I Tested T-fal Infrared Air Fryers: Are They Actually Better?

Are T-fal infrared air fryers actually better than regular air fryers?

Do they really produce faster, crispier, and juicier results? Or is infrared just another air fryer gimmick?

To find out, I tested the T-fal Dual Window Infrared Air Fryer and the T-fal Surface XXL Infrared Air Fryer side by side against the two best regular air fryers I’ve ever tested: Typhur Dome 2 and Instant Vortex Plus.

In all four air fryers, I cooked chicken breasts, chicken wings, fries, plain white bread, and pizza. For each test, I used the same food, the same portions, and the same time and temperature so the results would be as fair and controlled as possible.

I compared cook time, browning, crispiness, juiciness, and overall taste.

If you’re thinking about buying a T-fal infrared air fryer, this review is for you. Some of the results were exactly what I expected, but a few made this comparison way more interesting than I thought it would be.

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Use the links below to navigate the review:

• How T-fal Infrared Air Fryers Work
• Fry Test
• Chicken Breast Test
• Chicken Wing Test
• Bread Test
• Pizza Test
• Bottom Line: Are T-fal Infrared Air Fryers Better?

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How T-fal Infrared Air Fryers Work

Before I get into the results, here’s what I tested and how these T-fal infrared air fryers are different.

The two regular air fryers (Instant Vortex Plus and the Typhur Dome 2) use a standard metal heating element and a fan. Think of it like a powerful hair dryer. It relies on blowing hot air around the basket to cook your food.

The Instant Vortex does this from the top only, while the Typhur Dome 2 heats from the top and bottom.

The T-fal models (Dual Window and Surface XXL) also use a fan, but the top element is infrared. Instead of waiting for the air to heat up, it sends instant, radiant heat waves directly into the surface of the food, kind of like a high-powered heat lamp. Like the Typhur, these T-fal models also have a regular heating element on the bottom to help cook from underneath.

According to T-fal, that direct infrared heat is supposed to cook food faster, brown the surface better, make the outside crispier, and keep the inside juicier. And they claim it doesn’t need any preheating time.

To make the comparisons more useful, I matched them up by shape: the wide T-fal Surface XXL against the wide Typhur Dome 2, and the smaller basket-style T-fal against the Instant Vortex Plus.

Fry Test

For the first test, I cooked frozen french fries because they’re one of the most common foods people make in an air fryer.

I portioned out 100 grams of fries for each air fryer and cooked all four batches on air fry mode at 375°F for 10 minutes.

The goal wasn’t to see which air fryer made perfect fries, because everyone likes fries at a different level of doneness. The goal was to see which ones cooked faster using the same amount of food, time, and temperature.

After 10 minutes, all four batches were good. They were crispy, crunchy, and fully cooked.

But there was a clear difference. The T-fal infrared models cooked the fries much faster. In the same 10 minutes, the fries from both T-fal infrared models were noticeably darker and crispier than the fries from the Typhur and Instant Vortex.

Chicken Breast Test

Next, I tested chicken breast, which can be tricky in an air fryer. Since it’s so lean, it can dry out fast if the air fryer cooks too aggressively or unevenly.

I used pieces that were close in weight, inserted a wireless temperature probe into the thickest part of each one, and cooked them on Air Fry Mode at 375°F.

I flipped them after 10 minutes, pulled each one when it hit 160°F, then let it rest until it reached 165°F before cutting into it and tasting it.

With the wider air fryers, there wasn’t a huge difference at the 10-minute flip. Both pieces were cooking, but neither looked close to done yet.

The T-fal Surface XXL reached 160°F first, at 19 minutes and 14 seconds. The Typhur Dome 2 took 21 minutes and 52 seconds.

From the top, both looked pretty similar. They were lightly browned and roasted, but not deeply browned like chicken seared in a pan.

The bigger difference was underneath. The Typhur browned the bottom more.

But when I cut into them, the T-fal chicken was noticeably juicier. And I confirmed that with my taste test.

With the two smaller air fryers, the T-fal also cooked faster. At the 10-minute flip, the Instant Vortex chicken was still raw-looking on the bottom, while the T-fal was already more cooked.

The T-fal reached 160°F in 18 minutes and 8 seconds. The Instant Vortex took 25 minutes and 43 seconds.

But this time, the final juiciness was basically the same. Once both pieces were fully cooked and rested, I couldn’t tell a meaningful difference when I cut into them or tasted them.

Chicken Wing Test

To see if the T-fal infrared air fryers actually make food crispier, I cooked chicken wings.

For each air fryer, I cooked three flats and three drums. I set each one to air fry mode at 380°F, flipped the wings after 10 minutes, and checked them at 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, both batches in the wider air fryers were browning well, but they weren’t quite done yet. So I added more time and finished both with 2 minutes at 450°F.

