I tried Tefal's take on a dual zone air fryer, and it's perfect for cooking family-sized meals

If you’re feeding a family, a dual zone air fryer is the type that’s most likely to give you the cooking capacity you need. And while the combined size of the drawers offers plenty of space to feed several hungry mouths, often with these models, each drawer isn’t all that big. So you miss out on being able to cook bigger things that would easily fit into a large single-zone air fryer, like a whole chicken.

Tefal currently only makes one dual zone air fryer and the brand has chosen to split its 8.3 litre capacity into a 5.2 litre drawer alongside a 3.1 litre drawer. It’s not the first brand to do this, but even the best Ninja air fryers have yet to feature this uneven split, and this Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer & Grill was my first experience with one.

As a home economist who has reviewed the best air fryers on the market, I was keen to try this model to see whether there really is much benefit to the uneven split. Or, if during everyday use, it felt more like a gimmick. I tried the model that includes a grill function, but it’s worth pointing out that it’s also available at a slightly cheaper price without the grill. Read on to see why the uneven size drawers won me over.

Ninja Foodi MAX 15-in-1 specifications

• RRP: £189.99 (black)/ £199.99 (stainless steel)
• Dimensions: H:30.5 x W:41.8 x D:40.2cm
• Modes available: Air fry/ grill
• Presets: Fries, chicken, vegetables, fish, dessert, dehydrate, manual, grill
• Dishwasher safe? Yes
• Maximum temperature: 200C
• Maximum timer: 60 minutes

My first impressions of the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer

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Like most dual zone air fryers, the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer is a chunky appliance with a big footprint, so you’ll need to make sure you have the spare worktop space to accommodate it. I was sent the stainless steel finish, which is quite shiny and I think the black might look a bit more subtle, plus the black is also cheaper.

The larger drawer on the left comes with a sturdy ridged griddle-style plate that sits in the base. I should point out that the left is the only side that offers the grill function. Meanwhile, the smaller right side comes with a more standard air fryer perforated crisper plate.

I like the flat control panel, it’s touch-sensitive and easy to clean. It’s relatively self-explanatory to use and while it doesn’t offer any cooking functions other than air fry or grill, there are some presets for foods like vegetables and fries. These are especially useful if you’re an air fryer newbie, as they offer a good starting point for time and temperature selections.

Adjusting the time and temperature is easy using the corresponding plus and minus buttons. And if you’re cooking on both sides, a sync finish button will ensure everything is ready to plate up at the same time no matter the difference in cook times.

It also comes with a small recipe book that includes cooking charts for some basic foods, which is helpful when getting to know the air fryer.

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How does the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer perform?

First things first, I wanted to use the big drawer to its maximum capacity. So I air fried a whole 1.5kg chicken. I used a recipe for roast chicken in the accompanying recipe book, it suggests 50 minutes at 160C for a 1.3kg chicken. But I set the timer to 60 minutes to be on the safe side, since my chicken was bigger.

As is typical when air frying a whole chicken, the recipe suggests cooking it upside down for the first half and then turning it breast side up for the second half of the cook. Alongside the chicken, in the smaller drawer I placed halved tomatoes.

To make them easier to remove, I used baking paper under the tomatoes and then selected the vegetable preset. This automatically adjusted the settings to air fry at 180C for 20 minutes.  I pressed the sync finish button, making sure both sides would be ready to plate up together. There’s no automatic preheat for the air fryer setting, it just starts cooking immediately.

With no reminder to turn or shake during cooking, I had to set a timer on my phone so I’d remember to turn the chicken. And there’s a bit of an art to turning over a hot whole chicken, but once you find the right utensils to help, it’s not too tricky.

Being able to fit a whole chicken into one side of the air fryer is super useful. The end result was excellent, crispy golden skin with moist and juicy meat. I served it with the perfectly roasted tomatoes and some Mexican style rice – an impressive but low effort weeknight dinner.

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Let’s not forget that while the bigger side has its benefits, the smaller side is also super useful. When cooking small or individual portions, I felt comforted by the fact that the smaller side would use less energy. Like the time I wanted to cook just one frozen bean burger.

