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If you still have cable TV, it’s likely that you’ve seen at least one commercial for the Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360. Cooking infomercials are hard to turn away from – the yummy food, the promise of easier and faster cooking, the simple clean up. Who wouldn’t keep watching?
Even so, when we were given a free Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360 in exchange for an honest and unbiased review, we were skeptical. After all, we’ve been disappointed by an “As Seen on TV!” air fryer before. But we were very pleasantly surprised by how much we like the Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360, which now has a dedicated home on our kitchen counter.
Read on for our detailed review, plus a chance to win your own Power AirFryer 360!
Specifications of the Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360:
- 15.1 inches deep x 19.3 inches wide x 10.4 inches tall
- 1500 watts of power
- 930 internal cubic inches (16 quarts) capacity
- 12 one-touch preset functions (air fry, toast, bagel, pizza, bake, broil, rotisserie, slow cook, roast, dehydrate, reheat, warm)
- LCD control panel
- Included accessories:
- Drip tray (for the bottom of the air fryer)
- Crisper tray (for air frying and broiling)
- Pizza rack (for toasting, pizzas, baking, grilling, roasting)
- Baking pan (for baking and reheating)
- Rotisserie spit (for cooking whole chickens and roasts of all types)
- Recipe book with 30 recipes with color photos
Getting Started
When we received the Power AirFryer 360, we had to remove our Cuisinart toaster oven to make room for it. But no tears were shed because the Power AirFryer 360 does what our toaster oven did and so much more. We mostly used the toaster oven for, well, toast – that was its near-daily job. We also used it for frozen pizzas and for baking pies or crumbles in the heat of summer or at the holidays when multiple cooking devices were already in use. The Power AirFryer 360 can do all of those things, as well as air fry, broil, rotisserie, slow cook, dehydrate and more. I’m all about multi-function kitchen items so even though the Power AirFryer 360 is a little bigger than our toaster oven and it takes up a bit more countertop space, it’s a worthwhile trade.
While I’m very prone to jumping right in and using kitchen appliances before reading the owner’s manual, this wasn’t an issue with the Power AirFryer 360. The LCD control panel and accompanying dials and buttons are clear and easy to understand. Once you plug in the unit, you rotate the Select dial to choose one of 12 preset default settings. For example, when choosing AirFry, the temperature is preset to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (205 degrees Celsius) and the time to 18 minutes. But once you’ve selected AirFry, you can use the Temp dial to change the temperature to anything between 120-400 degrees F (49-205 degrees C) and the Time dial to any time between 1-45 minutes. This manual adjusting applies to all 12 presets except Warm – you can adjust the time from 1 minute to 4 hours on Warm, but the temperature is fixed at 160 degrees F (71 degrees C).
The other thing that made it easy to jump right in are the markings on the front of the door. They indicate exactly where you should put your tray/rack/pan according to your desired method of cooking.
Of course, the smart people behind the Power AirFryer 360 know there are lots of us who don’t read the manual first so they included a handy one-page Quick Start Guide with color photos. One side outlines four steps for air frying, and the other outlines four steps for rotisserie.
Once I did get my act together and read the manual, I was impressed by the clear pictures, instructions and other information. It helps make mastering the use of this multi-function appliance quite easy.
The page above goes into detail about what each preset mode does and the heating element(s) used. An important thing to note here is that the air frying fan is always on for the AirFry and Dehydrate presets and can be turned on/off for Pizza, Bake, Rotisserie, Slow Cook, Roast, Reheat. It’s important because when the air fry fan is off, the unit operates silently, just like a regular oven. But when the air fry fan is on, it’s loud (more on that below). So if you’re using a preset that doesn’t require the air fry fan to be on, you’ll probably want to do yourself a favor and turn it off (if it’s preset to on) or not turn it on (which you can do easily with the button below the LCD panel.
Performance
Air Frying
First and foremost, the Power AirFryer 360 needs to be a great air fryer. And it is! The crisper tray is the go-to accessory for this. While it’s not deep (only one inch), it’s 11 inches wide by 10.25 inches deep, which is a lot of surface area for an air fryer. I prefer air frying one layer of food at a time if possible, so this suits me just fine. We air-fried a number of recipes with it, including our air fryer butternut squash (the savory option), frozen tater tots, tofu, roasted nuts (recipe coming soon!), frozen spring rolls and homemade french fries. Everything turned out tasty, as expected.
It’s important to note that preheating for air frying isn’t optional, it’s required. Since you can’t turn it off, you have a few choices – you can put your food in before you press start and take the preheat time into account, lowering your overall cooking time. Or you can keep your food out during the preheat and add it once the unit is up to temperature. There’s just one caveat with that – the unit beeps a few times when it hits the cooking temp then immediately starts the cooking timer. If you’re not paying attention or close by, you will lose cooking time. But all isn’t lost – just hit the Start/Pause button, put your food in then use the Time dial to reset to the full cooking time before touching the Start/Pause button again.
