Review: Cosori Turbo Tower Pro

Since Ninja was not yet available on the Nordic market, it was Cosori that became known here for its air fryers with double baskets. However, Ninja made its debut last year and quickly countered with a model with baskets stacked vertically instead of horizontally. A good idea for saving space, but the design was flawed. Now Cosori is striking back with its own version on the same theme, and they haven’t complicated things in the same way, which could be a winning concept.

Design and maintenance

Ninja wanted to be clever and tried to put the heating element and fan behind the drawers to save space vertically. But it just ended up being inefficient. Cosori sticks to tried-and-tested designs and has more or less just placed two air fryers on top of each other. The slightly smaller upper basket has a heating element and fan at the top, as does the larger lower basket. But it also has their so-called Dual Blaze technology, which means bottom heating.

Both baskets are made of non-stick material and have removable crisp plates at the bottom. Everything is dishwasher safe, including the rack that allows you to cook on two levels in the basket. The heating elements and fans are exposed. On the one hand, this means that they are easy to access for cleaning, but on the other hand, the lack of splash protection means that they get dirty more quickly.

Handling

The Turbo Tower Pro has an angled touch panel, which is a good compromise between having it on the front or top. On the front, it would have taken up too much space, and on top, it would be difficult to read and prevent you from placing things on the air fryer. Not that you should, but you do anyway. The buttons are logical, so you don’t have to wonder what to press.

For once, the quick programmes are not different types of food, which is usually more or less useless, but cooking methods. You can choose between Airfry, Roast, Bake, Grill, Reheat, Dry and Proof. It’s nice that the temperature can be lowered enough to prove bread, and the fact that you can run it for so many hours that you can even dry things is a big plus.

Even better is that, unusually, there is an app. Not because it is much faster to enter the temperature and time on it, but because it improves user-friendliness. You can see what the quick programmes mean and adjust them yourself according to your preferences. There are cooking guides for different foods so you don’t have to Google them. And when the food is ready, your mobile phone will ping so you don’t have to sit and listen for the signal in the kitchen.

Cooking

The default setting for airfry is 195 degrees, rather than the 180 degrees we usually use, as it works for a wide range of dishes. Fortunately, it was easy to change the setting. Both baskets reached 180 degrees after an acceptable 3 minutes and 40 seconds. After that, however, they began to fluctuate between 170 and 185 degrees. The average temperature is still quite close to what we were looking for, so cooking is not significantly affected.

No matter what we cooked, we were happy with the result. With breaded fish in one basket and chips in the other, we had a crispy and delicious meal. You can actually fit short ribs in there, and they got just the caramelised surface we were looking for with the BBQ sauce. Both bacon and sausages were perfectly cooked after five minutes in the air fryer. There was nothing to complain about with egg muffins for breakfast or potato gratin for Sunday dinner either.

Conclusion

Many air fryers with two baskets have been a compromise. They have either been difficult to use, less efficient or had problems with heat. Especially the others that have tried to stack the baskets vertically to save valuable counter space. But the Cosori Turbo Tower Pro is an exception. It is a practical and easy-to-use air fryer with a traditional design that does not complicate matters. The touch panel is logical, the quick selections are well thought out, and the app actually makes it easier and more convenient to use. But above all, there are no surprises when cooking, and the results are consistently good.