Salter Aerogrill Review
Combines a generously sized air fryer with a powerful grill
Verdict
Salter’s Aerogrill combines a generously sized air fryer with a powerful grill, and throws in a temperature probe for good measure. It offers a huge range of temperatures, and feels particularly chunky and well made, yet it costs far less than other more straightforward air fryers.
Pros
- Air fryer and grill with large six-litre capacity
- Good cooking performance with high maximum temperature
- Surprisingly low power use
Cons
- Temperature probe a bit confusing
- Cooking can be a little uneven
Availability
- UKRRP: £90
- USAunavailable
- Europeunavailable
- Canadaunavailable
- Australiaunavailable
Introduction
Regular air fryers are a great way to cut down on fat – and energy use – but many top out at around 200°C. However, meats, fish and some other foods can benefit from shorter cooking at higher temperatures, which often means you’ll need to pan-sear or grill. Salter’s Aerogrill offers a solution. Combining air-frying with a powerful grill, it can also bake, roast, and even dehydrate fruits. It offers a monster 265°C maximum temperature, too.
Design and features
- Chunky and heavy, but quite stylish
- Relatively simple controls
- Useful temperature probe
The Salter Aerogrill doesn’t look like most air fryers. Despite its large six-litre capacity, it’s comparatively wide and squat. It’s heavy, too, seemingly made from bullet-proof black plastic and brushed steel. On the top front, a touch-sensitive panel offers control over the grilling level, temperature and cooking time. Its function buttons also let you switch between air crisping, roasting, baking and dehydration mode.
Open up the grill and you’ll see a deep and wide non-stick roasting bowl, together with a removable food tray. Salter’s manual doesn’t explain what the two raised bars at either side of this are for. In the top section of the grill, a removable steel mesh serves to stop splashes from reaching the hot element. This mesh feels a bit flimsy, but otherwise the impression is of great build quality throughout.
A couple of neat touches help reinforce this feeling of quality. Sucker feet at the front help keep the Aerogrill planted – avoiding it skating off a countertop if it gets a knock. I also noticed that its front handle stayed cool even after long periods of cooking. This is an easy cooker to keep clean – its bowl, tray and splash guard are all dishwasher safe, and the rest of the unit just needs a regular wipe down.
Some air fryers have bewildering buttons, seemingly with a different mode for anything you’d ever want to cook in them, but despite its versatility, the Salter Aerogrill keeps things relatively simple. To grill, turn it on, select an intensity from low to max, then dial up the cooking time and press the power button again. You’ll need to wait a minute or two for it to reach temperature, after which it’ll tell you to add your food. Load it up carefully and close the lid to start cooking.
Over to the right of its control panel, the Salter Aerogrill has icons to select other cooking modes. Each one has a default temperature, so you just need to set an appropriate cooking time, preheat and add food. I quickly got the hang of using the Aerogrill’s default programmes, but you can also customise things to your liking. Its grill temperatures are fixed, but in other modes you can tweak the heat and times up or down to your liking.
The Salter Aerogrill has one more trick up its sleeve. It comes with a temperature probe that plugs into the 3.5mm micro jack on the front panel. Stick it into thicker cuts of meat, set your desired internal temperature, then dial up the cooking programme you want. When the centre of your food hits the temperature you selected, the grill will shut down – it’s a great way to avoid overcooking food, while still making sure it’s safe to eat. It’s a similar feature to that on the rival Ninja AG651UK.
My only criticisms of the design and features are pretty mild. This fryer lacks a ‘shake’ reminder, which would be particularly helpful when you’re grilling as you’ll need to flip most foods at least once. There’s also no handle directly attached to its food bowl, so shaking involves oven gloves and great care. I found the food tray’s intricate vents and ridges a little hard to clean thoroughly by hand, but they tended to come up clean from the dishwasher.
Performance
- Extremely hot cooking
- Versatile, high-quality results
- Surprisingly low power use
In practice, the Salter Aerogrill seems to live up to its promise as a versatile cooking device. I prepared a range of foods, from halloumi kebabs, burgers and sausages, through to frozen chips and hash browns. The results were generally very good, and in some cases exceptional.
Kebabs were cooked quite nicely when I balanced their sticks across the mystery rails in the food tray. I grilled thick quarter pounders for my children but, as a vegetarian myself, was unnerved that they were pinkish and juicy when following the suggested cooking time – I tacked on a few extra minutes to be sure, and resolved to use the temperature probe next time.
In theory, cooking with the probe should be simple, but I didn’t get on with it. For a start, the Aerogrill doesn’t seem to show whether cooking has stopped because your food is up to temperature, or simply because the timer ran out. I found myself again adding time to be on the safe side. A real-time temperature readout would have been reassuring, and would give you a fallback way to ensure proper cooking, but unfortunately you’re left guessing to some extent.
While most air fryers will cook corn on the cob, it’s rarely browned along its length – usually just at either end. The Aerogrill did a much more even job thanks to its grill function, although even with regular turning the corn was a little overdone on the recommended Max setting.
I was particularly impressed with four thick sausages, brushed lightly with oil, which were cooked to perfection. That said, I had noticed during cooking that they were grilling unevenly, with those towards the centre of the tray cooking far quicker than those around the edge. When grilling it seems especially important to turn and redistribute items regularly for the best results.
There’s not much noise from this device’s fans – I measured 37.0dB at 15cm, falling to 31.5dB from one metre away. I was a little surprised, given that its heating element is rated at 1,750 watts, that the Aerogrill didn’t use more power overall. During the preheating phase I measured peak consumption of just over two kilowatts, settling back to just under that benchmark. However, once warm, the element cycles on and off. After 12 minutes of low grilling the Aerogrill had consumed 0.19 kilowatt hours (kWh). Nine minutes of high grilling burned through 0.24kWh. If you pay 30p per kWh for electricity, that’s roughly 6-7p per meal.
It’s worth mentioning that, like other countertop ovens and fryers, the Aerogrill kicks out a lot of heat. It won’t warm up the room too much, but you might want to ensure you point its exhaust vent away from food cupboards, fruit bowls, houseplants and the like.
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Should you buy it?
If you want a cheap and versatile way to grill, roast and air-fry, the Salter Aerogrill will hit the spot and deliver great food
If you want smart controls or the versatility of two baskets, you’ll need to look elsewhere
Final Thoughts
The Salter Aerogrill looks good, feels indestructible, and comes with a strong set of features, yet it costs less than £100. It’s fairly easy to use and it produces good results. I wasn’t convinced by its temperature probe, and I’ve tested other air fryers that cook food more evenly, but if you’re looking for a versatile, healthier way to prepare food, this is a budget choice that punches well above its weight. If you’re interested in something different, check out our guide to the best air fryers.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every air fryer we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main air fryer for the review period
We cook real food in each air fryer, making chips, frying sausages and cooking frozen hash browns. This lets us compare quality between each air fryer that we test.
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FAQs
Potentially. Air fryers are smaller, so they’re quicker to heat up, plus their heating elements draw less electricity. You’re likely to save energy compared to cooking identical food in the oven, but you can fit much more in an oven – for big meals like the Sunday roast, your oven might be cheaper to run.
It can be. You’ll generally use less fat, and much of the oil will pool below the cooking tray.
Full specs
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Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
