Fritaire Self-Cleaning Glass Bowl Air Fryer review: impressive results, awkward washing-up

RRP at time of testing: £179 | Check price at Amazon, Peter Tyson, Tesco or Fritaire directly

Our verdict

Glass air fryers appeal to anyone who wants to avoid traditional non-stick coatings and see exactly what dinner is doing. The Fritaire adds a PFAS-, BPA- and Teflon-free cooking chamber, plus a rotisserie and tumbling basket. It doesn’t turn chips into a health food, obviously, but the design does offer a more transparent way to cook them.

Look past the slightly novelty-appliance styling and there’s a very capable cooker underneath. In Mumsnet tester Fran’s tests, potatoes, chicken and vegetables came out evenly browned, crisp and properly cooked. No soggy chips. No mysteriously raw middle. It also made her conventional oven look distinctly sluggish.

The box sets out the Fritaire’s four headline features: air frying, tumbling, rotisserie cooking and self-cleaning.

Fran said: “Yes it cooked way faster than when I cook things in the oven. The potato cubes that I usually cook in the oven takes 45mins, but in the air fryer it was 18mins”

The clear bowl earns its keep. Fran could watch food brown without opening the machine and letting the heat escape. Meanwhile, the tumbler kept potatoes moving and the rotisserie produced particularly good chicken. She also found the controls intuitive, despite this being her first air fryer.

Then comes the catch. The glass bowl doesn’t detach from the base, which takes some of the shine off that self-cleaning promise and was Fran’s least favourite feature. She considered £179 fair rather than irresistible and wasn’t convinced she’d choose it over a glass model with a removable container.

If you cook for one or two, enjoy watching dinner take shape and will use the rotisserie or tumbler, there’s plenty to like. If “self-cleaning” means lifting the whole bowl into the sink, this isn’t the low-effort marvel the name suggests.

How we've tested the Fritaire air fryer

Fran tested the Fritaire at home in her one-person household. As an air fryer novice who normally relied on a conventional oven, microwave and hob, she was well placed to judge whether the controls make sense without prior knowledge or a patient friend on standby.

She cooked chicken, vegetables and a frankly comprehensive selection of potatoes: chips, wedges and cubes. Fran assessed speed, evenness, crispness, doneness, build quality, controls, presets, accessories, capacity, worktop footprint and cleaning. Her scores and verbatim comments underpin this review.

Fritaire Self-Cleaning Glass Bowl Air Fryer: What's in the box?

There’s more hardware here than you get with a standard drawer air fryer. Alongside the glass-bowl machine, Fritaire includes an air stand for everyday cooking and dehydrating, a rotating tumbler basket, a rotisserie spit and motor and a grabber for lifting the hot accessories.

Those extras give the Fritaire more range than the simple control panel suggests. They also need somewhere to live between meals, worth remembering if your kitchen drawers are already engaged in territorial warfare.

The assembled Fritaire has a fairly wide footprint, and its extra accessories need separate storage.

How easy is the Fritaire to set up and use?

Fran called the setup “very straightforward”. She gave the controls five out of five and said she “rarely needed the manual, [as it was] mostly intuitive”. That’s a useful endorsement from someone who had never owned an air fryer before.

The touchscreen offers six programmes for steak, chicken, seafood, fries, baking and dehydrating. Manual time and temperature controls cover everything that doesn’t fit neatly under one of those labels. Fran used both routes during testing and didn’t have to wrestle with the controls.

The rotating accessories require a little assembly, but Fran liked both the tumbler and the supplied grabber. That tool is particularly welcome once the basket is hot and full of dinner.

“I liked the tumble basket and the fact that it came with a grabber device to get it out of the machine while still hot”

The glass and metal accessories become properly hot, so some common sense is still required. The grabber makes lifting easier. It does not make freshly heated metal suddenly suitable for bare hands.

Fritaire Self-Cleaning Glass Bowl Air Fryer: what are the cooking results like?

In Fran’s tests, the results were excellent. She marked evenness, crispness and doneness as “Excellent”, awarded overall meal quality five out of five and couldn’t find a food the Fritaire struggled with.

“I wouldn't say it struggles with anything, and I was impressed with the chicken outcome as it has the rotisserie function which I've not seen on any other air fryer before”

The rotisserie turns meat steadily beneath the heater, while the tumbler keeps chips and potato cubes on the move. Everything Fran cooked was ready sooner than it would have been in her oven, without trading speed for patchy browning or an undercooked middle.

“No, everything I cooked was less than the usual time”

That’s one tester’s real-life experience, not a guarantee that every preset will flatter every ingredient. The glass bowl helps here: you can watch the colour develop and intervene before dinner crosses the line from crisp to cremated.

The clear 5-quart bowl lets you watch food cook, though it doesn’t detach from the base.

Are the cooking functions and accessories useful?

Six presets cover the usual air fryer territory, while manual time and temperature controls stop the machine becoming overly opinionated about what counts as chicken or cake. Dehydrate handles lower-temperature jobs. The rotating accessories are the unusual bit.

Fran got the most from the tumbler basket and rotisserie. The basket keeps chips and small pieces moving without the usual halfway shake, while the rotisserie turns chicken and smaller cuts beneath the heater. Both feel useful, not like accessories included chiefly to make the box look busy.

