Verdict
A simple, sleek, no-nonsense air fryer that sticks to — and nails — the basics. With a large capacity basket for feeding larger groups and consistently crispy-yet-tender results, it’ll handle everything you care to throw at it with reliable ease. And thanks to simple controls and a variety of handy modes including pre-heating, it’s a breeze to operate. Best of all? Its drawer and basket can both be easily cleaned thanks to a formidable non-stick coating, and can even be chucked into the dishwasher on lazier days.
Pros
- Excellent, crispy results
- Easy to use
- Attractive design
- Large capacity
- Dishwasher-safe
Cons
- Reminder alarms can be annoying
- Only air frys
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Cooking capacityThe larger drawer holds up to 5.5-litres of food, enough for four people or larger items, such as a chicken.
Introduction
Search online for an air fryer, and it won’t be long before you come across one from Cosori — a US-based company that makes some of the top-selling and highest-rated air fryers on Amazon. I spent the past month or so putting one of Cosori’s best-selling air fryers — the Premium XXL — through its paces, to see if its capacious size, features, and looks live up to the hype. At around the £100 mark, it’s not the cheapest option around, but it’s also not up there with the priciest of rivals either.
With 14 cooking modes and a cavernous 5.5-litre capacity, it seems to tick all the boxes, including dishwasher-safe materials and a sleek design. Having tried all manner of items from bread and bacon, to roast chicken, naan bread, and everything in between, it’s time to see if this air fryer lives up to the hype.
Design and features
- Large drawer
- 14 cooking functions
- Easy to clean and dishwasher safe
As far as functional kitchen appliances go, the Premium XXL is actually quite a looker. Sure, you won’t mistake it for anything other than a utilitarian device, but it’s a handsome one nonetheless. Available in three colours (red, black and white), it should match most decors, and its combination of straight lines and rounded edges lend it a warm, organic appearance.
My black review model has a rather pleasant faux brushed metal finish, and the basket handle feels sturdy. Its mechanism is solid too — pressing down the release button on top of the handle detaches the perforated frying basket from the drawer, and it’s easy to do one-handed. Both the basket and drawer are dishwasher safe, but the non-stick coating is so good that a quick handwash easily gets the job done. Overall, I got the impression that it’s built to last, and the fact that there’s nothing to assemble out of the box is a welcome bonus.
Size-wise it’s relatively tall, but comfortably narrower than a microwave, so in terms of countertop footprint, it won’t dominate the space. It’s light too, which, combined with two hand grooves on the bottom, make it easy to move around if required.
The basket has a large 5.5-litre capacity, which is towards the larger end of the air fryer spectrum. While it technically has less overall space compared to some larger dual-drawer models, the fact that you get all 5.5-litres in a single drawer means that you can fit larger single items like small/medium chickens for roasting. If you need a lot more space, then you’ll need the Ninja AF400UK, which has two 4.75-litre drawers.
Here, I found that the Cosori was large enough. In fact, I often found ourselves cooking multiple food items at the same time. As long as you’ve got no qualms about mixing meat and veg together, you could easily throw in some chicken goujons and veg so they’re both done on time. This only works if you’re feeding around two to three people, mind — otherwise, you’ll need to cook one set of food before the other.
When I was cooking new potatoes and beef kebabs for five people, for example, I had to air fry the potatoes first, before moving on to the kebabs. Given the faster cooking times an air fryer provides compared to a conventional oven, this wasn’t too much of an issue, but I’d be lying if we said we didn’t wish for a second air fryer for even more convenient decadence. That’s where the Ninja AF400UK’s dual drawers come in handy, as two different items can be cooked at the same time.
Size aside, there are a total of 14 cooking modes on offer. These include presets for bacon, chips, bread and fish, as well as a pre-heat function, keep warm function, and a standard manual cooking mode. As with other air fryers it runs rather loud, but nothing too obnoxious, and you can still have a conversation comfortably.
