Sorry to all other air fryers, but this new design I tried from Lakeland is the most useful of them all for everyday cooking

Just when you feel like every type of air fryer has been done, another one crops up. That's the case with this Lakeland 2-in-1 air fryer, which combines the mid-week-meal-friendly drawer design with the usefulness of a classic built-in oven.

I put it to the test to see if its worthy of joining the ranks of the best air fryers. Here's how I got on.

In a nutshell

This air fryer and oven from Lakeland offers a mixture of cooking methods, making it super flexible, along with a range of presets and the option to sync and match each compartment, making for easy use and efficient cooking.

It looks pretty good and is easy to use, with thought given to making it pretty intuitive and not over-complicated, and is also easy to clean, which is always a bonus.

I tested it out on the Ideal Home testing protocol recipes of homemade chips to bacon, freezer food, and a simple chicken breast, and it met the mark on all of them. And all for a £129.99 price tag, which isn’t bad at all.

Product specs

• Type: Air fryer and oven
• Dimensions: 41 x 39 x 31cm
• Cooking area: 11L (3.5L & 7.5L)
• Weight: 7.5kg
• Maximum temperature: 200C
• Cooking modes: 8
• Power: 2400W
• Colour: Black
• Material: Aluminium, plastic

Who tested this air fryer?

Ellen Manning

Ellen Manning is a freelance journalist specialising in food and drink, as well as an award-winning food blogger and there’s nothing she loves more than exploring the world through food and writing about her experiences. Over the years she’s tested many a kitchen gadget, including for Ideal Home, from coffee grinders to air fryers, microwaves and more. Often a bit of a cynic when it comes to the latest trends and hype, she takes great delight in testing things as thoroughly as possible, and tested this particular air fryer for a week to get to grips with it and ensure it had a fair run.

Unboxing and first impressions

At first glance, the Lakeland 2-in-1 Air Fryer Oven stands out from the crowd, thanks to the fact it’s a hybrid of the drawer-style air fryers, and the ones that resemble an oven. With this, you get both.

A 3.5L crisper drawer, as well as a 7.5L air fryer oven. Not only does this mean you can cook different elements of your meal separately in the same way you can with air fryers that have multiple drawers like the Phillips dual-basket steam air fryer, or a handy separator like the Salter XL Air Fryer Oven, but you can use the compartment that lends itself best to certain items - like chips in the drawer section, vs fish fillets or chicken in the oven side.

Packaging wise, it’s well-protected without being overkill, and it’s easy to unbox and get set up. It’s fairly big, which it would be with a total 11L capacity, but also looks pretty good on the side thanks to its sleek appearance and digital display.

The oven side comes with two racks and two trays, so there are plenty of options when it comes to cooking.

There are eight preset functions, and it’s fairly easy to navigate cooking in either compartment, thanks to the simple case of being able to switch from easy to read number one and number two.

If you want to swerve these, there’s also the manual option, where you can simply adjust the temperature and time - and do this for each one individually.

Or ‘match’ and ‘sync’ options, either to just set everything for the same temperature and time, or to let it work things out for you so everything is cooked at the same time. Looks good, sounds good, but is it really that simple?

Cooking

Chicken

I start with the basic test of a chicken breast. I go for the oven side, though I could easily use either.

There’s a chicken preset (along with fries, fish, seafood, steak, pizza, chicken wings and vegetables) so I pop it on this. In the chicken goes using one of the trays, and there’s a light that automatically comes on so you can see what’s going on through the viewing window.

The oven automatically stops when you open the door to check progress, which is a nice touch, then starts again once everything’s back in and the door is shut. After the allotted time the chicken isn’t quite up to the temperature it should be to be cooked, but it’s fairly easy to increase the temperature and time while it’s cooking to add on some minutes.

After around 20 minutes, my chicken is cooked and looks easily as good as if I’d cooked in a traditional oven - I just didn’t need to worry about preheating a whole built-in oven for it, which is always useful.

