Cuisinart AFR-25 Compact AirFryer

I bought this in anticipation of a future kitchen remodel, planning to use it in a temporary kitchen (which I'll set up in a bathroom.) So even though I liked the larger Cuisinart model at first look, I decided this smaller unit will fit in my space much better. And I'm glad I got the smaller one - it's more than sufficient if cooking for just a few people (and it's a lot less expensive!) So I've been putting through its paces for the last week. And I have to say - wow! This lil guy is really useful even in a full-service kitchen with a regular big oven, especially if you're cooking for one or just a few people . So far I've made crispy breaded chicken tenders, baked potatoes, air-fried sweet potatoes, roasted Cornish hen, baked apples, air-fried beet chips, pizza, roasted chickpeas, and toast. (Contrary to some reviews here, it can toast bread just fine - the instructions are in the manual, in some notes right before the recipes.) Everything turned out very well (except one time I did not pay attention and set the temperature wrong and burned my toast.) The chicken was very tender and juicy, and the baked potatoes and roasted hens achieved that nice crispy skin. Roasted chickpeas were crunchy, so were the beet chips and the breaded chicken. Air-fried food doesn't taste the same as food fried in oil - air-frying is essentially baking with hot air. So this method will deliver a good crunch, but add dipping sauces or even just ketchup if you miss the taste of the oil. Now the dials are not very precise - there is no "click" between different settings so you have to eyeball it. I did not have any problems with the timer, as some have noted here. The instructions say to twist the dial past your desired time, then backwards to what you want. I've been doing that and the timer seems to be working fine. I used some of the recipes in the included manual and some that I found online, following suggested temperatures and cook times and so far everything has come out great. If you need to open the door early to check your food or flip it, the fan will stop, but the timer will keep on ticking if it has not reached the end yet. So you may have to add a little time to make up. I do wish it had a light so that you didn't have to open the door to check the food - I guess the bigger model has one. When using the oven, don't forget to slide the unit forward to the front edge of your counter; otherwise when you open the door, the handle will rest on the countertop and prevent you from opening the door all the way, which makes it difficult to slide the tray out. But you're supposed to move it away from the wall anyway when using it - it vents heat back there, and the top gets hot as well. So just slide it forward when using, away from the wall and any overhanging cabinets. This smaller oven will not accommodate a whole chicken. However chicken pieces, or 2 Cornish hens fit just fine. The basket and drip tray seem kind of flimsy, but were not too difficult to clean. I have been using parchment paper to line the drip pan each time I use it, which helps a lot. And a nylon brush is useful for cleaning the basket. The interior of the oven wipes clean very easily with a paper towel or sponge. This thing exceeded my expectations...I call it my Easy Bake Oven and already prefer it to the big oven for many tasks. Five stars!

Works amazingly well! The only part that gets hot is the glass in the front, the sides are cool to the touch contrary to other reviews I've seen of this product, I'm sure it could become hot if you used it for an extended period of time but it cooks so quickly your food is done in minutes. It only has a heating element on the top so you do have to flip your food over sometimes to get an even Brown or spray with cooking spray before putting it in to create a better crisp. The food in the back of the oven on the right side always cooks faster for me. I can easily clean the dry basket and crumb sheet with hot water, dawn, and a dish brush and it looks like new each time. We've had it for a few months now and it's awesome. Not cheaply made and the food tastes AMAZING! I LOVE IT. I even cook our frozen sausage patties and pancakes in it for a quick breakfast on the go, done in like 5 minutes and then we can eat quickly and leave. I havent used my oven for much of anything since buying it and I often use it as a microwave aswell. It melts cheese on stuff perfectly❤

I love this compact airfryer. It fits nicely on my counter and looks very pretty, a bit retro IMO. The top is slightly rounded like a vintage TV set. It’s super easy to use and cleans up well if you use a wrung-out slightly soapy sponge, and then rinse twice with a clean water wrung-out sponge. You need to do this after every use, but it only takes about 3-4 minutes. It’s the right size to cook 4 chicken breasts. I use it to make homemade fries, chicken breasts, thighs and legs, salmon fillets, steaks. Everything I cook comes out so good! You almost can’t go wrong with this. It’s easy to set. This is my second one… the first one lasted 3 years with 3x a week use, but I’ve done research and that’s about average, so nothing negative there. I do wish the pan were stainless steel because one wash in the dishwasher rendered it ugly (see photo) Fortunately, I found a stainless steel pan to replace it. It wasn’t easy to find the right size at all, but I found close enough and used my rubber mallet to bend the rim a 1/4 inch (see photos), so now it fits perfectly, and I can wash it in the dishwasher. I wish the company would make a stainless steel pan to come with it instead of aluminum. I’d pay extra for that. While waiting for the second one to arrive, we had to cook our chicken breast in our regular oven… it was blah! What a difference this Airfryer makes in flavor and texture. Love it!

