Is Jamie Oliver's Air Fryer the new Ninja? I put the chef's best to the test

If there’s one man I trust to do an air fryer, it’s Jamie Oliver. The king of easy, speedy 5 (10, 15, and 30) minute meals has collaborated with Tefal to bring an innovative dual-drawer air fryer to the market and he’s launched a cookbook to help you make the most of his recipes too. Dreamy.

The air fryer industry has seen some incredible innovation, even over the past year. The best air fryers are now portable, tall and slim, or, a la Jamie Oliver, perfect for cooking big meals with minimal effort.

Jamie's blend of realism and impressive skills have resulted in a clever air fryer that is, less than succinctly names, the "Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer". The dual-drawer design cleverly offers different sizes for your main and side prep alongside fistfuls of pre-sets. He's packed his Easy Air Fryer Cookbook with tips that will maximise space and the way you air fry. It’s a proper Jamie bish bash bosh of fuss free nosh.

Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer Specifications

Who would the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer suit?

With a 8.3L capacity, the JJamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer markets itself at families. It is big enough to whip up food for up to 6 people (I think you could manage a couple more if needed), but you could also just have the small 3.1L drawer working on its own. That would leave you with space for just one or two and you wouldn’t have to run the whole air fryer. It’s wonderfully versatile.

The two drawers are also a great upgrade if you’re finding that your single drawer air fryer is holding you back. You can opt to cook a main dish in the big drawer with a side in the other, or one big dish across the two, or one dish in each. You open up a whole realm of culinary possibilities by getting a second air fryer drawer, so it’s no surprise that these are fast becoming the most popular style of air fryer.

The pre-sets also make the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer a very easy and very smart investment for beginners. It’s really difficult to mess up cooking in here: the timers and temperatures have all your basic meals covered. You can explore clever sync fish and separate functions between the two drawers when you’re feeling more confident, but it also works well as a basic model. Simplicity is significantly underrated these days.

Unboxing the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer

Let’s get one thing straight, there is nothing small about the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer. The family sized model doesn’t pretend to be anything else. This means that the box it arrives in is big and certainly on the heavy side, but not so much that I think you would struggle to carry this into your house or haul it onto the counter.

All of the packaging for the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer is recyclable, which gets big points from me. There aren’t many brands that have managed completely plastic free boxes and bags, but this is one of the select few. It is a good sign for you, not just because you won’t have a bin full of polystyrene, but because when a brand thinks this carefully about their packaging, chances are high that they’ve thought even more about the design of their air fryer. I knew Jamie would bring something like this to market.

You’ll also spot Jamie Oliver’s new book Easy Air Fryer on the counter. This is part of a special promotional package, but you can buy his book separately. As someone who’s cooked their fair share of food in an air fryer, I would still buy his book. It’s packed with ingenious, delicious meal ideas: think sticky aubergine noodles, chilli con carne meatballs, and mint chocolate chip whoopie pies.

What is the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer like to use?

You’ve probably already guessed that this is easy to use. When you plug in the air fryer and turn it on, you get a wide, clear LED menu. This will show you whether each air fryer basket is on or off; it will offer you a grill or manual setting; and you’ll have an array of pre-set icons running along the top for making fish, chicken, chips, steak and vegetables. Along the bottom, you can adjust the temperature and time. It might sound like a lot, but look at the picture. It’s really simple and — this is the big plus — I don’t need my glasses to use the screen.

Test 1: chips

The first test I put any air fryer through is making chips. Given that fries are quite literally in the name of this appliance, you’d think it would have them perfected. I look for even colouring, a nice crisp outside and fluffy inside too.

The first batch of chips I tested were skinny French fries, then I made chunky homemade chips, and on the next day did sweet potato fries. Each lot, whether it was fresh or frozen, cooked really well. Most people pour their chips in from a freezer bag, so I took this as my main test, and have the average time down as twelve minutes. My big batch of thick frozen chips needed fifteen minutes and the skinny fries only needed ten, but it’s easy to adjust the timer.

Each time, I managed to get a deliciously crispy outside and fluffy, soft inside of the chips. The pre-set perhaps overcooks the chips a little, but that’s the case with lots of air fryers. You learn to adjust your own cooking to suit each air fryer’s style.

Test 2: grilled vegetables

My second test for all air fryers is grilling roasted vegetables. Most models let you choose a vegetables pre-set, which the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer does have. However, I wanted to test out the newer, even more exciting grill function.

I chopped up a mix of pepper, onion, tomato, and courgette, set the air fryer to grilling and left the vegetables to cook. You can see on the outside that I got some delicious, golden brown speckles and bubbles on the outside of the vegetables and that only took ten minutes. For courgette and pepper, this is usually fine.

I bit into the pieces and found they were just as soft and tender as I expected them to be. The onion, which I was a little more apprehensive about, was beautifully sweet. There was still some bite, so I would be tempted to pop these in the other drawer for a little longer to roast, especially if you like your onions soft, but, overall, they made for a delicious array of vegetables.