Homemade chips

The second test is homemade chips from scratch.

I chop potatoes into fries, toss them in oil and seasoning and put them in the crisper drawer on the fries setting.

This sets it to 200C for 23 minutes - given the standard Ideal Home test is 15 minutes I check them after that period of time and while they’re on their way, they’re nowhere near cooked, so I trust the Lakeland presets and pop them back in.

Like other air fryers, the drawer makes it easy to shake the chips to ensure they cook evenly. They’re actually still not quite done when the 23 minutes is up, though that could be due to the amount I’ve got in there. It’s worth remembering that this drawer is only 3.5L so if you overload it you’re going to affect the cooking time.

About five minutes more and most of the chips have crisped up and we’re ready to go. So like any cooking, it’s just a case of checking your food to make sure it’s as you like it, since so many of these things vary depending on how much you’re trying to cook and your own preferences.

Bacon

Bacon is another staple Ideal Home test, and I decide to take advantage of the different cooking areas to test a rasher in each. One goes in the drawer, one in the oven, and I compare them.

I pop them in at 200C for 10 minutes, using the ‘match’ function to make it nice and easy. Both cook easily in that time, and pretty evenly too, without any real need to turn them over.

The oven side - given the bacon is on a rack sitting above a tray - is a tiny bit crispier, though not much. And it comes with the disadvantage that I now need to scrub the rack where it’s slightly stuck, whereas the non-stick insert in the drawer is indeed non-stick and super easy to clean.

Either way, it’s good to know that if I had a whole house full I could probably use both sides to do bacon sarnies for everyone, and the difference wouldn’t really be that discernible.

Frozen fish

A frozen food test is always useful when it comes to gadgets like this. My go-to is a breaded fillet of fish, mainly as it goes perfectly with homemade chips.

So while my chips are crisping away in the drawer side (as above) I pop the fish into the oven side.

Given there are cooking instructions on the pack, I follow those and put it in for 35 minutes at 180. It’s the first time I’ve had both sides cooking for a prolonged period of time but it’s not annoyingly loud at all.

My decibel meter reads 64dB for both sides - and when I later check for an individual reading of the drawer, it’s 61dB, which is higher than some of the more quiet gadgets on the market, but also less than others - and not distracting really for a kitchen gadget.

What's it like to clean?

Unlike some air fryers, it seems like someone somewhere has thought about cleaning.

The oven side is easy enough to do - though it’s worth remember that nobody likes scrubbing oven racks, and you may have to do so if you cook something that’s going to stick.

What this does have, though, is a removable door which is a nice touch, making it easy to slide out and remove to clean, before popping back in. The drawer side is super easy, removing completely to allow you to give it a wash, along with the non-stick insert that is also easy to clean. Both elements actually live up to their non-stick promise too, which is refreshing.

How does it compare to similar models and predecessors?

This is the first air fryer and oven I’ve come across that has the flexibility of both styles - drawer and oven - and while I’m concerned at first that it’s just a gimmick, it’s actually quite useful.

Despite these different cooking methods, it’s still quite simple though - especially compared to some of the more swanky air fryers out there, and is refreshingly easy to use.

It hasn’t got some of the bells and whistles that some more upmarket (and expensive) versions have, but it’s got everything you need to cook different foods at the same time, but properly and easily. It’s easy to clean, and seems to be well thought-out, which again isn’t always the case.

Should you buy the Lakeland 2-in-1 Air Fryer and Oven?

The Lakeland 2-in-1 might not boast any game-changing technology or crazy gimmick beyond it’s combination of two different cooking methods (drawer and oven), but it doesn’t exactly what it says on the tin, and provides an efficient, easy way to cook meals using just one gadget.

It’s intuitive without being over-complicated, and sleek without being over-engineered. And at £129.99 it’s fairly reasonably priced, making it a worthwhile purchase in my opinion.