At first though, I struggled to figure out how to get the smaller right hand side to switch on without also using the left. The manual wasn’t much help here, but eventually I discovered that if I pressed the start/ stop button while on the settings for the left side, this would switch it off so I could programme only the right.

I air fried the bean burger at 200C. It took 20 minutes, which is only five minutes faster than in an oven, but you don’t have to wait for it to preheat, which saves time. Plus, heating up such a small space is way more energy efficient than a big oven. Furthermore, the breadcrumb coating was far better crisped than it would have been in my oven.

I also made use of the smaller side to crisp up a couple of jacket potatoes. They were only small, and I’d already microwaved them for five minutes to cook the inside. I coated the skin in oil and salt, then after just 20 minutes at 200C, they were crisp and delicious.

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The combination of drawers worked really well for fish cakes with homemade chips. As I always do, I soaked the raw chips in cold water for 30 minutes, before drying and coating in oil. Then, I selected the fries preset. This adjusted the settings to 180C for 30 minutes, which is a lower temperature and a longer time than I’d usually air fry chips for.

You can see from the picture that even though I made enough chips for two people, there was still oodles of space in the big basket for easily double the amount. Into the small side went two chunky fish cakes, and I set it to cook for 20 minutes at 190C with a sync finish.

On the fries setting it prompts you to shake them mid way through the cook time, which is helpful. And at the end, the chips were golden and crisp with fluffy centres and they were the perfect accompaniment to the fishcakes that had a crisp, crunchy crumb and a soft centre.

((Image credit: Future))

Arguably a lot of the foods that you might grill, such as sausages or bacon, actually air fry really well. So it’s not very often that I use a grill these days. Nevertheless, sausages seemed like the perfect food to test out the grill function.

For the grilled sausages I referred to guidance in the manual that suggested 200C for 16 minutes. Alongside the sausages, I decided to air fry brussels sprouts that I’d cut in half and spritzed with oil and seasonings. The vegetable preset seemed the obvious choice for the sprouts.

Once again I used the sync finish button. But this time was different because the grill has an inbuilt preheat that takes no less than ten minutes. Once hot, it alerted me to add the sausages. Then, during cooking I gave the sprouts a couple of shakes and turned the sausages a couple of times too.

I was worried the sprouts weren’t cooking quick enough, so tried to increase the cooking temperature mid way through the cook, but failed to figure it out. It was only later that I discovered you can adjust settings during cooking. But you first have to press the start/ stop button which will pause cooking while you make adjustments.

The grilled sausages were evenly coloured and nicely cooked. The sprouts were a little firmer than I’d have liked and could have done with either a hotter cook temperature or an extra five minutes, which isn’t the end of the world.

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How does the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer compare?

If you still can’t decide whether to go for two drawers or one, there’s another option in the form of the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer. This huge capacity air fryer features a removable divider so you can use the cooking space as either one large 10.4 litre drawer or divide it in half. When divided, the two zones are completely independent, making this one of the most flexible air fryers you can buy. The catch is that you’ll have to find an extra £70 if you buy it at full price.

Alternatively, if budget is your biggest priority, it’s worth looking at the Lakeland Dual Basket Air Fryer with Easy View. It’s got almost the same total capacity as the Tefal, and while it does lack any functions other than air fry, it makes up for this with a price tag that’s frequently below £100.

Should you buy the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer?

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In my opinion, the combination of a larger cooking zone alongside a smaller one is arguably more useful than two even cooking zones. And this is one of the main reasons to buy this particular air fryer. That said, it depends on the size of your household and the types of foods you like to cook.

I’m not sure how useful the grill function is, like I said, you can air fry most foods that you might grill. So you could save a few pennies and opt for this model without the grill function. In comparison to other dual zone air fryers on the market, it is pricey. But I have seen it reduced as low as £130. And if you can get it on sale then it will, quite obviously, be much better value for money.

About this review, and the reviewer

After completing a Home Economics degree, Helen went on to work for the Good Housekeeping Institute and has been reviewing home appliances ever since. She lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire in the UK. She is now freelance and draws on her wealth of experience to review a huge variety of home appliances.

Helen used the Tefal Easy Fry Dual Air Fryer in her own home for a week. She cooked a variety of foods for herself and her husband, to see whether this air fryer is a worthwhile investment.