The accessories broaden its repertoire, but you won’t need them for every meal. The air stand is less faff for vegetables or a single portion. There’s also only one chamber, so the Fritaire can’t cook two foods at different temperatures and arrange for them to finish together like a dual-drawer model.

Is the Fritaire self-cleaning air fryer big enough?

The advertised 5-quart capacity works out at roughly 4.7 litres. Fran, cooking for one, called it “Perfect” and rarely needed to work in batches. She thought it would suit individuals, couples and small families, portion sizes permitting.

The round bowl provides plenty of volume but less flat cooking area, so the litre count doesn’t tell the whole story. Food still needs breathing room for hot air to circulate, and the rotisserie suits modest cuts better than an overconfident Sunday roast.

Fran scored the worktop footprint three out of five. At about 34cm wide, it isn’t enormous, but nor will it disappear politely behind the kettle. Measure first, and remember that you need room to lift the lid clear when loading food.

Fran’s potato cubes cooked evenly in 18 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in her oven.

How easy is the Fritaire glass air fryer to clean?

The self-cleaning setting is really a powered soak. Add water and washing-up liquid, run the cycle and the circulating air sends the suds around the glass. Fran found it useful, had no problems with stuck food and rated cleaning highly, sharing: "all was ok, and the machine has a self cleaning function which was useful"

It isn’t a dishwasher in miniature, sadly. The accessories still need attention, and the bowl’s fixed position was Fran’s biggest frustration as “the glass bowl doesn't detach from the bottom of the machine.”

That fixed bowl matters more than it sounds. A removable container can go straight to the sink for soaking, rinsing and the sort of determined scrubbing best kept away from electrical parts. The wash cycle does some loosening, but rival glass air fryers with lift-out containers are easier to handle.

How well made is the Fritaire Self-Cleaning Glass Bowl Air Fryer?

A home test can’t tell us how an appliance will look after five years, but the early signs were good. Fran gave build quality five out of five, found it sturdy throughout repeated use, sharing: “it still felt sturdy after multiplier uses”

The glass bowl feels substantial, and the top-mounted heater and touchscreen stayed reassuringly straightforward. It does need a settled home, though. A large glass vessel isn’t the sort of appliance you want to shuffle carelessly around the worktop every morning.

The clear bowl made it easy for Fran to check browning without opening the fryer.

Is the Fritaire air fryer good value for money?

Fran called the £179 price “fairly priced” and thought its value broadly matched other air fryers she’d seen. The glass bowl, strong results, rotisserie and tumbler offer more than a basic single-drawer model, so you aren’t paying for good looks alone.

She still wasn’t sure she’d buy it herself at full price. The fixed bowl was irritating enough to make removable glass designs like Ninja’s look more practical, while £179 also brings established dual-drawer air fryers into the conversation.

Value comes down to the features you’ll actually use. If a visible, coating-free bowl and small rotisserie sit high on your wish list, the package earns its keep. If easy sink cleaning or two-zone cooking matters more, the price buys more practical choices elsewhere.

Who is the Fritaire air fryer best suited to?

The Fritaire makes most sense for one or two people who like to keep an eye on dinner and fancy rotisserie chicken or automatically tumbled chips. It’s colourful, easy to understand and unusually friendly to beginners. No air-frying apprenticeship required.

Small families can make it work for everyday portions, but it won’t replace a roomy dual-drawer machine when several hungry people need feeding. It’s also a poor match for anyone whose definition of easy cleaning begins with lifting the cooking bowl straight into the sink.

How does the Fritaire compare with other glass air fryers?

Final verdict: is this the glass air fryer for you?

Fran’s cooking results make a persuasive case for the Fritaire. It was quick, intuitive and consistently good with chicken, vegetables and every form of potato she threw at it. The glass bowl makes judging colour easy, while the rotisserie and tumbler earn their cupboard space if you’ll use them.

Fran found the top-mounted touchscreen intuitive, despite being new to air fryers.

The compromise is surprisingly basic: the glass bowl doesn’t detach from the base. The self-cleaning cycle helps, but carrying a removable bowl to the sink would be easier. Fran summed up that push and pull neatly:

"I'm not sure I would, as I have seen other glass air fryers where the glass bowl detaches from the machine which I think would be more useful. But overall this air fryer does a satisfactory job."

At £179, the Fritaire is fairly priced rather than irresistible. Buy it for the excellent cooking results, clear bowl and rotating accessories. Don’t buy it because the words “self-cleaning” have persuaded you that washing-up has finally been abolished.

About the author

Rebecca Roberts (aka Beccy) is our resident lifestyle expert with a practical focus on sleep, wellness and everyday comfort. She’s equally at home tackling frank, NSFW‑adjacent topics as she is road‑testing kitchen appliances, mattresses and vacuums that work for real parents. As a mum of two, she writes with the time‑poor, sleep‑deprived in mind - honest product reviews, realistic routines and products that make parents’ lives easier.

When she’s not at her desk, she’s probably product‑testing with her two helpers, corralling a PTA or walking her two dogs up and down country lanes.

About Mumsnet reviews

All Mumsnet product reviews are written by real parents after extensive research and testing. We work hard to provide honest, independent advice you can trust. We sometimes earn revenue through affiliate links, but this never influences our coverage.

All prices are correct at time of publication.

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