I tried a 28-litre air fryer designed to replace your built-in oven for good — here's how I got on

This VonShef Air Fryer Oven review puts this 28 litre product through a series of cooking tests to see how it'll perform in your home.

From cooking homemade chips to a rotisserie chicken, my aim with all of these tests was to determine whether this was worthy of a spot in our list of the best air fryers. Here's how I got on.

In a nutshell

The VonShef air fryer oven is a large (read: huge) capacity combination air fryer, with elements of a traditional oven. It aims to combine 360° air circulation and a range of presets with the versatility of a conventional oven.

It’s relatively budget-friendly and cheaper than some other gadgets out there on the market, and even has a rotisserie too. It's packed with functionality and a heap of presets to make cooking as straightforward as possible. I found that it lived up to expectation when it came to cooking, achieving my expectations pretty efficiently.

It's not as kitchen-friendly as other more compact, better-looking air fryers on the market from the likes of Ninja or Tefal, say, but it does have a truly huge capacity if that's what you're looking for. And all in all, the various presets and manual mode work pretty well.

VonShef 28L Air Fryer Oven product specs

• Type: Air fryer oven
• Dimensions: (H)42.9cm x (W)45.2cm x (D)38.9cm
• Cooking area: (H)25.2cm x (W)35cm x (D)31.9cm
• Weight: 11kg
• Maximum temperature: 230C
• Cooking modes: 14 different modes
• Power: 1800W
• Size: 28L
• Colour: black
• Material: steel, double tempered glass door, silicone base.

Who tested this air fryer?

Ellen Manning

Ellen Manning is a freelance food and drink writer and a regular reviewer and tester of kitchen gadgets for Ideal Home and other publications. She has put everything from air fryers to coffee grinders through their paces and takes pride in making sure she learns all their pros and cons so you can make an informed decision on which one to buy.

Unboxing the product

At first glance, the VonShef 28L air fryer oven is big. The box hardly fits through the front door, and I realise why the delivery man looks so grumpy when I see the ‘heavy’ sticker on it.

Safe to say, the new additions to the VonShef range from VonHaus are catering to people for whom size matters. The two new air fryer ovens are 18 and 28 litres - bigger than their other models and certainly not for anyone with a small kitchen.

The 28L model definitely has an industrial look about it compared to some of the more aesthetically-pleasing air fryers out there. It’s bulky and square, with a flip-down door and shelves and racks, just like a built-in oven, rather than drawers or flip-up lids that you get with other air fryers.

It doesn’t feel particularly high end, but neither is the price tag, with the 18L model available at £79.99 and the 28L for £99.99 - so a fair bit cheaper than some others on the market.

While it resembles a conventional oven, it claims to combine its ‘cutting-edge’ 360° air circulation with the versatility of a conventional oven. As a consequence, you can air fry as well as bake, reheat, dehydrate, ferment and ‘broil’ (which pretty much means grill).

There are 14 presets for ease of use, plus a rotisserie option that is a bonus - especially given this is actually big enough to take advantage of it and roast a whole chicken rather than a partridge, which is about as far as you’d get with some air fryers when it comes to cooking a whole bird.

The VonShef comes with a baking tray that also doubles up as a crumb tray/drip tray for ease of cleaning, as well as a normal oven rack, an air fryer basket, and a rotisserie fork and handle for removing it. The multitude of accessories is great, similar to the appeal of the Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer with its many trays.

It’s also apparently been designed with safety in mind, so has a non-slip base, active fan cooling, and overheat/overcurrent protection. It’s also PFAS-free, which will appeal to some.

Cooking tests

Cooking chicken

The first test of the VonShef is a simple chicken breast. One of the presets is chicken so I scroll through to that - which in itself isn’t the easiest process compared to some gadgets.

You have to scroll through the functions, rather than just pressing the particular preset, and the buttons need a big old press to get them to respond. The preset puts the temperature at 230C (450F) for 35 minutes. For some reason my oven is only showing Fahrenheit but I’m fairly sure there must be a way to change it, I just can’t work out how just yet.

The oven starts by preheating and helpfully highlights the word ‘preheat’ so you know what it’s doing - which is handy because at first I wonder if it’s broken, then up pops the ‘add food’ instruction before it kicks into proper cooking mode.

