Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer review: An almost perfect all-rounder
As well as producing juicy rotisserie chicken in under an hour, the Xpress Pro Combo offers genuine improvements over its 5-in-1 predecessor
Pros
- Cooks rotisserie and kebabs
- Huge capacity
- Consistent results
Cons
- Design could be better
- Tricky to clean in places
Tower’s Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer is a big upgrade over the popular 5-in-1 model we reviewed last year. While not much has changed on the outside, this fryer can now cook pizza, steak and kebabs, making it more versatile than ever.
From the huge capacity to its ability to roast a small chicken in under an hour, there was a lot to love about its predecessor. The 10-in-1 ticks all of the same boxes, while making improvements in a lot of the right places. If you’re looking for a sensibly priced air fryer that goes above and beyond the basics, this is the one you want to buy.
Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer review: What do you get for the money?
At £140, the 10-in-1 is very much a mid-priced fryer but, unlike similarly priced competitors, it has a huge 11-litre capacity and comes with bundles of accessories.
Similar to its predecessor, you get several cross-hatch crisping trays, a rotisserie spit and a drip tray to collect excess oil. Brand new to this model is the pizza and steak cooking plate, a multipurpose metal rack, kebab wheel with ten skewers and two heatproof silicone mitts. Everything removable is dishwasher-safe.
With the exception of a slight change of colour for the handle, the design is identical to the previous model, with a glossy plastic body and a viewing door at the front, which opens outward like a traditional oven. There’s even an internal light that activates when you open the door.
The fryer is controlled via a touch-sensitive panel and digital screen on the top panel, where you can scroll through a variety of preset cooking functions for things such as fried chicken and fish, as well as adjust the time and temperature manually. While it might not be quite as sleek as some of its competitors, the digital touchscreen, capacity and versatility are all things you’d expect from a more expensive air fryer.
If you’re after something a bit more sophisticated in the looks departments, the similarly priced Ninja MAX Air Fryer (£150) is a decent option, too, although it lacks a rotisserie and its capacity is much smaller at 5.2 litres. Alternatively, if that £140 price tag is still just a bit too much, the Tower 5-in-1 now comes in at only £100 and means you don’t have to sacrifice that excellent capacity and rotisserie. The downside? It doesn’t have quite as much versatility or as many accessories.
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Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer review: What’s good about it?
There are some excellent new additions to this air fryer and they make such a difference to what you can cook. The addition of the pizza and steak plate make it really easy to get a crisp finish on foods you can’t typically cook in an air fryer and, while the plate isn’t huge, it’s big enough for a 9 x 8in pizza.
The mini heatproof mitts are a nice touch, giving your hands some protection when extracting food from the fryer. I found them particularly useful as my large, bulky oven gloves made it tricky to remove the delicate crisping trays. Plus, its large 11-litre capacity and three-tier design make cooking full meals incredibly easy, although you will have to play around with timings manually so everything is ready at the same time.
In testing, it produced 300g of delightfully crispy homemade chips in around 23 minutes at 200ºC with one tablespoon of oil. If you’d rather not parboil first, you can also cook them raw on a lower 180ºC heat for 30 minutes with similar results.
The fryer’s rotisserie function works like a dream, too, cooking a whole 1kg chicken to perfection in only 45 minutes at 190ºC. And the new rotating kebab skewers also proved an excellent addition; while they’re a bit tricky to fit at first, they are effective and produce evenly cooked kebabs.
In fact, I found the Tower produced good results across the board, but you’re better off sticking with manual settings. I found that the preset functions were a bit hit and miss, sometimes leaving ingredients such as potatoes a little undercooked.
Overall, though, they provide a decent starting point if you’re new to air frying and can be manually adjusted if you’re not getting the results you want. This is particularly true if you use them alongside the fryer’s extensive recipe book, which makes using it pretty much foolproof.
Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer review: What could be better?
Aside from the small niggle I have with the presets, it’s hard to find many faults with this air fryer. One of those would be that the exterior plastic design feels and looks cheap for its mid-range price point.
It’s also a bit trickier to keep clean than most air fryers. The attachments can be removed and chucked straight in the dishwasher, but you’ll have to clean the inside of the fryer the old-fashioned way as it’s just like a mini oven. The splash guard at the top can’t be easily removed for cleaning, either.
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Tower Xpress Pro Combo 10-in-1 air fryer review: Should you buy it?
If versatility is top of your air fryer checklist, the Tower 10-in-1 is a must-buy. It might be tricky to clean and certainly isn’t going to win any style awards but it’s a convenient appliance with a lot to offer.
This includes some significant improvements on the previous model such as an in-depth recipe book and even more useful accessories, including the kebab skewers, heatproof gloves and pizza tray. Then there’s that excellent 11-litre capacity, which is enough to house a whole 1.2kg chicken, or enough vegetables to feed a hungry family.
Most importantly, however, it produces top-notch air-fried meals, including wonderfully crisp chips, rotisserie meats and fish using little to no oil.