While I mentioned the noise of the air frying function above, it’s not too dissimilar to other air fryers. Although the GoWISE USA 4.6 QT air fryer that we are also testing right now is similar in sound level, it sounds more fan-like and the Power AirFryer 360 in AirFry mode sounds more machine-like if that makes sense. I really don’t mind the sound of an air fryer because I’m usually doing other things while it’s cooking and am not focused on the noise. But that applies to short air frying cooking times, not dehydrate…
Dehydrate
I was very excited to try the dehydrating function in the Power AirFryer 360. I’ve never had a dehydrator, I love apple chips and my husband loves banana chips so I happily sliced some up to give it a whirl. I didn’t research how to dehydrate apple and banana chips, I just placed the sliced fruit on the crisper tray, turned the Select dial to Dehydrate and pressed Start. The preset default for Dehydrate is 120 degrees F (49 degrees C) and six hours. Alas, that wasn’t long enough. As you can see from the photo below, they definitely dehydrated, but were much more chewy than crispy and certainly needed more time. (Oddly enough, the Emeril recipe book that comes with the unit includes five recipes using the dehydrate function. All five require either 10 or 12 hours of dehydrating time. Makes me wonder why six hours is the preset time.)
Obviously it’s on me for not doing my homework. And if I dehydrate again, I will certainly read up on how best to do it. But it’s doubtful I will do it again because of the noise. As I mentioned, the air frying fan doesn’t put out much (if any) more noise than other air fryers I’ve used. But I’ve never air fried for SIX hours. It’s kind of inescapable, that noise echoing throughout the house for that amount of time. Frankly, it got annoying. And that level of annoyance for that amount of time for so little yield is even more annoying. You can use the pizza rack to dehydrate an additional layer of items, or buy extra crisper trays (it can hold three at once) to make the dehydrating time more worthwhile. My husband has said he wants to try making jerky so I’ll wish him luck and find something to do away from the house that day.
Rotisserie
My husband was in charge of Operation Rotisserie and friends, it did not go well. But it was totally user error and not Emeril’s fault. We picked up a whole chicken at Sam’s Club and he used the rotisserie chicken recipe in the included Emeril cookbook to make a really nice rub for the chicken. That worked out great, although the quantity the recipe produced was a LOT (we ran out of paprika and had to borrow some from a neighbor!) and more than enough for two birds. He’d never trussed a chicken before and didn’t research how to do it before diving into the project (sigh). His hands were covered in chicken and rub when he called me to the kitchen for help. He hadn’t readied string for the trussing (!!) so I had to look for something to use. The only thing I could find? Green floral wire (yes, seriously).
After multiple tries, we trussed it as best we could while it was already on the rotisserie spit (not the proper order) and placed it in the Power AirFryer 360. It rotated about three times but we could see the chicken touching the bottom heating elements, leaving behind rub which was starting to burn. Fail. So we removed it and went with plan B – we untrussed it and used the GoWISE USA 4.6 QT air fryer to air fry it. It was delicious, but more on that in the GoWISE USA review.
We will try the rotisserie again and I’ll update this review when we do. There are no instructions in the manual regarding the size of the bird other than the cookbook’s instruction of using a four-pound chicken with the rotisserie recipe. The website says the Power AirFryer 360 holds a 10-pound chicken, but that’s in a baking pan and not on the rotisserie spit. Alas, we have a four and a half pound chicken, just like the first one, that we’re going to try again now that we have kitchen twine and have read up on trussing and the steps to follow to get the bird on the spit. If we’re unsuccessful, we’ll buy a smaller bird and hope the third time is the charm.
**UPDATE** We tried the rotisserie again and were successful! We successfully trussed it with kitchen twine, used the tasty Emeril rub again, got it on the rotisserie spit, and produced another deliciously juicy chicken. It did take longer than the Emeril cookbook said it would, but then again, we have a half-pound bigger bird. While it worked, I don’t know if I’d do it again. We had such great success air frying a chicken (in less time) in the GoWISE USA 4.6 quart air fryer and the clean up after that was much easier than cleaning the Power AirFryer 360. (It’s not that it was hard to clean, but the rotisserie throws juice all over the interior so everything needs to be wiped down.) Because of that, I’m much more likely to just straight-up air fry it, either in the Power AirFryer 360 or another air fryer.
Bake
I made air fryer cupcakes and they turned out great. But it wasn’t until after I’d made them that I read in the owner’s manual that you can turn off the air frying fan in Bake mode. If I had turned off the fan, the baking would have been silent and the cupcakes wouldn’t have had air fryer peaks on them (read the cupcake recipe for more on that). But regardless of looks, a tasty cupcake doesn’t last long around here.
