Best American-style fridge freezers 2024: gigantic refrigeration for all types of kitchens and budgets

The best American-style fridge freezers deliver everything a regular model does but better. They offer more space, more compartments, more features and more advanced technology... more of everything, in other words!

American-style fridge freezers only let you store all the food and drink you can possible think of, both fresh and frozen, and also offer the ability to dispense cold water and ice cubes. More advanced models also have smart screen technology to plan shopping lists, consult recipes and check your inventory without even opening the door!. Granted, you do need a good amount of space for an American-style fridge freezer – around 85cm on average against the 60cm width most of us are familiar with – but, providing you do, they offer the ultimate experience in home food and drink preservation.

When it comes to chilling food and drinks, there are several other options at your disposal. You could opt for a larder-style best fridge along with a separate best freezer unit or a top-rated fridge-freezer with the doors above each other. But if bigger is better for you, here's our picks for the best American-style fridge freezers.

Best American style fridge freezers 2024 ranking

American-style fridge freezers are perfect for large families, frozen food fans and anyone who simply wants the ultimate two-in-one refrigeration system. However, they are notoriously expensive to buy, which makes this budget-priced 446-litre model from China all the more enticing. 

This Haier HFR5719ENMP has more than enough interior 'meal estate' for your voracious needs and features key benefits like no-frost freezing, full air circulation in both the fridge and freezer compartments  (it actually uses the cold air from the freezer to help chill the fridge) and rapid air cooling for newly added groceries. 

The fridge section comes with a considerable 306 litres of storage, with four shelves, a large salad crisper box with individual temperature control, and six shelves in the doors. The frost-free, 140-litre freezer is equally well equipped with two large drawers that provide easy access to your frozen goodies.

To the untrained brand-spotting eye, the silver-clad Haier looks much more expensive than it is – an asset doubtlessly helped by the subtle logo that refuses to draw attention to itself.

The premium-priced Neff N50 boasts an ample 371 litres of fridge spaciousness and a substantial 191-litre freezer capacity – more than enough room for even the most ravenous of UK households. 

Unlike cheaper fridges and freezers that are invariably furnished with brittle interior plastics that can crack if mistreated, this one comes with high-quality rigid plastic drawers that don’t bend and twist even if loaded to the brim.

The fridge cavity is fitted with four glass shelves, two fruit and veg drawers and another five shelves in the door. The freezer, meanwhile, is comprised of four deep shelves, a pair of drawers and three mini door shelves for oft-used items. Everything is kept frost free by dint of Neff’s efficient cooling system.

The plumbed water and ice-making system is a doddle to use and includes provision for both cubed and crushed ice. The water/ice system and all fridge and freezer settings are controlled via an easy-to-navigate flat-buttoned electronic control panel that looks ultra snazzy and meaningful.

If you’re brand savvy and yearn for a slab of well-made German engineering, then waltz right this way because they don’t come more elegant and sophisticated than this stylish hunk of black Teutonic splendour. 

The Siemens iQ500 American-style fridge freezer is, well, pretty huge. And that is a good thing, especially if you currently fight to pack in all of your weekly shop. There’s room inside for 562 litres of goodies in total, divvied up as 191 litres in the freezer and a substantial 371 litres in the fridge. Before you get to the glorious innards though there’s that expansive exterior.

Being a Siemens, the IQ500 oozes quality with a brushed stainless steel finish that feels great to the touch and looks a treat. Styling is minimalist and functional, with an elegant control panel/display on the narrower left door. This is super crisp to look at thanks to the large white characters, while the selection of smart controls let you make tweaks and adjustments to settings. Going on vacation? There’s a button for that.

As you’d expect from an American-style fridge freezer, there’s a water/ice dispenser, which delivers regular aqua along with crushed ice and ice cubes too – around 150 per day no less. There’s even a light so you can see what you’re doing in the middle of the night.

Siemens also underlines the appeal of its fresh boxes, which are basically two containers that do their extra bit for keeping meat and fish fresher for longer. Twice as long actually. Despite the higher than average F energy rating, the Siemens iQ500 KA93IVIFPG is one monster of a machine.

Looking for an in-your-face, over-the-top, bells-and-whistles model pulled straight from the scene of a sci-fi movie? Then catch an eyeful of the gargantuan Family Hub from Samsung.

You can’t miss its standout feature: that huge 21.5-inch Android tablet slapped on the right front fascia provides useful access to the entire web plus a raft of apps for shopping lists, calendars, recipes, messages, photos, timers, radio stations, even a drawing board for the kids. It also supports Bixby, which means you can talk to your fridge like Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and ask it questions. Hopefully, it will not then attempt to kill you, like the actual Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The fridge compartment also has a gaggle of internal cameras that stream images to your phone so you can see what needs stocking up while perusing the Waitrose aisles. Okay, so that bit borders on useless, especially if large products in the fridge are obscuring smaller ones behind. But hey, if the technology is available for a fridge camera or three and you’re inclined to use them, then why not? Oh, and with Samsung’s SmartThing’s installed, this fridge is also compatible with the Ring doorbell – and that would make this the world’s first fridge that can answer the door.

