Asda’s compact air fryer is less than £30, but is it really worth buying?

Design

Asda’s compact air fryer looks surprisingly sleek when out of the box, considering its price. Modest in size – perhaps no bigger than a small microwave in length – its footprint is no bigger than a side plate so should be easy to find space for on the countertop. The cord is fairly long (around 84cm) too, so you have some leeway there.

Ease of use

As far as air fryers go, Asda’s is somewhat foolproof. With no complicated settings to get to grips with, there are only two dials – one for setting the temperature and the other for the cooking time. There aren’t any cooking presets for specific foods though, a feature which you can expect as standard with pricier models. This wasn’t really an issue as there are times and temperatures for a few foods illustrated on the appliance itself, or you can just turn to Google.

After a five-minute heat up time, the process of opening, filling with food and then closing the basket is a fairly intuitive one. Push the button on top of the handle and the basket will lift away from the basket cage with ease. One qualm we did have here was that slotting the basket back into the cage could be quite fiddly. Sometimes it took us a few goes. There are no buttons to be pressed either, this really is extremely straightforward – just set the timer and you’re all set.

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If you like precision in your kitchen then you may take issue with the dials you’ll need to use to set the temperature and cooking time. You have to eyeball it when it comes to lining up the arrow on the fryer with the correct increment on the dial. That being said, this never really seemed to be a problem when it came to cooking performance. In fact, it’s a minor issue that we think is probably worth overlooking.

Performance

While testing, we rustled up vegan chicken nuggets with crispy, golden brown results. Tenderstem broccoli, kale crisps, cubed tofu, falafel and more were all cooked through and with a crispy, fried-finish. Nothing we cooked stuck to the basket, so its non-stick abilities seemed to play their part well. Shaking the basket as often as possible (within reason, so perhaps every five minutes) went a long way when it comes to ensuring larger portions – thin chips, especially, were evenly cooked sans any singed edges.

In terms of energy efficiency, we’ll take the example of chunky chips, which we cooked from frozen at 200C for 20 minutes as per the manual’s suggestions. This is actually how long it would have taken in the oven, but given Asda’s air fryer power is 900W, comparatively low when it comes to what you’d use with most ovens, we’d say Asda’s air fryer is an energy efficient option.

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With a 1.5l capacity which is roughly enough for two portions, you won’t be cooking for larger households with this air fryer. But if it’s just you, or you plus one, then you’re golden. A note on the size and shape of the basket – we did find it difficult to cook different foods next to each other. A small portion of chips and two sausages was a real squeeze.

We also ran into difficulty when trying to cook a few rashes of vegan bacon, before having to cut them up into short sections in order for them to fit, which made our bacon sandwich slightly less appealing. Happily though, we were able to fit three cupcakes into the basket comfortably, which came out perfectly cooked and golden brown.

Cleaning

Air fryer baskets and drawers are typically slightly inconvenient to clean, so we were pleased to find these can both go in the dishwasher. Asda does warn that this will affect the appearance of the basket over time, but you may not be too fussed about that. If you are, though, they’re easy enough to wipe round and clean with soap and water. When it comes to keeping the outside of the air fryer looking its best, we found that wiping it with a damp kitchen towel easily removed any greasy smudges.