See photos of foods I have cooked in this air fryer. I bought it primarily for use as a small countertopoven more than as an alternative to pan-frying, and this model (called simply “compact air fryer” not “air fryer/convection/toaster oven” was less expensive than most other oven-like options, despite the fact that it has convection-oven fans that circulate hot air around the whole space. Unlike the more expensive versions by Cuisinart and others, this model (about $94 when I got it, down to $85 now) only has heat elements at the top (and has only two controls, the temperature dial and the on-off/timer dial. It is only possible to turn on for a timed duration, maximum 60 minutes (I haven’t used it for anything longer than 30 minutes so far, and since I can be distractible, I prefer to limit how much I can burn things with the auto-off timer feature. It’s probably a good choice for anyone with distractibility or memory problems to prevent fires. However, the top-only heat elements mean that, while the bottom of things gets *cooked*, it doesn’t really get *browned* unless you flip it halfway through. That’s why they don’t call this model a toaster even though you can toast in it, just one side at a time. So, what have I made with it? A surprising variety of things. From left to right, fries, roasted red bell pepper and onions, and an Aidells chicken burger; a loaf of artisan bread; crisped tortillas for tostadas; panko pork and vegetables; and oatmeal-raisin cookies. You can see on the cookies that, unlike in the oven, you need not worry about the bottom of the cookies burning and sticking to the pan; they are cooked all the way through but the underside isn’t brown, only the top. If I wanted the bottom brown too I could have flipped them for a minute or two. I did flip everything else pictured (except the bell pepper and onions) for even browning. The bread was the biggest surprise and delight, as I love to make small loaves frequently so I always have fresh bread, and during summer I hate to turn on the big oven for half an hour or more, just for a small loaf. I actually made two loaves that day as an experiment. The first one got a bit too brown and crisp on the top and was off-white (though fully cooked) on the bottom, in for 20 minutes at 400° - it also was flatter because it only had a 30 minute final rise before baking, but this one pictured rose for an hour, and was baked on parchment paper in the elevated basket instead of on the flat metal sheet. But the important thing was that I put it in at 375° for 12 minutes, at which point the outside was fully set; then I flipped it over and gave it ten more minutes, thus browning the underside too. It wasn’t too crispy-crusted to slice well, but it had a very satisfying snap when biting into the crust. I can imagine making perfect banh mi rolls in this oven. This was a fairly wet dough, not quite as wet as the NYT no-knead recipe but close. Other than a few cooking classes, I had never used a convection oven before. It really cuts down on cooking time and temperature settings. If you have used them, you won’t have as much adjusting to do with this. One thing I saw mentioned in another review was a loud noise and the buckling of a baking tray. This happened to me but after the tray cooled down it snapped back into the former flatness, and it didn’t affect what I was cooking at all. I’ve had flat pans do this under high heat, especially from one direction only, in a regular oven, so it didn’t alarm me, that is how metals can react to sudden and rapid heating, certain metals more than others (thin aluminum does it more than steel). If it really bothers you, I’m sure you could find a thicker steel pan to use in this oven, but since there’s no lasting damage, I don’t fuss about it. By the way, air-fried French fries are really unappetizing. Crispy outside, sure, but too dry and flavorless inside. Cuisinart recommends spraying oil on starchy things to keep them from sticking to the basket or pan, but you also really need some fat for flavor and to keep the food from drying out. So don’t think this is going to be the answer to your low-fat diet. (I also can’t stand air-popped popcorn; in fact, I have recently rediscovered popping corn in oil in a saucepan on the stove, the way we did before microwaves and popping machines, and it’s actually delicious if you use good olive oil — even without adding butter! I was shocked.) If I were buying it again, I might wait till I could afford the more expensive ones with 4 dials and top and bottom heat elements so I could avoid the split-time food-flipping, but I didn’t have more than $100 to spend and now that I’ve figured out how to brown the whole item, I’m happy not to have had to shell out $200-$300. I might also like a better-insulated one, because this does warm up the immediate area and can be hot to the touch; but it’s usually not on for long, and the heat dissipates quickly once it’s turned off.