Test 3: frozen food

Just behind chips, frozen meals are the air fryer’s bread and butter. In a dream world, these are an easy way to whip up a meal in under fifteen minutes, which is exactly what I did in here. I tried to keep things simple, so I pulled out some fish fingers and cooked them in one drawer with my sweet potato chips in the other. I used the fish setting for my fish fingers, chips setting for my chips, and then pressed the button to synchronise cooking so that both elements would be ready at the same time. Sure enough, fourteen minutes later, the air fryer chimed to let me know that my dinner was ready. I didn’t have to lift a finger. It’s brilliant.

Test 4: reheating pizza

Air fryers can also really shine when it comes to giving your food a blast of heat. One of the best ways to test this out is with pizza. So, one night, I bought a supermarket pizza and cooked it in the air fryer. It only took twelve minutes and the base stayed wonderfully crisp with my cheese melted on top. I had to halve it to fit it in the air fryer drawer, but that’s a credit to Jamie’s design. Most air fryers need my pizza to be quartered or even cut into eighths.

I made sure to put half of the air fried pizza aside so that I could test out the air fryer’s reheat capacity. With my willpower tested, the next day rolled around and I popped the second half of the pizza in the air fryer for five minutes at 120. I just wanted it warmed up and crisp, because it had already had a good cook through. The results were delicious. My pizza crust was still fluffy on the inside (in spite of having been through the air fryer twice), but the base had some nice crisp. What really impressed me was just how juicy the vegetables and sauce on top had stayed. At this point, they'd been warmed and cooked and grilled and yet, they weren't floppy and lifeless. It's a great success.

Test 5: chilli

I thought I would also extend the test to something a little different. These days, with the right lining and accessories, you can use your air fryer for just about anything. I wanted to warm up and cook a chilli in the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer, so I made a drawer for rice (you can actually cook under the warming plates) and then cooked my chilli in the other drawer.

You can see that the results were actually delicious. My rice needed 20 minutes and I'm getting to a good place with how I cook rice in an air fryer and my chilli was great too. The vegetables were hot, tender, and delicious; my lentils were soft, but with some bite; and all the flavours had developed wonderfully. I couldn't have asked for better results.

Cleaning and maintenance on the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer

The really really good news is that the drawers and plates inside the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer are dishwasher safe. So, if you thought cooking was easy, the cleaning is even easier. Once I had polished off my food, I slid the drawers out and stacked them in the dishwasher. The big drawer, in particular, is pretty bulky, but if you don't have much else to pack in, you could easily sit it in your dishwasher.

I have a drawer dishwasher, so I have to be a little more restrained with what I choose to pile in to the dishwasher. In this instance, I ended up hand washing the drawers every time. It will put the non-stick under a lot less wear-and-tear and you'll be able to get the drawers dry and packed away a lot quicker.

I'd recommend giving the menu a wipe down too. You can see that the sleek, shiny screen is great, but it does get grease marks on it relatively easily, which doesn't look fantastic when it's sitting on your counter. Just get a warm, damp cloth and wipe it over.

How does the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer compare?

The Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer is brilliant, so it's only fair that I compare it to the Ninja Foodi Max Air Fryer. Both air fryers come with two drawers, but the Jamie Oliver Air Fryer is brilliant for offering a little more versatility. The Ninja has fixed drawer sizes (you can buy the Flexi which is adjustable) which is great for a 50:50 split, but Jamie's Air Fryer and its asymmetrical design will let you allocate more space to your main and less to your side.

You also get a grill plate with the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry, which enhances the versatility of the air fryer. In comparison, the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer keeps things simple. You get all the same functions as the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry. It has a little more capacity, which is great if you're a hungry family, but it does mean that they take up more space on the counter.

I actually prefer the pre-sets on Jamie's Air Fryer, because you have the easy icon. On the Ninja, you have ones like 'dehydrate' and 'max crisp' which aren't quite as intuitive as the simple 'bake' and 'grill' on the Jamie Oliver model. You get used to both really quickly, but it might just be the helping hand you need when you're getting in to air frying.

Overall, the JJamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer is great for a family looking for a stainless steel finish and simple design. The Ninja offers more space, but with that it demands more room.

Should you buy the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Dual Easy Fry & Grill Air Fryer?

If you want an easy air fryer that will make cooking for a whole family simple, this is perfect. You can't beat Jamie Oliver when it comes to classic cooking and this is why. Naturally, it's a little too big for small kitchens, but if you know you need capacity, you'll be spending your money wisely here.

How we test

At woman&home, we have rigorous tests for how we test air fryers. Not only do we cook lots of delicious foods (chips, roasted vegetables, fish fingers, and pizza), we look at extras such as the packaging, pre-sets, accessories, and more. We like to talk about everything from the set up through to the clean up, so that you know exactly what you're investing in when you buy an air fryer.

I'll cover the temperature control, consistency, and speed, but also whether the icons were big enough for me to read without my glasses and whether the drawers were spacious and easy to fit. If you still have questions, don't hesitate to email me. That's what I'm here for (and I love talking about air frying).