With T-fal, I used the Crispy Finish button, which adds 2 minutes at 450°F. The Typhur doesn’t have a crispy finish button, so I set it manually.

Both batches took 20 minutes total and both came out really good.

The main difference was that the Typhur wings looked a little more evenly browned all the way around. The T-fal wings were still good, but the underside of some flats was slightly paler, which makes me think the bottom heating element isn’t quite as strong as the top.

With the smaller air fryers, the difference was more obvious. After 15 minutes, the wings cooked in the T-fal model were browner on top than the Instant Vortex wings, but both were still pale underneath.

After 5 more minutes, the T-fal wings were clearly darker, crispier, and more evenly browned.

To finish the test, I gave both batches 2 more minutes. On the T-fal, I used the Crispy Finish button. The Instant Vortex only goes up to 400°F, so I set it there for the same amount of time.

In the end, the smaller T-fal wings were better. They were crispier, more browned, and in my taste test, slightly juicier too.

Bread Test

Air fryers are supposed to cook evenly because the fan circulates hot air around the basket. But I wanted to see if there were any obvious hot spots, and whether T-fal’s infrared heat made a difference.

So I covered the cooking surface of each air fryer with plain white bread and cooked each batch on air fry mode at 400°F for 4 minutes.

The two T-fal models and the Instant Vortex all browned the bread unevenly. Some spots got dark, while others stayed pale, and the browning didn’t line up in an obvious way with the heating elements.

The Typhur was completely different. After the first 4-minute cycle, the bread was toasted and crunchy, but it still looked white with no brown spots.

I ran it a second time to see if darker spots would appear. But even after that, the bread still looked evenly toasted, with no obvious hot spots on the top or bottom.

Pizza Test

For the pizza test, I only used the two larger air fryers (T-fal Surface XXL and Typhur Dome 2) because they’re wide enough to fit a pizza, and both have dedicated pizza settings.

I made both pizzas the same way with the same amount of dough, crushed tomatoes, cheese, and pepperoni.

For this test, I didn’t use the same time and temperature. Instead, I followed each air fryer’s pizza instructions because I wanted to see how the pizza would come out using the settings each brand recommends.

The T-fal process starts by par-baking the dough. After 7 minutes, it beeps and tells you to flip the dough over, add the sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, then cook it for another 7 minutes at 400°F.

With Typhur, it preheats first, which takes about 7 minutes, then cooks the fully assembled pizza at 340°F for 14 minutes.

The difference was night and day. The T-fal pizza was pale and floppy. The bottom barely browned, the cheese wasn’t fully melted in some spots, and the pepperoni didn’t crisp.

The Typhur pizza was much better. The crust puffed up more, the cheese fully melted, the pepperoni crisped, and the bottom had real browning and charred spots, almost like a pizza cooked in a much hotter oven.

This was the clearest result of any test. For pizza, the Typhur was on a completely different level.

Bottom Line: Are T-fal Infrared Air Fryers Better?

So after all that testing, are T-fal infrared air fryers actually better, or is it just marketing hype?

Based on the data, infrared is definitely not a gimmick. The infrared models consistently cooked faster, and in most cases, they produced crispier results in less time.

But faster doesn’t automatically mean better. A great traditional air fryer can still match the crispiness and juiciness of infrared. It just might take a few extra minutes. And as we saw with the Typhur, the overall design of the air fryer can matter just as much as the type of heating element.

So, which one should you actually buy?

Between the two extra-wide models, my top pick is the Typhur Dome 2. It’s expensive, but it cooked the top and bottom of the food more evenly, and it completely dominated the pizza test.

That said, if the Typhur is out of your budget, the T-fal Surface XXL is an excellent alternative that usually costs much less. It’s fast, it has a massive cooking surface, the flat top is convenient, and the viewing window is useful. Just keep in mind that you may need to flip your food more often to get the bottom evenly browned, and the wire rack is a bit of a pain to clean.

Between the two narrower models, I’m a bit torn. The T-fal cooks faster, you can set it 50 degrees hotter, and it has a window to monitor progress.

But the Instant Vortex Plus has more usable basket space, a reminder to flip the food, and it has consistently performed well across dozens of foods I’ve cooked in it. Both are excellent options, it just depends on what you value.

Learn more about each air fryer I tested and compare current prices at the links below:

• T-fal Dual Window Infrared Air Fryer: T-fal.com
• T-fal Surface XXL Infrared Air Fryer: T-fal.com
• T-fal Infrared Air Fryer: Amazon
• Instant Vortex Plus: Amazon
• Typhur Dome 2: Amazon