As for cleaning up, it’s a mercifully simple affair, merely involving detaching the basket from the drawer at the press of a button, with a simple rinse with some dish soap easily cleaning off the non-stick surfaces. After more than a month of near-daily use, we’ve never once resorted to having to use a dishwasher.
Performance
To start with, Itested out some of the preset modes, including the ones for chips and bacon. I’m pleased to report that they work well. Some preset modes, such as the ones for chips, have automatic shake reminders that, unsurprisingly, remind you to shake the contents of the basket. The alarm can be a little grating at times, but it does the job. Results for both chips and bacon were moist, yet satisfyingly crunchy.
After using a few preset modes, I found myself spending 99 per cent of my time with the Premium XXL manually cooking food instead. I prefer the idea of tweaking things, especially given things like chips where one bag of thin french fries will take less time than thick crinkle-cut chips. Overall, whatever mode you opt for, the controls are clear, intuitive, and extremely easy to use, even if you skip reading the manual.
Before each cook, I used the handy pre-heat function, which lets you set your preferred temperature, before automatically stopping when it’s reached. The longest preheat time for the max temperature of 205 degrees Celcius is five minutes, which isn’t too shabby.
When it came to cooking food, I stuck to the standard air fryer rule — namely, cooking at 20 degrees celsius lower than a standard fan oven, for 20 per cent less time. Sticking to this served us well, and Cosori’s fryer produced great results from almost everything we threw at it.
Sausages and bacon are delightfully crispy while retaining their juice, and chips, with two or three shakes, come out crispy and fluffy. Even filling the basket up with a pile of baby potatoes in cajun seasoning works well, though this will take a little longer than chips due to their thickness. Shaking things is easy too — simply pop out the draw for the occasional check, give things a shake, pop it back in, and the fryer will instantly resume without having to press a button. Often I’ll skip the oil spray in a bid to be healthier, and the results are, thankfully, still delicious.
More challenging items like pies and pasties also come out perfectly golden, and frozen fish is also ready much quicker than in a traditional oven. The largest item I cooked was half a chicken, with deliciously tender results, combined with crispy skin as an added bonus. Desert was incredible too — ready-made churros from M&S, which came out insanely crispy and perfectly fluffy, looking and tasting like they’d been properly deep fried.
One of my standout meals turned out to be pork belly strips. Following the -20/-20 rule, we cooked them at 140 degrees for 48 minutes, versus the typical 160 degrees for an hour. Cooking at that low a temperature gave me some doubts, but when it was all said and done, the belly turned out to be the best I’ve ever made — crispy on the outside and melt–in-your-mouth tender on the inside.
The only real negative experience I had was trying out a modified air fryer garlic naan bread recipe. The end result, while delicious (the amount of garlic butter looked after us nicely), was more flatbread than naan. While this could be down to the recipe, I think it’s fair to say that there’s not quite enough room or direct heat in an air fryer to produce something like naan bread. Compare the two attempts below, and you’ll see the far superior results obtained on a cast iron skillet. Still, at least the end result was tasty.
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Should you buy it?
If you want a large, simple, and reliable air fryer, this is an excellent choice.
Final Thoughts
I can wholeheartedly recommend the Cosori Premium XXL for anyone looking for a larger capacity air fryer for feeding multiple hungry mouths. It’s easy to use, never let us down, and mercifully easy to clean.
Its large basket lets you cook piles of chips at once, or larger individual items like chicken without breaking a sweat. It doesn’t have any additional fancy features like grilling or Wi-Fi controls, but that lends to a more affordable price compared to some super premium rivals. If you need something larger or with more cooking options, check out the guide to the best air fryers.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every air fryer we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main air fryer for the review period
We cook real food in each air fryer, making chips, frying sausages and cooking frozen hash browns. This lets us compare quality between each air fryer that we test.
FAQs
No, this is a pure air fryer.
Yes, its drawer and basket can be washed in the dishwasher, although it’s as easy to clean up by hand.
Sustainability
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As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment.
We currently haven’t received answers to the questions on this product, but will update this page the moment we do. You can see a detailed breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability info page.
