COSORI Air Fryer & Smart Air Fryer Reviews & Comparisons

Pros

• Faster cooking times and safer than conventional deep oil fryers
• Requires less oil to cook (often zero) which means healthier and lower fat meals
• Dishwasher safe, non-stick cooking basket

Cons

• Large body style may take up a lot of room on the counter
• Preset cooking time may vary from actual cooking time (trial and error will help you learn what temp / time is best, based on personal preferences)

9/17/19 UPDATE – COSORI recently launched their COSORI smart air fryer. If you want to see info on that model and a comparison of the COSORI smart air fryer vs. their regular air fryer click here.

Cosori Design

The design of the Cosori air fryer is pretty sleek, for a large kitchen appliance. The body is made of a matte-black brushed plastic.

It’s a bit bulky, but the style is simple, intuitive and with modern looking touch-screen controls that light up when activated.

The Controls

The display of the Cosori air fryer may look overwhelming at first, but once you understand the icons, it’s pretty manageable.

In the middle of the screen is the:

• Internal temperature
• Cooking time remaining (in minutes)
• Manual adjusters (temperature and time)
• Keep warm
• Power on / off
• Start or pause a cooking cycle

There is also a text that will illuminate when the basket is “READY” for cooking or when you may need to shake it to prevent foods from sticking.

To the left and right of the center display are the pre-programmed presets and a preheat button.

The Presets

The Cosori air fryer comes with 11 different presets. These presets automatically set the temperature and cooking time, making it easier to ensure that each item is fully cooked, but not overdone.

The Cosori presets include:

1. Steak
2. Chicken
3. Seafood
4. Shrimp
5. Bacon
6. Frozen Foods
7. French Fries
8. Vegetables
9. Root Vegetables
10. Bread
11. Desserts

How does it work?

Unlike traditional deep fryers which require foods to be fully submerged in hot oil to cook, an air fryer uses smart air circulation technologies and minimal oil usage for faster, lower fat cooking.

Due to the improved air circulation, you can expect lower cooking times and fast preheating times (less than 5 minutes) for any of the food presets.

Size & Dimensions

The Cosori air fryer is available in two different sizes — 5.8 quarts and 3.7 quarts, based on the size of your household and / or how much food you want to prepare at once.

Unless you’re mostly cooking for one, I think most homes would strongly prefer the 5.8 capacity version. Even at 5.8 quarts the COSORI air fryer isn’t super large. I felt like it was enough room to cook for 2-5 people, but not much more than that.

The Basket

The square basket design, standard with either size fryer, allows for a bit more capacity compares to a traditional round basket style.

Parts & Accessories

• 2-part basket: The air fryer comes with a 2-part basket insert that makes it easy to add and remove food. You can add the oil directly to the bottom basket and the top basket is where you add the food.
• Cookbook: This book contains 100 recipes to get started with the Cosori air fryer, including recipes from all categories (meats, vegetables, desserts).

Cosori Smart Air Fryer vs. Regular Cosori Air Fryer

September 17, 2019 Update – Cosori recently launched the smart home enabled version of their air fryer and sent us one to test.

So everyone’s big question…what’s the difference between the Cosori smart air fryer vs. the regular Cosori air fryer?

The biggest and really only difference is the smart integration. Functionally…at least in terms of size, cooking technology, basket, etc…the smart version appears to be identical to the regular Cosori air fryer.

Same size, same materials, same aesthetic, and same performance.

The only difference is you’re able to control the air fryer using your phone and other smart home enabled devices if you have the smart version.

Smart Air Fryer Features

Here’s some of the extra things that smart Cosori air fryer can do:

• Schedule, monitor, and adjust cooking in the air fryer from your phone
• You can schedule cook times by up to 4 hours in advance
• Manage custom recipes within the app
• Download recipes directly from the app, which include pre-programmed cooking times (very nice when you’re first starting to use the air fryer)
• Alexa enabled so you can control via your voice on Amazon Echo devices or with the Amazon Alexa app

How difficult is the setup?

• Plug it in
• Download the app
• Activate your device via the app

The process was simple and fast. It took less than 3 minutes.

Overall, the app is a pretty cool addition and easy to use. Being able to cook and monitor remotely is a big win. This gives you the flexibility to drop food in the basket a few hours early and have your food cooked just in time for your return.

