Emeril Lagasse Dual-Zone 360 AirFryer Oven Review

Design

• Single and dual zones
• Plenty of accessories
• Tray guides

The Emeril Lagasse Dual-Zone 360 AirFryer Oven arrived in a cardboard box with a colorful branded box inside. Everything was packed securely and arrived without any dents or damage.

It comes with a lot of accessories. The box even includes a note saying, “there are accessories for this product in the top and bottom white polyfoam. Please make sure you remove all accessories from the polyfoam before disposing of the packaging materials.”

Those accessories include a drip tray, XL oven rack, baking pan, XL baking pan, grill plate, divider, rotisserie set, rotisserie fetch tool and two crisper trays. (The manual lists one crisper tray and one XL crisper tray rather than two crisper trays.) I slid the drip tray in under the heating elements, as it’s the only accessory that stays in place whether you use the divider or not.

Many countertop appliances look rather utilitarian, but the Emeril Lagasse Dual-Zone 360 AirFryer Oven is a stylish option with French doors. It’s also surprisingly light for something so sturdy. Having tested the solid, well-designed Lotus Perfectionist Air Fry and Convection Oven, which weighs 46.6 pounds, I was initially worried this one would be flimsy, but I needn’t have been. The company doesn’t list its weight, but I could easily move it to another countertop while testing other appliances, then move it back. I don’t normally do that with countertop ovens, because they’re too heavy to keep moving around.

It’s well built and durable, and the stainless-steel finish didn’t attract fingerprints. The French doors add some style, let you open one door at a time, and make it easier to slide in large trays.

My only issue with the design was a small sticker on the top that left a sticky residue I couldn’t remove, despite my best efforts. Some Goo Gone should shift it. In the side-view photo, you can also see the vents on the sides.

The divider slots into a rail in the middle of the interior. You can see the grooves on the divider, which line up with the grooves on each side wall. It slides in and out easily, but it’s sturdy enough that there’s no worry it will collapse.

The control panel has two independent sets of controls, with a large knob on each side for switching the appliance on and adjusting the temperature and time. There are also five buttons on each side. The Fan, Cancel and Start/Pause buttons are the same on both sides. The other two on the left are Sync and Mute (to turn off alerts), and on the right are the interior Light and the Shake indicator.

The display in the middle of the control panel shows the 12 cooking functions, temperatures, cooking times, fans, shake indicators and heating elements, as well as the sync, pause and mute functions.

The 12 cooking functions are air fry, roast, broil, bake, pizza, grill, toast, reheat, keep warm, dehydrate, rotisserie and slow cook. The French doors also have a handy cheat sheet etched into the glass.

I’ve also tested the Ninja French Door Premier Air Fryer, Convection Oven, Toaster, which has a similarly stylish dual-door design, ten cooking functions and is easy to use. However, it doesn’t have a divider for cooking two meals at once, and it’s slightly smaller (20.3 quarts compared to 25 quarts).

Performance

• 5 rack positions for multiple foods
• Both sides can be synced
• Crisps food

For my first test, I used the divider to make salmon and frozen veggies.

I put two strips of salmon in the grill pan on the left side, and on the right, a bag of frozen Bird’s Eye Mediterranean Blend vegetables, which included roasted red potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell peppers and red onions.

One issue with using the divider is that there aren’t enough bake pans for cooking two messy foods. There’s one bake pan, one grill pan and two crisper trays. So I put the salmon in the grill pan (so nothing would drip underneath), and the veggies in a crisper tray with the bake pan underneath.

I set the salmon to air fry for ten minutes (in the grill pan, since I didn’t have a second bake pan) and the veggies to grill for seven minutes, then synced them to finish at the same time. On the display, you can see that because the times are synced, the veggies (on the right) are still in preheat (PH) mode and won’t start for another three minutes, so they finish with the salmon.

Here’s how syncing works. When syncing foods with different cooking times, don’t put both in at the same time. Add the food with the longer time first, and when the timer counts down to the shorter time, add the second. For example, the salmon was set for ten minutes and the veggies for seven, so after the salmon had cooked for three minutes (with seven left), the oven beeped six times to tell me to add the veggies.

