Cosori Air Fryer 5.5L review: "the £66 gadget that made me an air fryer convert"

Price on writing: £66 | Buy now from Amazon

Our verdict

Is the Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer worth buying? Well, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find another air fryer this good for less than £70, so the answer is a very easy yes. With 11 presets designed to optimally cook everything from chips to chicken, fish to frozen food, and the ability to manually adjust the time and temperature yourself, the Cosori is a versatile and impressive kitchen gadget.

The results are fantastic too; think crispy-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside chips, perfectly melted cheese toasties, and succulent chicken - all ready at a fraction of the time compared to how long they'd take in a conventional oven.

The downsides? It's only a single-basket fryer, so you'd be better going for a dual-basket model if you want to cook two things simultaneously. It's also a bit noisy when in use, and it can be hard to get stubborn grease off of the baskets without a good scrub. Honestly though, these are only minor irritations and the overall value for money easily trumps these issues. It's fair to say I'm a big fan.

How we tested

I put the Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer through its paces in my north London kitchen, whipping up a variety of treats with it including chips, sweet potato fries, fish, veggie burgers, and chicken. I tested it thoroughly over a period of time, rating the air fryer on its set up, ease of use, ease of cleaning, design, value for money, and those all-important results.

• Tested in a four-person household over a two month period

• Used almost daily during testing

• Cross-compared with other air fryers I've tested

Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer: design and style

On first impressions, I was delighted with the Cosori's sleek and relatively compact design. While it's still fairly bulky, it is significantly smaller than oven-style air fryers I've tested out, and it sat nicely on my kitchen worktop. If you wanted to stash it away it in a cupboard, however, you'd need quite a lot of free space; it wouldn't fit alongside my slow cooker and bread maker in my 'gadget' cupboard, so I did need to keep it out on the counter. That said, during the testing period it was used almost daily, so having it on display ready to use actually saved on the faff of moving it about regularly.

Despite its comparatively small size, the Cosori Air Fryer still packed a punch in terms of capacity. With a generous 5.5-litre cooking basket, it comfortably accommodated portions for up to four people. Some may prefer the versatility of a dual-basket air fryer, which allows you to cook two portions at once, but I found a single basket was sufficient enough and this lent to its space-saving qualities.

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Cooking in the Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer: how easy is it to use?

Very easy! It may look intimidating on first glance, but even if you're an air frying novice this gadget is surprisingly simple to get to grips with.

The touchscreen control panel lights up when the air fryer is on and I found it super intuitive to use from the get go. There are 11 presets to choose between on the panel, each depicted with a relevant icon, and they are tailored to cook different food types, including steak, chicken, fish, bacon, chips, veg and more. You can also select the time and temperature manually using the time/temp button and the '+' and '-' icons, which was very easy to do.

The preheat setting takes just five minutes to warm the air fryer up; my oven usually takes about 15 minutes to warm through so I was delighted at the time this shaved off cooking.

The two interlocking baskets were easy to glide in the air fryer and lock in place, and a gentle tug on the handle allowed for simple removal too. Helpfully, pulling the basket out mid-cooking pauses the air fryer automatically and pushing it back in starts the frying again, so you can check on the progress of your food without having to fiddle with the control panel. I liked that there was a safety guard to ensure the two baskets weren't accidentally separated until it was time for them to be cleaned.

And speaking of cleaning, this was also fairly easy to do. Both baskets can either be thrown in the dishwasher or washed by hand. They were more difficult to clean after particularly greasy food, and the design of the top basket made it hard to wash in between the vents in the sides, but on the whole this wasn't too much of a chore.

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Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer: results

After putting the Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer through its paces for over two months, I was thoroughly impressed with the results it produced. To get an accurate measure of how it performed, I tested cooking a variety of foods in it, including everything from chicken, frozen food, veg, cheese on toast, fish, garlic bread, and much more. And, of course, that food that is synonymous with air frying: chips.

Homemade fries made in this gadget were consistently delicious and achieved that coveted golden-brown perfection, and after a little trial and error on timings, it excelled at making crispy-skinned, succulent chicken breasts much quicker than in the oven.

All in all, the Cosori 5.5L Air Fryer didn't disappoint when it came to cooking results, making this a great choice for family homes.

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About the author

Natasha Gregson is a writer and Affiliate Content Editor at Mumsnet with a specialism in kitchen, lifestyle, and home product round-ups and reviews.

With several years of editorial experience under her belt she has written on many topics, covering everything from fashion to health, parenting to entertainment, and has had work featured in national publications including The i Paper and Stylist Magazine.

A keen foodie, she loves nothing more than trying new culinary creations in the kitchen, which often includes testing out and researching the latest time-saving gadgets for Mumsnet.

About Mumsnet Reviews

All Mumsnet product reviews are written by real people after extensive research and testing. We work hard to provide honest and independent advice you can trust. Sometimes, we earn revenue through affiliate (click-to-buy) links in our articles. However, we never allow this to influence our coverage.

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