Sharp Dual Drawer Air Fryer Review: Compact and Budget-Friendly

Twin-drawer air fryers are usually massive home equipment that take up a correspondingly massive chunk of counter area. However that doesn’t essentially must be the case. Sharp’s twin drawer air fryer has an 8L capability, however due to its squarer form, it makes use of useless counter area in entrance to offer extra cooking capability whereas utilizing much less of the size of your counter.

At 37.5cm broad, it’s greater than 10cm shorter than the Ninja FlexDrawer, though it’s simply a few centimetres shorter than the Ninja Foodi Max Twin Drawer, and each of those have a barely bigger, 10L capability.

Design and Construct

• Dishwasher-safe drawers and trays
• Straightforward-to-reach controls
• Touchscreen buttons want stress

The air fryer is black plastic, with a gloss end for the management panel and a matt end for the physique. Its dimensions are stunning: 37.5cxm broad, 36cm deep and solely 30cm excessive, which implies that it gained’t dominate your counter. It sits towards the wall and, even with its depth, leaves a good quantity of pull-out area in entrance. Its decrease top implies that the management panel isn’t as near the underside of ordinary kitchen cupboards – which will be a problem with some air fryer fashions.

The management panel slants down from the highest to about 27cm from the underside of the air fryer, so it’s straightforward for even a shorter individual to entry. It’s straightforward to make use of as nicely. The panel itself has a reminder strip above it so you’ll be able to simply reference which auto setting pertains to which perform: be it fries, hen, fish or pizza.

There are two digital panels, which present the perform you’ve chosen for a particular drawer, together with time and temperature settings, with a sync/twin button between them. Under every panel is a set of touchscreen buttons to pick the varied programmes, time, and temperature for the drawer. You do want a contact of stress on these buttons – extra so than normal – which may throw you slightly a primary.  

Under the management panel are the 2 4L drawers, which sit side-by-side. They’ve chunky handles with a silver trim, and a pleasant pull-out and click-back motion.  

Contained in the drawers are two crisper trays, that are non-stick and dishwasher-safe. These trays, which have a high-quality, easy non-stick floor, have very good black rubber toes at every of the 4 corners, which look as if they’ll stand the check of time.

You additionally get a handbook and the guarantee. The handbook is slightly bit skinny. Whereas it provides you an summary of the varied capabilities, there’ll nonetheless be some trial and error concerned.

The cable shouldn’t be enormously lengthy, so that you’ll must situate the air fryer comparatively close to to an influence level.

Efficiency and Options

• 12 pre-set programmes
• 8 cooking modes
• Twin-sync capability

Set-up is straightforward: website the air fryer, wash out the drawers and trays, after which plug it in. We’d advise studying by way of the handbook first because the controls are usually not completely self-explanatory.  

There are two methods to decide on the cooking perform for the drawers. You should utilize one of many preset settings by way of the auto menu, or you need to use the perform button.

The auto menu has twelve presets: fries, beef, vegetable, complete hen, bacon, fish, potato, pizza, hen nuggets, prawns, snacks, and toasted sandwich. Select one and it’ll provide a set time and temperature. Then simply press begin to start the programme. You’ll be able to alter the time and temperature of those presets if you want, though you’ll be able to’t increase the cooking time by greater than 30% to forestall meals from burning.

Alternatively, you need to use the perform button. You might have the choice of air fry, bake, roast, cook dinner from frozen, dehydrate, hold heat, pre-heat, or reheat. You select certainly one of these capabilities, then use the temp/time button to decide on the warmth and time, after which simply press begin.

The central sync/twin button lets you copy a setting from one drawer to the opposite. When you set the perform and time on the left drawer, you’ll be able to then copy it to the proper. Nevertheless, if you happen to begin cooking, urgent the sync/twin button will set each the cooking capabilities on every drawer to complete on the identical time.   

There’s a little bit of a studying curve to the controls. We had a battle determining tips on how to cancel a programme after we unintentionally copied it from one drawer to a different when attempting to set the cooking end occasions to synchronise.

We began off with cooking a burger and fries in separate drawers, adopted by toasting a burger bun. The fries have been cooked on auto-menu A01, they usually got here out golden, crispy and sizzling. The burger was cooked on the air fry setting at 180°C for 20 minutes, and the consequence was good: sizzling, juicy on the within and crispy on the surface. We synchronised the cooking occasions, so the programmes completed collectively.     

The bun was cooked on A12 for a toasted sandwich, although just for 5 minutes, and it got here out golden and crunchy. 

Subsequent, we cooked hen legs and roast potatoes: the hen legs on A04 and the potatoes on A07. The hen legs have been crispy and steaming sizzling, and the potatoes have been crispy, sizzling and fluffy inside, though we needed to take them out earlier than the cooking time ended for an ideal consequence.

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Alex Greenwood / Foundry

Subsequent was a toasted cheese sandwich on A12 – the consequence was crispy, the cheese very melted, and we felt that we most likely ought to have taken it out slightly earlier.

We additionally cooked a single breaded cod fillet on the air fryer setting at 180°C for 20 minutes, and the sheer comfort of simply popping it, setting the programme and never returning till the beep was marvellous. The fish crumb was crispy, the fish inside sizzling and never overcooked.     

The cooking programme pauses mechanically whenever you pull the drawer out, after which restarts whenever you exchange it.

We have now to say that cooking with the Sharp twin drawer air fryer is simple and handy. You should utilize only one drawer, or use each for various meals, and set them to finish cooking on the identical time.

However there’s a worth to be paid for its compact design and that’s capability and suppleness. Every drawer solely has 4L of capability and, sadly, this implies which you could’t get a typical grocery store garlic baguette right into a drawer with out chopping it in half. In a full 8L drawer, you’ll be able to have a tendency to suit such a baguette by inserting it diagonally.

Equally, we discovered you’ll be able to solely match about 5 hen legs right into a 4L drawer (or ten if you happen to double up with the second drawer), so that is very a lot an air fryer for a smaller family or a busy family the place meals must be ready in small portions regularly.    

It’s additionally extremely straightforward to wash. The non-stick coating on each the drawers and the trays, and their smaller dimension, makes washing up far simpler as a result of cooking particles doesn’t adhere to the floor. We didn’t even hassle placing them within the dishwasher.  

Worth and Availability

When you can handle with a dual-drawer air fryer that has a decrease capability than Ninja fashions, the Sharp mannequin is a superb purchase. Though it has an RRP of £169.99, it’s accessible for a lot much less. On the time of writing, Home equipment Direct has it for simply £99. It’s additionally accessible from Robert Dyas for £122.99 and from Debenhams for £124.99.

The newest 10L twin zone Ninja Foodi Max (see our evaluation) is round £170-£200, so the Sharp mannequin is superb worth. However, if you happen to’d prefer to see the way it compares to different air fryers we’d suggest, take a look at our round-ups of the most effective air fryers, the most effective Ninja air fryers and, for extra cooking capability, the most effective air fryer ovens.

Do you have to purchase the Sharp twin drawer digital air fryer?

We actually just like the Sharp twin drawer 8L digital air fryer with sync end. It’s worth, and it matches the life-style of a smaller, busy family that doesn’t want a whole 8L drawer on a regular basis however could need to cook dinner both smaller meals or smaller meals with two varieties of meals in numerous drawers. We additionally really feel this air fryer would swimsuit a single occupancy family, and never overwhelm a smaller galley kitchen.

The one draw back is that there are going to be some objects you could battle to suit inside one of many drawers, however total, it is a actually good air fryer that may swimsuit a sure sort of family completely.