One minute review
If you're looking for one of the best air fryers, the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer is definitely worth considering. It does more than just air fry, efficiently providing a combination of the various cooking gadgets you would need in a kitchen in one compact design. There's no need to buy a slow cooker, pizza oven, toaster, grill, or even a main oven; the Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer offers all the features in a sleek appliance. We think it works particularly well as a permanent countertop installation, providing an extra place to cook; or an alternative to your standard built-in oven. So if you're wondering "are air fryers worth it?" so we certainly think this model ticks a lot of boxes.
The Smart Oven Air Fryer comes with 10 handy preset cooking modes, so we were spoiled for choice when deciding what to cook. Use it to fry, roast, grill, roast, bake pizza, heat, reheat, slow cook, and make frozen buns. Its 22 liter capacity makes it large enough to hold a whole chicken, making it far superior in ease of use to your standard air fryer. The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer can reach temperatures of up to 230°C, making it ideal for crispy foods, while its Element IQ system technology eliminates cold spots for precise and even cooking.
Sitting on the counter day in and day out, the Smart Oven Air Fryer doesn't disappoint with Sage's signature brushed stainless steel styling. But if you prefer a different finish, this model is also available in equally attractive black truffle and black stainless steel versions. The device also has a handy viewing window, so you can easily see when your food is ready to eat.
- Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer in Breville | Sage Appliances for €429 (Opens in a new tab)
Sage the Smart Oven Price and Availability
- List price: € 529.99 / € 329.95 / AU € 599
- Available in the US, UK and Australia
As a well-respected brand in the small appliance space, Sage, or Breville in Canada and the United States, is known for its signature style of sleek stainless steel designs.
At the time of writing, we found the Smart Oven Air Fryer available to buy from the Sage website for €329.95 plus retailers like Amazon UK (opens in a new tab), Currys (opens in a new tab) and John Lewis (opens in a new tab). in a new tab). language). It's also available in the US and Australia, where it's known as Breville the Smart Oven Air Fryer, for €529.99 / AU$599.
The Sage/Breville range includes the latest professional-style coffee machines for the home, such as the latest Sage the Barista Express Impress (opens in a new tab), as well as high-tech bread makers, juicers, blenders, microwaves and more. . While Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer is the only appliance Sage offers in the UK to include an air fryer feature, the brand sells a similarly styled Sage Oven Pro that comes with a specific 'cookie' feature, to unlike a modern air fryer. In the US, you can also get Breville's pricier Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro (opens in a new tab) ($319.96), which has 13 cooking functions. Then there's the top-of-the-line Breville the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro (opens in a new tab) ($799.99), which comes with a smart app for optimal control.
Value: 4 / 5
Sage the smart oven design
- Useful viewing window
- Wide range of plates
- Boxy yet surprisingly compact dimensions to fit on the counter
The Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer's selection of presets is clearly displayed on an LCD screen to the right of its sleek stainless steel body. These are designed to give you instant control and make the device easy to use.
Using the function selector, you can scroll through the 10 cooking modes on offer, then simply press start to start cooking. Choose from Grill, Toast, Crumpet, Bake, Roast, Pizza, Reheat, Reheat, Air Fry, and Slow Cook. You can also adjust the cooking temperature and time using the two larger dials below.
Amazingly, at 28 inches tall, the air fryer fits easily on a kitchen counter, under wall cabinets. However, keep in mind that it must be on a stable surface, leaving a minimum distance of 10 cm on each side of the devices and 15 cm above; can get quite hot during use. A point to consider if you are short on counter space or have low kitchen cabinets.
The feature we were especially excited to see is the fryer's large viewing window, which allows you to look in to see your food as it cooks. Not all air fryers come with a viewing window, so we welcome your inclusion here.
If you're cooking fries, as is the case with most air fryers, it's a good idea to shake them halfway through cooking to make sure they're evenly cooked. One thing that might have been a useful addition to the pack is a bit or a pair of tongs to pull out the frying basket when it's hot.