I also like that you can find recipes directly in the app and already have their pre-programmed cooking times / temps ready to go.

The first time or two that you cook something new in the air fryer it can be a little bit of a guessing game to get it perfect. Having these pre-programmed modes is a helpful addition.

While the smart Cosori air fryer is a bit more expensive than the regular model I think for many consumers the extra cost can be worthwhile.

Cooking Tests

To gauge the full performance of the Cosori air fryer, we decided to put it to the test at our in-home kitchen.

We ran multiple tests on this air fryer, including the following foods:

• Steaks
• Bratwursts
• Onion / pepper vegetable medley
• Frozen chicken nuggets
• French fries

This shows a good range of capabilities and shows how Cosori aims to replace a variety of different cooking tools by the use of a single air fryer.

Steaks

Grilling steaks proved to be a bit more difficult than expected. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the searing capability, but for an air fryer, it was still pretty good.

We definitely cooked it a bit too long, so you really want to watch it on your first attempt.

Cook at 400 degrees for 8-12 minutes, depending on how done you want it.

Bratwurst

Cooking brats was amazingly easy and now my preferred method of cooking for all future brats and dogs.

It was super simple. Put them in at 370 degrees for 12-15 minutes flipping halfway through.

Super easy, way less mess than cooking on stove and still get surprisingly brown.

Vegetables

For our vegetable test, I made a simple medley of onions and peppers. We ran this test twice since our first test didn’t seem to be done enough.

For our first attempt, we cooked the veggies for 8 minutes at 350 degrees, however, they were still very al dente at that time.

If you want the more done (and done in foil) cooking at 400 degrees for 12-14 minutes is about right (depending on how done you want them).

Frozen Chicken Nuggets

We also ran a quick “frozen foods” test, with the family-favorite… the chicken nugget. These were also quite easy to cook and it basically operated like a small oven.

We cooked them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes (they were pre-cooked, so they really just needed heat and to get brown).

Like the brats, we tossed them around at about the halfway mark, and we were good to go.

French Fries

For our last test, we cooked up a classic batch of french fries. We used raw potatoes that we cut into home style fries. We coated them with just a bit of olive oil to help them crisp up.

Like any good french fry, they were crisp on the outside, warm on the inside.

The taste wasn’t identical to normal french fries, but it wasn’t bad either. The biggest thing I learned is you don’t want to overfill the basket.

I tried to cook 3 raw potatoes worth of fries at once. That was a mistake. Some got a little more done than others.

If you’re cooking fries you want to fill the bottom of the basket, but make sure they don’t stack too high, otherwise you’re likely to end up with fries that are over done.

Setup & Usability

The overall setup of the Cosori air fryer is simple and intuitive.

1. Plug in the air fryer.
2. Select cooking preset or manually select temp and cooking time (most foods do better if you pre-heat it)
3. Put your food in (a little cooking spray on the bottom can help some foods)
4. Hit start.
5. Flip or shake halfway through (depending on the food)

Is the Cosori Air Fryer a good value?

I would say that the Cosori air fryer is an excellent value.

It certainly is one of the larger kitchen appliances, but it replaces the jobs of many other kitchen tools and is easy to use.

The Cosori air fryer can be used to cook a variety of foods, using different cooking styles.

The cooking speed perhaps impressed me the most. Foods that would take significantly longer in an oven or on a stove top are done much faster in the air fryer.

There are also 11 different presets which helps to take the guesswork out of knowing which setting is appropriate for each food.

Cosori Air Fryer Specifications

Should You Buy the Cosori Air Fryer?

I would recommend the Cosori if you’re looking for the following in an air fryer:

• Simple presets: This Cosori air fryer comes with 11 presets for different foods, which does make it easier to know how long to cook certain foods and at what temperature.
• Manual controls: You can also manually set this air fryer at any temperature anywhere from 170 to 400 degrees.
• Square basket design: The square basket design also allows for a big larger capacity than what you’d find on other air fryers with round baskets.

Want more information? Click here to learn more or to buy the Cosori Air Fryer here.

ChangeLog

• April 2, 2021 – Corrected an error on the width of the basket size of the 3.7 quart version.
• September 17, 2019 – Initial version of the page was published.