The instructions helpfully mention that you can put the food in when you first turn the air fryer on, and don’t have to wait until the preheat mode is done, but they recommend you should. I don’t, because I don’t want to be waiting around the moving food. I just want to turn it on and leave it to it. Which is exactly what I do.

As it gets on to the cooking process, while it’s louder than the silent preheat mode, it’s still quieter than some other air fryers at 59dB on my decibel meter.

Cooking homemade chips

Again, there’s a ‘chips’ option among the various presets offered by the VonShef. This sets the temperature to 160C for 18 minutes - slightly longer than the 15 minutes we initially aim for in the Ideal Home test, but I let it run.

I use the air fryer basket but it’s clear as they cook (helpfully illuminated by the internal light that you can turn on and off) that they’ll need to be moved around to ensure they cook evenly. Even after several good shakes, some verging on overcooked and a few are still raw.

Perhaps I overloaded the air fryer basket, or perhaps the 360-degree claims aren’t quite as great as they seem to be. Either way, I’ve seen other air fryers do a better job with my chips.

Cooking bacon

The Ideal Home test for bacon is a simple one. We want the rashers cooked evenly, the fat rendered so we’re left with a nice crispy bit of bacon. I use the bacon preset which whacks the temperature up to 230C (450F) and sets the time as seven minutes.

I lay the bacon on the normal rack, with the baking tray underneath to catch the fat. Five minutes in it’s already done, and hasn’t even needed turning. It’s nice and even, crispy and done in decent time. All I need to do is clean up the mess on the tray below.

Cooking frozen food

Freezer food is another common test of mine, and the freezer food of choice is a breaded fish fillet. You want it to be crispy on the outside without drying the fish out inside. I go for the manual option, setting the oven to 220C at 25 minutes.

As per the instructions. It does the job, and at the end of the time the fish is cooked, and the breadcrumbs crispy. I just feel like I’ve used an oven, which I kind of have, so if you’ve already got one built into your kitchen I’m not sure you’d need to bother with this.

Rotisserie chicken

The VonShef comes with a rotisserie option and thanks to its size, the 28L version is plenty big enough to fit a medium supermarket chicken.

The rotisserie function can actually be used with various other cooking functions, so it’s fairly flexible and you could get imaginative with various cooking methods if you wanted to. The accessories are fairly easy to get to grips with - push the spit through the chicken, hold it in place with the forks that screw tights, then pop the spit into the holes inside the oven.

Given I can use any function I opt for air fry, then go with the temperature and timings recommended for the weight of chicken. It actually proves to be rather delightful watching my chicken casually rolling around, gradually turning brown and crispy, and filling my kitchen with the most delightful smell.

By the end of the cooking time, after I’ve used the handy special rotisserie handle to lift the spit out of the holes and out of the oven, it’s perfectly done. Crispy skin, moist meat, and I’m overjoyed at my own indoor rotisserie.

Cleaning up after isn’t quite as joyful, given I need to clean not only the spit and the forks that hold the chicken in place, but also the full inside of the oven and the tray at the bottom.

What's it like to clean?

While the racks are easy to remove and clean, the whole cleaning experience when it comes to the VonShef reminds me of cleaning the oven. It feels like a lot of scrubbing, and the fact that any fat or crumbs or general liquid from whatever you’re cooking is free to drip down from the rack or air fryer basket to the tray below means you’re most likely going to be left cleaning multiple racks.

Not the end of the world, but also no easier than cleaning your conventional oven, so don’t be thinking this gadget will be an easy answer.

How does it compare to similar models and its predecessors?

For people who don’t already have a built-in oven, an air fryer that also serves as an oven might be an appealing option, and this gadget that combines both is fairly reasonably priced compared to some models on the market that may look better, but do less, like the Our Place Wonder Oven.

It’s got a decent array of presets and allows you to use it like a traditional oven, which adds plenty of versatility, though arguably no more than some similar air fryer ovens out there.

Should you buy the VonShef air fryer oven?

The VonShef air fryer oven is a big beast with a reasonable price tag, making it appealing if you’re feeding a large family, but might make it a bit awkward if you haven’t got a big space to put it in.

It does everything it claims, offering a range of presets and functions and cooking food efficiently. It does as much as plenty of other similar gadgets on the market, and with a smaller price tag than some. It’s not the best looking air fryer or air fryer oven out there, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for in size and could be a good option either as a substitute for a built-in oven, or as extra oven space if you want to feed a big family.