I was guessing the cooking times, so I kept an eye on the appliance to make sure nothing burned. It preheats, beeps when it’s ready, and then the countdown timer starts.

I needn’t have worried: the salmon was tender, light and flaky, and fell off the fork. The vegetables had a nice roasted taste and were slightly crunchy. Overall, I was very pleased with my first test.

Next, I baked frozen Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe booklet recommends parchment paper, so I used it. I put the frozen cookies on the baking pan and baked them at 350°F for 15 minutes.

You can see the cheat sheet etched into the French doors to help you remember the tray positions. The cookies were done before the 15 minutes were up (around the 11-minute mark). They were crunchy on the outside, and warm and gooey in the middle.

To test the oven with French fries, I used Ore-Ida frozen fries. I spread them on the baking pan (I didn’t have a large crisper tray), put it on the recommended shelf position, selected Bake, and set the temperature and time.

The fries came out golden, crispy on the outside, and soft and fluffy inside.

The next day, I used the divider again to make beef tips and vegetables.

I put the beef tips on one side, and on the other, chopped Bird’s Eye sweet potatoes on the crisper tray with the pan underneath.

Some of the beef tips were perfectly cooked and others were almost burnt. I’ll put that down to user error, since I didn’t stay to keep an eye on the appliance. The sweet potatoes, though, were soft and delicious.

On another day, I cooked two seasoned pork chops on the left side only, leaving the right side empty because I planned to microwave some Minute rice.

They were cooked perfectly: crispy on the outside and tender inside. I also liked that the grill pan left sear marks on the pork chops, as though I’d grilled them outside.

I also tested the oven with a pizza: a frozen Vicolo Italian Sausage Pizza with Roasted Onions. I put it on a baking sheet on the baking pan, and cooked it on the Pizza setting.

The crust came out crunchy and browned around the edges, and the cheese was melted and gooey. I could taste the meat and the onions, and it made a very satisfying meal.

I also cooked pork chops and small potatoes together. The pork chops were crispy on the outside and tender inside, and the potatoes were crispy on the outside and soft inside.

For a simple test, I toasted some English muffins directly on the oven rack. (I should have put the baking pan underneath to catch crumbs. There is a crumb tray at the bottom, but I don’t like the idea of crumbs landing on the heating elements.)

The English muffins came out perfectly toasted: browned on the outside, and soft and warm inside.

I air-fried some chicken drumettes to test the shake indicator, which only works with the air fry function. It doesn’t come on automatically, so you need to press the Shake button. When it’s on, the appliance beeps five times at the halfway point to remind you to flip the food.

The chicken drumettes were delicious, but since I didn’t use an air fryer liner, the pan took a while to clean. (I prefer to hand-wash, and the manual recommends hand-washing too.)

I also made chicken thighs and frozen corn, using boneless, skinless chicken thighs and Bird’s Eye Super Sweet Gold & White Corn. Again, I had to use the grill tray, because I needed the one small pan under the corn. (You can buy an extra pan for $20 on Emeril’s website, but I wanted to test the appliance as it comes.)

I didn’t note my settings for this one (I often get on with something else and come back when I hear the alert), but I either grilled or roasted the chicken. Either way, the chicken thighs were delicious, and the corn was crunchy and flavorful.

I also roasted a full pan of large, skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs. I put the seasoned thighs on a parchment sheet, sprayed them lightly with Pam, selected Roast, and set the time and temperature.

The chicken thighs were browned and crispy on the outside, and tender and flavorful inside. However, they released a lot of oil, and if I hadn’t been testing, I’d have used a regular air fryer basket to keep the chicken out of it.

I didn’t test the rotisserie function, because I’m not a rotisserie person and have no desire to handle a large raw chicken. The accessories do include a rotisserie set and a rotisserie fetch tool, though.

The Emeril Lagasse Dual-Zone 360 AirFryer Oven handled the rest of my tests very well.

Maintenance

• Wipes clean with a damp cloth
• Some accessories need scrubbing
• Liners make cleaning much easier

I wiped the interior and exterior with a damp cloth after each use. Most of the accessories were easy to clean, but some, such as the small baking pan and the air fry baskets, needed some scrubbing. Halfway through testing, I started using air fryer liners, which made cleaning up much easier.

Should you buy it?