Salter Dual Digital air fryer review: Versatile cooking at a great price

While you might know the brand best for its high-quality kitchen scales, Salter also produces a range of cookware, kitchen accessories and home appliances – including air fryers. One of its latest dual-drawer models, the Salter Dual Digital air fryer offers all the convenience and healthy cooking options of a standard air fryer, while benefiting from the added versatility and functionality afforded by its twin-basket setup. Alongside a roomy overall capacity of 7.6 litres, the Dual Digital has all the standard settings we’ve come to expect from the best dual air fryers, including a range of preset options and sync-and-match features.

However, while dual-drawer air fryers were once a novelty, there are now a range of options available from other top brands, leaving the Salter Dual Digital air fryer with plenty of competition. To see how it stacked up against its peers, I put this model through its paces, noting its performance in terms of features, value for money and cooking results.

Salter Dual Digital Air Fryer review: What do you get for the money?

The Dual Digital Air Fryer has two 3.8L non-stick baskets, as well as two non-stick grill plates, which are useful for cooking foods such as chicken breast, bacon and steaks. Also included in the box are a set of instructions and a short booklet featuring a cooking times chart and some recipes to get you started. The air fryer itself is fairly large at 36 x 38 x 32cm (WDH) but should still fit comfortably on most countertops, with its relatively light weight of 5.6kg making it easy to shift around if need be.

Controlled via a digital touchscreen, the fryer’s responsive buttons and intuitive layout make it easy to get both your baskets ready to cook in seconds. The touchscreen allows you to manually set the air fryer to cook foods at temperatures between 60°C and 200°C, for up to 60 minutes, or simply pop on one of the appliance’s presets, such as its cooking modes for chips, vegetables or seafood.

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Alongside these presets you’ll find the sync and match buttons. The air fryer’s handy sync setting ensures both your baskets finish cooking at the same time, even if they’re using different times, temperatures and modes, while the match feature mirrors the settings on both baskets for when you want to cook large batches of the same food.

Buying the Dual Digital Air Fryer at full price, directly from Salter, will set you back £230. However, it should be noted that we’ve routinely found it available for much less, either due to sales and discounts. Other retailers, such as Currys and Amazon, also offer it at a lower starting price – usually around £130.

Alternative models in the same price bracket as the Dual Digital at full price include two of our favourite air fryers – the Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer (£200) and Ninja Foodi Dual Zone (£220). Both these dual-drawer models have excellent build quality, top-class performance and some unique selling points. The Instant Vortex’s clear cooking drawers and internal lights make it easier to keep an eye on your food, while the Foodi Dual Zone’s Max Crisp setting allows it to reach temperatures of up to 240°C. If you’re looking for more mid-range options, other great sub-£150 air fryers we’ve tested include the single-drawer Ninja AF100UK and the oven-style Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1. However, if you’re able to pick up the Salter Dual Digital for around £130, then there isn’t much competition when it comes to other dual-drawer models.

Salter Dual Digital Air Fryer review: What’s good about it?

Once set up on the countertop, the Salter Dual Digital makes for a handsome piece of kit, with its matte black casing and stainless steel finish giving it a clean and classy look that will fit in nicely with most kitchens. In use, its digital touchscreen proved responsive and simple to navigate, allowing me to easily set the time, temperature and modes I needed and, handily, also letting me adjust the time and temperature mid-cook.

In terms of performance, the Dual Digital produced some solid results. Starting off, I tested it out on frozen nuggets and onion rings, 400g of which cooked up in just ten minutes. This proved to be quicker than in my oven, with the items reaching a comparable level of crispiness.

Moving on, I tested the air fryer’s sync setting, cooking two chicken breasts in one basket and 400g of homemade chips in the other. The chicken breasts came out nicely browned in 25 minutes (I like to err on the side of caution with chicken, so your timing may be a little quicker). Meanwhile, the chips took just over 15 minutes to take on my preferred level of colour and crispness, all this following a five-minute parboil, as recommended by the companion recipe booklet. Due to the air fryer’s sync setting, both the chicken and chips finished cooking at the same time, nicely showcasing the convenience of the function and allowing me to cook the core items of a weeknight dinner with fairly minimal hassle.

Taking the same approach to breakfast, I also synced up hash browns and some slices of bacon and was once again fairly happy with the results and timing, though I can’t say the bacon was comparable to the level of crispness and flavour you get with pan-cooking.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the excellent non-stick coating on both the grill plates and the baskets themselves made for a fast and easy clean-up, needing just a quick wipedown with a damp, soapy cloth, helping to maintain the feeling of ease and convenience that the appliance aims to provide. However, if you like to chuck everything straight into the dishwasher you may be disappointed, as the Dual Digital’s removable parts are not recommended for dishwasher cleaning.

Salter Dual Digital Air Fryer review: What could be better?

While the design and stainless steel finish of the Dual Digital are aesthetically pleasing, the overall build quality of the appliance is lacking somewhat. Its lightweight, thin plastic casing does mean it’s easy to move around your kitchen, but subsequently leaves it feeling less sturdy and cheaper than similar models. When operating the air fryer, I also found myself longing for some sort of physical control outside of the digital touchscreen. In previous tests, I’ve found that a physical dial or other similar controls go a long way to giving an air fryer a more premium feel and an air of smooth operation.

Also, for an air fryer that can retail for over £200, I found its max temperature of 200°C to be a little performance-limiting compared to the Instant Vortex model, which peaks at 205°C, and the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone, which is able to reach 240°C on its Max Crisp setting. Some unique abilities or premium features would also be welcome, as the Dual Digital currently lacks anything to give it an edge over its rivals.

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Salter Dual Digital Air Fryer review: Should you buy it?

Though it offers solid cooking performance, a good range of presets and handy sync-and-match settings for its twin baskets, at full price the Salter Dual Digital Air Fryer can’t quite compete with similar models such as the Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer (£200) and Ninja Foodi Dual Zone (£220), whose build quality, performance and range of features are simply superior.

That being said, it can often be picked up for a lot less than these “premium” models, which rarely drop below £200, and at its cheapest price it makes for a brilliant entry point into air-frying for anyone seeking a more affordable machine with more than just the basic features.