Pizza
We’ve cooked multiple frozen pizzas in the Power AirFryer 360 to great success. I did notice that the section of the pizza at the front of the oven (next to the door) got browner than the part in the back. But it wasn’t overly brown or overcooked so no complaints from me. Cleaning up any melted cheese was as easy as removing the drip pan, wiping it off with a paper towel, and putting it back in the unit.
Slow Cook
I haven’t tried slow cooking yet. We use our large slow cooker often in the winter (mmm, chili) so I’m looking forward to slow cooking in the Power AirFryer 360. I haven’t looked through my pans/baking dishes to see if I have one that could work well and maximize the available cooking space within the unit. Maybe this is just the reason I need to put an enamel dutch oven on my Christmas wish list…
Toast
Toasting – whether bread or bagels – is very easy. Just turn the Select dial to the toast (or bagel) preset, the Temp/Darkness dial to the level of toastedness you want, the Time/Slices dial to the number of pieces you’re toasting (up to six) then press Start. The machine figures out the time (which you see on the LCD panel) and temp (which you don’t see) based on your inputs and silently toasts away, beeping when ready.
Quality
The unit is very solid and nothing feels or looks cheap or flimsy. I foresee it and the included accessories lasting a long time. We had our toaster oven for 12+ years so I would hope for a similar life span for the Power AirFryer 360.
Ease of Use
As I mentioned previously, it was really simple to get started with it. All the operations are straightforward and easily executed. Using the rotisserie functionality does require some finesse and homework if you’ve never rotisseried before (lesson learned!), but I’m sure once you (or we) do it successfully, it will be easy to do it again.
I really like the interior light. It makes it easy to check your food visually during cooking and it automatically turns off after a number of seconds.
One important thing to note: once you press the Start button, you can’t change the time UNLESS you hit Start/Pause. So if you’re air frying something but determine it needs extra time, just push the Start/Pause button, use the Time dial to add extra minutes then push the Start/Pause button again. Yet you can’t change the temperature that way. So there’s no easy way to dial up the temp in the last few minutes for extra crispiness.
Ease of Cleaning
Most air fryers have dishwasher-safe removable parts. The Power AirFryer 360 owner’s manual recommends hand-washing their accessories. Even so, clean up is a breeze. I really love the drip tray – cleaning it is as easy as sliding it out, rinsing it with water (maybe a little soap if it’s greasy) and wiping it off. That’s it – I haven’t had to scrub it but I also haven’t rotisseried with it yet. Just be careful when you remove the drip tray. If you pull it out too fast, items caught by the tray could stay behind and then you have to clean the inside, too. The pizza rack and crisper tray are similar – just a quick rinse/wipe down and they are good to go. I’ve used the baking pan for cupcakes (no clean up needed) and for cooking a frozen vegetable side dish. With that, a little soap and water clean up and you’re done.
Using the rotisserie (at least with a chicken) causes a lot of splatter within the unit so all surfaces (not just the drip tray) need to be cleaned/wiped down.
Meal Size
The owner’s manual says the capacity is “up to 930 internal cubic inches”. That’s equivalent to 16 quarts, which is by far the biggest air fryer we’ve ever used. That said, this machine’s capacity isn’t like basket-type air fryers where the capacity of the machine is the capacity of the basket. In this machine, you’re limited by your tray space/capacity so don’t think you can air fry four gallons of tater tots at once (sad face). But you can use more than one of the included items together, like the crisper tray AND the pizza rack, since the Power AirFryer 360 has multiple tray positions. Or buy extra parts like additional crisper trays, pizza racks or baking pans (I am very tempted by the rotisserie basket – that would hold a lot of tots).
If I just compare the one included crisper tray to the basket capacity of the GoWISE USA 4.6 quart air fryer, the Power AirFryer 360 has a lot more surface area (8.5 inch round basket vs. 11 x 10.25 inches rectangular tray). When air frying, I prefer one layer of food as it yields more uniform results in my opinion. In the Power AirFryer 360, I can fit a lot more food in one layer than in the GoWISE or similarly sized air fryers.
Giveaway
Alas, the giveaway has ended. Jim D. in Jacksonville, Florida was the lucky winner!
Other Airfrying.net air fryer reviews:
- Cosori 5.8 quart
- Power Air Fryer XL 5.3 quart
- Chefman Air Fryer 1.7 quart
- GoWISE 4.6 quart
- French May 3.7 quart
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Performance
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Quality
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Ease of Cleaning
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Summary
The Power AirFryer 360 does a great job cooking food quickly and evenly and provides the added value of cooking functions beyond air frying. It’s a great option if you want more air frying capacity or want to replace another appliance like a toaster oven with one with multiple functions. If you don’t need an extra large capacity air fryer or don’t want the multi-functionality of the Power AirFryer 360, AirFrying.net recommends both the Phillips brand, the Chefman and the GoWise USA.
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