Waring Pro DF55 Professional Mini 1-2/7-Pound-Capacity Stainless-Steel Deep Fryer

Comment: Our son will only eat chicken strips and french fries (unfortunately). So we have gone through a lot of deep fryers. He's older now and I was sick of cleaning out the huge fryer, buying tons of oil, only to dump and clean again. So we bought a Presto fryer that was absolutely terrible! Threw that one away, and tried this one which works great. It has a deep basket that holds a lot of food (1/2 large bag of chicken nuggets!), it holds 8 cups oil at the max fill line, heats up fast and temps recover quickly between foods. The chicken strips and fries come out nice and crispy. And it takes up very little counter space.

The only problem I found is the basket raises too high (clips on an inside ledge) so the cover does not stay completely on when you are draining food. But I just place the lid over the basket and slowly raise it up. We've had no problems with oil splattering. This is a great appliance. I would buy another one if it ever breaks.

Comment: Three nice things about this fryer: 1) temperature control goes to 375 (better browning) 2)Fry basket is well made and feels solid 3) frying well is easy to remove to empty and clean. Over-all, a better fryer than the small Cusinart it replaced (and for less money).

Comment: I originally bought the Cuisinart CDF-100 fryer because this unit was always out of stock. This was the one I wanted. The Cusinart fried good, but clean up was a lot more time consuming. You had to pour water in the unit while its on your countertop. With this, the oil box is seperate from the base. You can throw it in the dishwasher or wash under the sink. It has a lot of plastic parts, this has a lot of stainless steel.

This basket is nice and big, the side walls of the oil box are high and probably double the size of the Cusinart, less oil splattering everywhere. The cusinart has a charcoal filter for smell. I fry with peanut oil, the oil has no smell compared with cheaper veggie or canola oil. This unit has no charcoal filter, you don't need it. Lots of condensation would occur if there was a filter. Everytime I opened the lid to the Cuisinart, I had to wipe inside of the lid, if not, the water would drip in the oil and you get the popping sounds from the oil.

So why do I have this after I have the Cusinart? The basket on the Cusinart rest on the bottom of the frying box. The interior of the box is coated with a thin non stick coating. The coating got scratched in a few spots and I'm not going to fry in that. This happened after only a few weeks after I bought here on Amazon. Amazon's policy is returned only if unopened or defective. I didn't want to deal with the hassle and just ordered this. I'll probably give Cusinart a call soon. But its not worth it to me if it will cost me money to ship it, I would rather throw it away. With this Waring unit, the basket rest on the heating elements. The heating elements do not touch the bottom.

Spend the extra few bucks for this unit and you might have to wait because this is always selling out.