 14 minutes to get our frozen french fries crispy and golden with slight browning near the edges, and it needed 20 minutes to give our chicken wings a crispy skin and juicy interior. The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro also did well across other cooking functions, creating golden brown toast in a little less than four minutes and reheating leftover chicken and rice without drying it out in just 10 minutes.
During air-frying, the Pro made a low humming noise that wasn’t particularly loud, especially compared to other air fryers. With the convection fan turned off for non-air-frying functions, it was completely silent.
None of this appliance’s accessories are dishwasher-safe, but we appreciated how easy it was to clean thanks to the nonstick interior coating. Residue wiped easily away with a damp sponge.
Top Cuisinart models
As with the Breville models, our favorite Cuisinart air fryers are oven models that provide excellent capacity and versatility. They are easy to use with intuitive knob controls.
Like the Breville air fryers, the Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven is a large air-fryer oven. It can hold six pieces of toast, a 12-inch pizza or a 4-pound chicken. We fit 2 pounds of frozen french fries in its air-frying basket with room left over, so it’s a good option for families. It offers 11 cooking functions beyond air-frying including toasting, baking, dehydrating, proofing and reheating, and it has settings for bagels and pizza. Its combination of simple knob controls and an LCD screen allowed us to set precise temperatures for cooking.
In addition to its various cooking functions, the Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven has specific presets under the air-frying umbrella such as fries, wings, nuggets, snacks and vegetables. The presets for some foods, like french fries, seemed a bit too long, and our fries got slightly overdone. However, the vegetable preset was excellent for Brussels sprouts, getting them crispy in just 10 minutes. The chicken wing preset left our wings crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside in 23 minutes. We had success with air-frying bacon, too — it got perfectly crispy in 11 minutes.
We loved this oven’s Dual Cook feature, which allows you to start a dish with one cooking function and switch to another to finish it. We used it to bake a casserole dish of macaroni and cheese and then broil it for a few minutes to crisp up the top.
Unlike other Cuisinart air fryers, the Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven’s baking pan and air-frying basket are dishwasher-safe, so cleanup wasn’t difficult. We had no trouble wiping down the interior with a damp sponge and mild dish detergent. We were pleased that the oven didn’t make our test kitchen noticeably warm during cooking, which indicated to us that it’s an excellent option for warm-weather cooking.
The Cuisinart Air Fryer + Convection Toaster Oven is similar in size and capacity to the Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven, so it can fit six slices of toast, a 12-inch pizza or a 4-pound chicken. Its air-frying basket can hold up to 3 pounds of food, making it a good choice for families.
It doesn’t offer as many cooking functions as the Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven, but with air-frying, convection baking, convection broiling, baking, broiling, warming and toasting functions, it’s still quite versatile. Simple knob controls make it highly intuitive to use, though you can’t set a precise temperature like you would with a digital or LCD display.
Despite its capacity, the oven doesn’t take up as much horizontal space as many traditional toaster ovens. However, while its 15.5-inch length and 16-inch width are slightly smaller, it is 13.5 inches high. This means it’s a bit taller than a standard toaster oven, which could pose an issue in a kitchen with overhead cabinets.
The sleek stainless steel exterior looks great on the counter, and the front window and interior light allow you to monitor food as it cooks. This air-fryer oven comes with several standard accessories that lend themselves to various recipes, including an air-frying basket and a baking pan that doubles as a drip tray for air-frying. While they are made of high-quality stainless steel, they aren’t dishwasher-safe, so cleanup is more challenging than with the Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven.
Breville vs. Cuisinart air-fryer functionality
Breville and Cuisinart air fryers are fairly similar and offer many comparable features. Our favorite models from both brands are air-fryer ovens. They have greater capacities than standard basket-style air fryers and provide additional cooking functions. When it comes to air-frying, they’re both pretty successful, though one brand gets the edge.
Kitchen fit comparison
As oven air fryers, the Breville and Cuisinart models we tested offered impressive capacities; they are definitely larger than standard air fryers. That said, we had no issue fitting any of them in our testing area.
The Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven is 14 inches long, 15.75 inches wide and 14 inches high. It easily fit on the counter in our kitchen with more than 6 inches of clearance on either side and approximately 5 inches of clearance on top.
