Nordic Air 5.5L Air Fryer

We have tested eleven air fryers over three years and the pattern is boring: the more features a machine has, the less we use it. The Nordic Air is the counter-example. Two months of near-daily cooking, from 4am roast potatoes to a full chicken, and not once did we have to consult a manual.

How we tested

Sixty days of real cooking with a written log: 41 batches of chips or roast vegetables, 9 whole chickens, 14 batches of salmon, and a frankly unreasonable number of reheated leftovers. We measured preheat time, surface temperature at the handle, and how many cycles the non-stick survived before sticking.

Results

Chips come out properly crisp at 190C for 18 minutes with a single shake. Chicken skin browns and the meat stays at 74C in the thigh without drying. The wide, shallow basket is the hidden advantage: more surface area means less stacking, and stacking is what makes bad air fryers bad.

Living with it

The dial is a joy after years of touch panels that need three taps to start. There is no preset for anything, which sounds like a minus until you realise you have four numbers memorised within a week. Cleaning takes about ninety seconds in a sink or goes in the dishwasher.

Where it falls down

It is loud, and it has no timer memory, so switching off at the wall loses your settings. Buy it for the cooking, not the creature comforts.