The energy-efficient Family Hub comes with a whopping 614 litres of internal storage (fridge 389-litres, freezer 225-litres) and measures 91.2cm in width, 1.78m in height and 72cm in depth, so you’d better make sure you have the acreage to accommodate it. 

Fridge-tech wise, this model has the works: independent frost-free cooling systems that waft cool air around both cavities, a digital inverter compressor that varies its power output, saving on bills in the process, a power freeze and cool function for rapid chilling of freshly loaded produce and, most importantly for any American fridge-freezer, a plumbed ice and water dispenser. 

Slap this splendiferous monument in your kitchen and you can be sure you’ll be fiddling about with its connected functions till the cows come home. Your partner, of course, will soon tire of this addiction, an argument will erupt and then you will divorce. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

This distinctly snazzy and rather humongous 635-litre model doesn’t have the connected tech of the Samsung Family Hub but it does allow you to peer into part of the fridge section without opening the door and disturbing the chilled air within. 

Simply tap a couple of times on the dark frosted glass panel and it becomes magically transparent, showing you what’s inside. Aside from not letting any ambient air into the fridge (hardly an issue given that every fridge manages to cope when the door’s open), we can’t really think of a reason why you’d need this. Perhaps it's so you can pretend that your food is Hannibal Lecter, and this is its cell. 

The door-in-door design, on the other hand, is a more useful energy-saving feature, because it separates most-used items like milk and juices from the main compartment. Hence, when you want some milk for your cereal, simply open the small outer door and the main refrigerated cavity is left undisturbed.

The LG also features a filtered air circulation system that ports fresh air around both fridge and freezer cavities, keeping bacteria, odours and frost at bay. The salad compartment, meanwhile, lets you adjust humidity levels so everything is kept at optimum freshness. And, because the whole thing is wifi enabled, you can adjust overall temperatures or be notified that you’ve left the freezer door open using LG’s Smart ThinQ app. Needless to say it also works with Google Assistant and Alexa.

A plumbed still water and ice dispenser with crushed ice facility tops off a handsome, low energy package that will nonetheless appeal rather more to rich Hampsteadites than committed environmentalists in yurts.

This colossal, Italian-designed 60/40 model is split horizontally rather than vertically. Despite differing from the norm, it’s a much more convenient configuration for day to day dipping in and out because the whole fridge section is at eye level while the lesser used freezer section is positioned at shin height. 

This configuration also provides more fridge space (in this case a whopping 346 litres) at the expense of a slightly smaller freezer section (a modest 165 litres). The fridge opens like a wardrobe and features very similar interiors on both sides so you could feasibly load all your most used items on one side and leave the other side to the stuff you use only occasionally. Smeg’s attractive blue interior light and enclosed 0ºC vegetable and fruit drawers are said to ensure long lasting freshness, and who are we to disagree?

Down below, the ‘no frost’ double-door freezer compartment is comprised of five spacious drawers for large items like Christmas turkeys, legs of lamb, bags of French fries etc, plus a compartmentalised upper drawer on the left for smaller goodies like ice cream and frozen fruit.

Smeg gear is not necessarily the most affordable on the market and this model is no exception. However, there’s no denying that it looks a zillion quid in all that glorious silver and the distinctive horizontal division between fridge and freezer is clearly an attractive feature.

What are American-style fridge freezers?

It’s no secret that Americans like their food. Hence, when they go shopping they don’t just stock up on a piddly carrier-bag’s worth, they buy enough to fill a 4x4. Given that so many US products are sold in large quantities – ice cream, for instance, is available by the gallon – they will need somewhere to put it and a wardrobe-like, twin-access all-in-one fridge/freezer is the only style of refrigerator large enough to accommodate it all.

Most American-style models come with long cupboard-like doors with the fridge usually on the right and the freezer on the left; in the US they’re normally described as being ‘side by side’. However, some models are equipped with two doors above and a pull-out freezer drawer or two below. These are known as French-style or, to make matters even more confusing, American-style French door.

The main issue (at least here in the UK) is that American-style fridge-freezers are extremely wide – around 85cm on average against the usual 60cm width most of us are familiar with – and usually bloody expensive, too (over a grand on average). 

Nevertheless, when it comes to practicality, storage space and kitchen kudos, the American-style refrigerator is the monarch of domestic white goods and one of the best ways to tell your guests that you’re really loaded and that your kitchen is much bigger than theirs.

American-style fridge-freezers use the same compressor-based technology as normal-sized models, only in most instances they also feature a raft of other clever tech like full air circulation to prevent the build up of frost and fancy 0˚ fruit and veg drawers for optimum long-lasting freshness. They also quite frequently feature ice cube dispensers, chilled drinks dispensers and other fun, dispensing-based gimmickry.