The Breville models are larger. The Joule is 17.3 inches long, 21.5 inches wide and 12.8 inches high; and the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro measures 17.1 inches long, 21.5 inches wide and 12.7 inches high. Still, we had no trouble finding a place for these ovens in our testing area. Both models had approximately 6 inches of clearance on top and 4 inches of clearance on either side.
Ultimately, these Breville and Cuisinart air fryers require more space than a basket-style air fryer. However, because they perform multiple cooking functions beyond air-frying, they can replace several countertop appliances, including an air fryer, toaster oven, slow cooker and/or dehydrator. The Breville models are best for kitchens with ample horizontal space because they are longer and wider than the Cuisinart air fryers. But Cuisinart models are also taller, so they may work better in kitchens without low overhead cabinets.
Cook time and performance comparison
When it comes to air-frying performance and efficiency, the Breville air fryers were our favorites. The Joule was one of the most efficient air-fryer ovens we tested, needing just 13 minutes for crispy french fries, 18 minutes for juicy chicken wings and 9 minutes for extra-crisp bacon. The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro was slightly slower — it took 14 minutes for french fries, 20 minutes for chicken wings and 10 minutes for bacon. Like the Joule, it evenly air-fried all foods with a perfectly crisp texture.
The Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven took a bit longer across the board and provided slightly uneven results. Its fries preset cooked our frozen french fries for 18 minutes, leaving some of them overly crispy and dry. The wings preset was more successful, needing 23 minutes to give our chicken wings a crispy skin and juicy interior. It did a great job with bacon, too, though it was still slower than the Breville models — it got our bacon extra-crispy in 11 minutes.
Special features comparison
Breville and Cuisinart air fryers offer unique special features that may make one brand a better fit for your kitchen than the other.
The Breville Joule Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing it to access the Breville+ app. Not only does the app provide hundreds of recipes, but it also allows you to use the AutoPilot feature to flawlessly prepare multifunction recipes without adjusting the oven settings yourself. The Joule’s Wi-Fi connectivity also allows you to connect the oven to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant and use voice commands to choose its settings.
On the other hand, the Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven offers air-frying presets that take the guesswork out of choosing cooking times and temperatures for popular foods like fries, vegetables and chicken wings. We found its Dual Mode feature to be highly convenient — you can start the oven in one cooking mode and transition to another to finish your recipe without having to do it manually.
Ease of use and cleaning
Nearly all Breville and Cuisinart air fryers have knob or dial controls that are highly intuitive and easy to use. With the models we tested, we found a quick glance at the controls and a skim of the owner’s manual was all we needed to start air-frying. The Breville Joule, Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro and Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven have LCD displays that make it easy to set precise temperatures.
We found all the Breville and Cuisinart air fryers we tested pretty easy to clean, but the Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven gets the edge because its air-frying basket and baking pan are dishwasher-safe. The Breville Joule and Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro don’t have dishwasher-safe accessories, but it took us less than 10 minutes to clean them and the nonstick oven interior.
Pricing
As with the brands’ other appliances, Breville and Cuisinart air fryers are pretty pricey. Breville models are generally more expensive, though you are paying for greater capacity and versatility.
Cuisinart air fryers usually cost between $129.95 and $329.95. Basket-style air fryers and compact air-fryer ovens typically range from $129.95 to $149.95, while larger-capacity air fryers like the Cuisinart Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven and Cuisinart Air Fryer + Convection Toaster Oven go for $159.95 to $329.95.
Breville air fryers generally cost between $199.95 and $499.95. Convection ovens without a dedicated air-frying function typically range from $199.95 to $279.95, while large-capacity air-fryer ovens like the Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro and Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro usually go for $349.95 to $499.95.
Bottom line: Should you get a Breville or Cuisinart air fryer?
Breville and Cuisinart both make high-quality air fryers that come in handy for many recipes. They are fairly similar, too, but the Breville models top our list because they offer more consistent air-frying results, better capacity when cooking for a crowd and more cooking functions for improved versatility. The Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro is our favorite model because, in our testing lab, it delivered consistent air-frying results and a highly efficient performance.
Breville air fryers are pricey, which means they aren’t the best fit for all budgets. Cuisinart air fryers aren’t cheap, either, but the company does offer more affordable options. Cuisinart models don’t take up as much horizontal space as the Breville air fryers, either, so a Cuisinart air fryer may be a better choice if your counter space is limited.
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Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
