A decent but expensive fryer

Verdict

The Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer is a generally solid appliance, although is expensive for a more basic package. It offers lots of presets and decent build quality, although its lack of a higher temperature than 200°C, as well as small issues with its basket and preset restrictions, stop it from being a top-class performer compared to the competition.

Introduction

Everyone seems to be getting in on the air fryer game now, as we’re seeing many different manufacturers take a piece of the pie. Enter reputable brand Sharp, with its 5.5L Air Fryer as one of the latest contenders.

At £139.99, it’s targeting the upper-end of the single-zone market, tackling high-ranking options such as the Cosori 6L Turbo Blaze and the Dualit Air Fryer by offering a large range of presets and a convenient-to-use product.

I’ve been testing Sharp’s air fryer over the last few weeks to see if it’s one of the best air fryers we’ve tested. Let’s take a closer look.

Design and Features

• Solid capacity for medium-sized families
• Cumbersome basket design
• Lots of presets for different types of food

The Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer is one of the more basic-looking air fryers that I’ve tested. It harks back to the VonShef Cream Fika 5L Air Fryer that I looked at last year, with a nondescript frame and overall shape. This product seems designed more for being functional than for looking good.

A 5.5-litre cooking capacity is on the smaller side compared to some other single-zone air fryers I’ve tested in recent times, but it remains a good amount for cooking for a small to medium-sized family with you being able to fit a fair amount into the basket at once

The basket has a curious design, with its handle integrated into the crisper plate instead of having it with the main basket itself. This is removable for ease of use with a small button on the top of the handle, but it is a bit of a strange concept. Initially, I thought the button was used for locking the basket in place, but it simply detaches the crisper plate from the outer basket. It’s not an easy thing to remember, and you may find yourself accidentally dropping the outer basket as a result.

Sharp’s control panel shows this air fryer to be a single-function appliance with a lot of presets for cooking different types of food, as opposed to being an air fryer that can also do other things such as roast, grill and bake.

The presets at least provide a large number of options, including staples such as Fries and Chicken, as well as other foods such as Bacon, Beef, and Fish. Hitting each of the presets provides a time and temperature, although it is possible to adjust either of these incrementally with their respective buttons. The temperature goes up in five-degree intervals, while the timer is on a minute-by-minute basis, providing welcome control.

The Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer is easy to program and operate, also providing helpful beeps for when there are five minutes left for cooking and halfway through its cooking time, on occasion, too. However, the 200°C max temperature for an air fryer at this price seems quite limiting, considering others can go as high as 240°C for extra-crispy cooking.

Both the outer basket and crisper plate/handle are dishwasher-safe, although I chose to hand wash them. Doing so was reasonably easy, although it was quite unwieldy washing the crisper plate up with the handle attached.

There isn’t much in the way of additional guidance, barring the instruction manual that Sharp provides, with no app control or recipe book available either. For an appliance at this price, a recipe book would have been pleasant to see.

Performance

• Reasonably consistent performance across a variety of food
• Max time and temperature limits for certain presets is odd

During my few weeks with the Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer, I cooked a wide range of food in it to best gauge how well it performs. A natural starting point was a wide variety of vegetables, and I tried some store-bought smashed potatoes first of all in their included foil tray.

These were placed on the potato preset at the maximum 200°C for 35 minutes, and cooked for 24 minutes at 200°C until they were browned, and then for a further 11 minutes at a lower temperature. They came out evenly cooked and were crisper than done in an oven, while also taking 10-15 minutes left than the oven instructions.

Moving over to some accompanying salmon that was stuffed with cheese and leeks, this was cooked on the fish preset, which was cooked at 200°C on its time limit of 16 minutes. I then turned it down to 180°C for a further 12 minutes, but the salmon only required an extra six.

It took 22 minutes overall and came out reasonably well, and much like the potatoes, was browned a lot more in less time. While waiting for other things to cook in another air fryer, it also provided an opportunity to use this air fryer’s Keep Warm function, which kept the salmon warm for an extra few minutes.

Moving over to some more typical food, the Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer did a rather good job of cooking a selection of wagyu sausages, some wrapped in bacon and some not.

These were cooked on the beef preset, being beef sausages after all, which was set to 200°C for 12 minutes. Sharp’s air fryer actually managed to cook them in 10 minutes, which is on par with some more premium models I’ve used in the past.

In sticking with bacon on its own, the Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer’s dedicated Bacon setting cooked three larger bacon rashers in six minutes as opposed to the nine minutes at 180°C needed according to the preset.

Three chicken breasts also came out rather well, and they were moist and full of flavour on the Chicken preset at 190°C after 25 of the allocated 30 minutes. Sometimes, the presets can be overcautious compared to what’s needed.

Sharp’s air fryer also did a reasonable job of cooking haddock fish fingers, which came out evenly after 12 minutes at 200°C. However, due to the lower top-end temperature, they weren’t as crispy as in other air fryers.

The same also went for the frozen fishcakes, although that threw up a different dilemma. The assumption with the presence of a ‘Frozen’ setting is that it can be used regardless of what’s being cooked from frozen.

However, the Frozen mode could only be enabled on either the Pizza or Chips setting, although the saving grace here is that the time and temperature can be changed. They were cooked at 180°C for the maximum 22 minutes that the preset allowed and much like the fish fingers, weren’t quite as crispy as when done in other air fryers.

The Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer also had a hard time cooking carrots. Firstly, I tried them on the veg preset with a small amount of oil sprayed on them, which called for 10 minutes at 190°C.

While they were hot, they were barely cooked in the middle, and needed cooking for another 10 minutes at between 170°C and 200°C. They were still hard, but more towards al dente. Cooking them with no oil and at 200°C for 15 minutes offered better results, although they were still nowhere as good as in the Cosori Turbo Blaze or the 6.4L Dual Blaze.

For this air fryer, parboiling the carrots proved to be a necessity, as with it, they came out of a similar quality to more expensive options alongside some hasselback potatoes. This did take longer overall, but it resulted in the carrots being well-roasted with good colour and consistency.

For a final test, I did some home-made chips, seasoned with paprika and lightly sprayed with oil, on the Fries setting. This called for 18 minutes at 180°C, although the time needed to be pushed up to 24 minutes as the original preset wasn’t enough. They weren’t the most evenly done and consistent, but still tasted good.

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