Does the Air Fryer Basket Rotate? [Air Fryer 101]

Welcome back to Air Fryer Bro, the place that likes to think of itself as the encyclopedia of air fryers! I am getting increasingly obsessed with air fryers, I think! Is that healthy? 🙂 Anyway, it annoys me when I see air fryer related questions that go unanswered and today I saw another one. Does the air fryer basket rotate during cooking? If you have even a vague interest in this highly exciting topic, read on…. 🙂

Does the Air Fryer Basket Rotate?

When talking about an air fryer basket, we are only talking about the traditional style bucket air fryers that originally replaced deep fat fryers (and hence look alike). The new fangled air fryer ovens use racks rather than baskets, and racks don’t rotate full stop! Although air fryer ovens do often have cylindrical mesh baskets and rotisserie skewers that do rotate if you are interested! But today we are focusing on the humble basket style air fryer.

The short answer to this question is no, the air fryer basket does not rotate. It is a fixed item within your air fryer’s cooking compartment.

Why Might some People Think that an Air Fryer Basket Rotates?

You might then wonder why this question is being asked in the first place! Why would anyone think that an air fryer basket might rotate? Well, we have the wonderful people over at Tefal to thank for this, I think. I will explain!

You see, they noticed that a key problem with basket style air fryers is the fact that most people had to shake their food from time to time in order to get even cooking and crisping. So they had the bright idea to add a rotating function to their air fryer. Ingenius, right? Well, that’s debatable 🙂

They called this air fryer evolution the T-fal Actifry, and it has gotten pretty popular. A lot of users seem to like it a lot (according to reviews on Amazon anyway).

Yes, technically the air fryer basket is not rotating (a churning paddle inside is), but I think this is why some people think that air fryers baskets rotate 🙂

Personally, I am not a massive fan. I would rather shake my food than add a churning mechanism that is increasing the likelihood that food will get stuck and something will go wrong with my air fryer. Maybe that’s just me 🙂

I thought this churning air fryer basket phenomenon was only thanks to Tefal (or T-fal as they like to be called these days), but some more brands have thrown their hat into the ring.

First, we have this Moosoo air fryer will a similar churning function. Never heard of Moosoo? Well, that’s because they are probably one of those generic Chinese brands, but this does happen more and more these days in the world of air fryers.

To be fair, they have managed to increase the size of their churning air fryer to 7 quarts (way bigger than the Tefal), but I would be concerned that the paddle at the bottom might not be able to evenly churn all of your food if the air fryer compartment is on the full side. I think I preferred Tefal’s shallow approach to a churning air fryer basket. Although this Moosoo version is considerably cheaper, at least.

Finally, DeLonghi have gotten in on the game of a churning air fryer (I am saying churning a lot right!!). This one actually seems to be the best of the bunch, although I haven’t had the pleasure of a hands on yet.

I would certainly trust DeLonghi to get it right more than Moosoo. They call it the Multifry (maybe trying to make you think it’s an Actifry :)) And it looks to be a solid entry into the paddle based air fryers. The only thing I will say is the appliance is as ugly as sin! It looks like space age design gone wrong to me! It’s also quite small, being a similar size to the Tefal Actifry (funny that!).

So after all that no, the air fryer basket does not rotate, but some people might be confused into thinking it does by the Tefal Actifry.

Do you think a churning paddle based air fryer is a good idea? Let us know in the comments section below.