When it comes to cleaning, the Smart Oven Air Fryer is a lot like a standard oven or microwave, with lots of nooks and crannies, including the heating elements, that you'll need to clean in and around. Cleaning the base of the oven proved difficult; it would be wise to remove oil splatter before it builds up and becomes difficult to remove.
Design: 4.5 / 5
Wise the performance of the Smart Oven
- 10 cooking functions
- Excellent for homemade and frozen fries.
- low sound levels
As mentioned, with 10 Sage cooking functions, the Smart Oven Air Fryer has a lot going for it. Its pizza setting, for example, is ideal for Pizza Fridays, while a broil function offers the same benefits as a convection oven, but in a smaller 22-litre capacity. There's even a toast setting that can be used to whip up breakfast in minutes.
Along with presets for certain food groups, such as pizza, buns, and toast, the Smart Oven Air Fryer offers a variety of temperature and time options. This allows you to adjust times and temperatures as you see fit, before and during a cook cycle. So, for example, if something comes out undercooked, you can easily use the control dial to experiment with different cooking times and temperatures until you get the right result.
For our review, we decided to focus on the air frying feature, using the unit to fry chicken wings and make French fries, both homemade and frozen.
Before using Sage the Smart Oven Air Fryer for the first time, the manual suggests running it empty. The instructions warn that the oven can emit "safe" fumes, and after 20 minutes on the pizza setting, we noticed a slight burning smell in the air. In general, setup was easy. Inside the box, you're spoiled for choice with accessories—there's a crumb catcher, wire racks, broil rack, broil pan, fry basket, and a pizza pan—and after washing and drying them thoroughly, we were ready to go. cook.
The instruction manual is comprehensive in that it walks you through each of the controls and suggests how to use them with the times and temperatures on offer. However, it does not delve into specific feeding times. However, there are some recipe cards included in the box (we released the one for Korean Air Fried Chicken Wings (opens in a new tab)), which you can also find online. We use the suggested cooking times for this recipe as a guide for cooking our own chicken wings. He suggested cooking in the fryer for 30 minutes at 230°C.
To cook fatty foods like chicken wings, the manual recommends using the cooking grate, rather than the air fryer basket, as well as the broiler pan below to catch any oil that escapes during the process. We cooked five chicken wings in our test, using no oil because chicken skin already contains fat.
It takes five minutes for the deep fryer to preheat, before you start cooking, so you will need to allow for this time if you are on a tight schedule and cook a lot of different foods.
After 25 minutes of cooking, we stopped the cook cycle because we could see through the window that the chicken wings looked golden brown and crisp. We discovered quite a bit of oil in the roasting pan, and although the meat had fallen off the bone well, there wasn't much to eat. We decided to do this test again, reducing the cooking time by five minutes to make sure the meat wasn't too dry. The resulting chicken wings were much more flavorful, succulent, and crispy.
Next, we try cooking frozen fries and fresh cut fries. In Air Fryer mode, you can customize the temperature and time, from 50°C to 230°C for up to two hours, if desired. We placed 500g of frozen fries in the deep fryer and pressed the start button, which automatically suggested a cooking time of 20 minutes at 220°C. The fryer took a few minutes to preheat before going into Air Fry mode.
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Cooking frozen fries (Image credit: Future)And cook up home fries (Image credit: Future)Please note that the lights on the appliance turn off at the beginning of the cooking cycle and turn back on automatically during the last 30 seconds of cooking. After shaking the fries halfway through cooking, we decided to take the frozen fries out after 18 minutes of cooking and found they had a nice crisp texture. This setup also worked well for fresh cut home fries. Remember, if you spray oil on your fries, do so before you put the fries in the oven, so the oil doesn't coat the inside of the oven and make cleaning up later difficult.
The sides of the oven get quite hot to the touch during and immediately after cooking, and the Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer emits a bit of steam from both sides of the door. We measure the temperature on one side at 85ºC after cooking frozen French fries, which means care must be taken if the appliance is within the reach of children.
Like a standard oven, the air fryer does not...