Review for AFR-25: I was vacillating between this, the Ninja Foodi Air Fry Toaster, and the Dash Air Fry Toaster. The others were over $150 and took up too much counter space, so I opted to try this one. Don't be fooled by the label of "Air Fryer". This does everything! Yes you can toast in it too, you just have to flip the bread. It is a wonderful device, runs quiet, and shouldn't be difficult to keep clean. I invested in a silicone mat for the bottom of the unit and I line the baking sheet in foil. For items that do not need crisping, I do not use the fryer basket. So far I have warmed up pizza, baked typical freezer to oven goodies, and baked chicken (from frozen). It is an attractive unit and replaced two kitchen appliances on my counter (an egg shaped air fryer and a toaster oven). I love that you can see what is cooking. The tray is a little cumbersome to slide out but it doesn't impact my rating because a set of small silicone tongs will do the trick. I cannot recommend this little powerhouse enough. Hopefully it works for many years! Great investment for $76 here on AMZ!

It does its job and it does it well. Simple for those of us who like things that way. Set temp and set time. I don't rely on the built in timer so I use it more as an on/off switch. Bigger things will need to be flipped if browning is what you're after. To clean, pour some water into the tray, turn it on to 250 for 10 minutes and then toss the remaining water out after scrubbing the tray. cooked on stuff on the mesh scrubs off easily too. Oven innards can then be wiped down with a towel. The same method can be used to turn it into a steamer, though I cover the food with a bowl to keep the tops from drying out.

I've had the plastic, the glass and after much deliberation went with the stainless steel.This quiet, light weight, bad boy cooks really fast! I wanted simplicity,timer and heat, not a bunch of accessories, with a view. This model fits the bill.I did have buy a roasting rack and a crisper at a frugal price which has proved to be perfect companions for this model. I've cooked chickens wings, shrimp, steaks ( well done and still juicy), hamburgers, hot links, and various frozen items which have tasted better than previous air fryers. I've followed the models instructions and haven't had any problems. Only had it about 2 months so durability is a question, but I'm so pleased with it, I would try this model again if it failed. To start, depending on your taste, I would not cook anything over 400 and go easy on time like 10 min to start... it cooks that fast! If you want pizza -flatbread will work...after cutting in half! Non stick stray a must! A damp paper towel easily cleans unit when cooled and unplugged.

I bought this to try out a hot air fryer. So far, I am not in love with it, but it does "good enough" for me for now. Here is what I think are the good and the bad. Good: 1. It has a 12" footprint. I set mine on a 12" floor tile, to protect my counter top. 2. It is quiet, less noise than my microwave. 3. Although there are warnings about it getting hot on the outside, the door gets hot, but the top and sides, just warm. 4. It cooks very quickly, as other reviews have mentioned. 5. There are 2 positions for the cooking tray. 6. The fan TURNS OFF when the door opens, a very nice feature, helps keep the heat inside the appliance and not in my face. Bad: 1. It has a dial you turn for the temperature and the timer. I really dislike this because I have more things get too done, relying on the timer. The timer is a spring driven mechanism where an LED like on my microwave and coffee pot would be more accurate, anything but these springs. I have the same set up on my toaster oven, and I hate it. 2. There is no "slide out" for the trays, and there is very little room for a hand to grab the tray. I added 2 pictures (sorry for the rotation, web page did it) to show how I used tongs to pull out the tray, and what using a potholder looks like. 3. There is no bottom heating element, so the cook has to compensate by flipping the food. 4. The trays are "easy to clean" but not "dishwasher safe", who knows why a manufacturer would think that is OK? Easy to clean is relative, not fact based. I have been VERY careful not to find out what Cuisinart thinks is easy to clean. I've used both foil and parchment paper to line the basket, so mine IS easy to clean. I hope this review is helpful, If I can update it in a few weeks, I will. I know it can be hit or miss when purchasing online. OBTW Can someone tell me which soundbar with wireless woofer is a good model? I am returning one, dread going through all the pages and reading reviews. Amazon COULD make searches easier, right?