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The VonShef Digital Air Fryer: All the taste without the fat

Posted on by Sally Akins

Love fried food but want to cut the calories? The VonShef Digital Air Fryer can reduce the fat used in cooking by up to 80%, but keeps all of the flavour.

The VonShef Digital Air Fryer

We’re all trying to eat healthier these days, aren’t we? I know I’m always looking for ways to make my cooking healther, as well as quicker and simpler. But it’s not easy, especially when you have teenage sons who are still a bit suspicious of anything that looks too healthy.

So when VonShef asked if I’d like to try out their Digital Air Fryer, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to cut fat from my cooking without arousing the suspicions of my teens. They’ve wanted me to get a deep fat fryer for years, but I’ve never been keen on the idea. I remember using one a couple of decades ago, and wasn’t very impressed by it.

But the VonShef Digital Air Fryer is really simple to use. Air is circulated quickly around your food, which means that you need to add little or no oil. You can use it to cook everything from chips and wedges to meat and fish, and even doughnuts and cupcakes!

And you’ll be glad to hear that air frying your food can have several benefits.

The non-stick removable pan in the VonShef Digital Air Fryer

Benefits of an Air Fryer

Helps to Cut Fat Intake

This is the big benefit for most people. If you’re thinking of buying an Air Fryer, you are probably interested in making your diet a bit healthier.

By circulating hot air quickly around your food, the Air Fryer cooks food evenly with a lovely crisp finish. And you only need to add a small amount of oil to your food, just enough to lightly coat it. Some foods will need no added oil at all.

You could cut the fat used to cook your meal by up to 80%, but without losing any of the flavour.

No More Nasty Smells

If, like me, you associate deep fat frying with the linger smell of fried food, then you’ll love the Air Fryer. There’s no more greasy smell and oily residue left hanging around after you’ve cooked your food.

Less Dangerous than Deep Fat Frying

I always felt a little nervous using a deep fat frier, because of the inherent danger of heating a large quantity of oil to a high temperature. I put it down to watching too many public safety films in the 1980’s!

But because you only add a drizzle of oil to the food in the Air Fryer, there’s no danger of cooking oil fires. The pan does get hot, so you need to be careful when adding and removing food. But it’s so much safer than a deep fat fryer – I’m definitely happy letting my teens use the Air Fryer.

More Economical than Oven Cooking

If you’ve tried replacing fried food with oven baked alternatives, you’ll definitely love the Digital Air Fryer. It has a powerful 1300W motor, and is more economical than a conventional oven.

The VonShef Digital Air Fryer has a digital touch-control panel that's easy to use

Using the VonShef Digital Air Fryer

Using the Digital Air Fryer is incredibly easy. After putting food in the basket, you simply use the digital touch panel control to set the temperature and the cooking time. Then just leave the fryer to do its thing!

The frying basket has a non-stick coating, and it can hold up to 1kg of food. So that’s perfect for cooking family meals. If your food is overlapping in the basket, you should give it a shake mid-way through the cooking time. Just hit the pause button on the control panel, remove the pan and replace after shaking the food.

Both temperature and time can be easily adjusted. You just press one button to toggle between temperature and time, and then use the + and – buttons to set your preferences. The 0-60 minute timer will automatically shut off the Air Fryer when time is up.

The air fryer’s easy to follow instruction guide includes recommended cooking times and temperatures for chips, meats and frozen foods.

Putting VonShef Digital Air Fryer To the Test

I first tried out the Air Fryer using some oven chips from my freezer. After checking the manual, I added the chips to the frying basket, selected the recommended time and temperature, and hit the start button.

9 minutes later, I had a bowl of crispy oven fries. They were much better than when I cook them in the oven, and were ready to eat in the time it would normally take to heat up my oven!

Home made fries cooked in the VonShef Digital Air Fryer - crisp and brown on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

Home Made Fries in the VonShef Digital Air Frier

Next I tried out making my usual home-made oven fries in the VonShef Digital Air Fryer. I cut two medium potatoes into thin fries, making sure to cut them as evenly as possible. I washed the fries in cold water and dried them, before tossing them in a teaspoon of rapeseed oil.

After adding them to the basket, I selected the time and temperature and waited for my lovely home-made crispy fries. Because the fries overlap in the basket, I gave them a shake half way through the cooking time.

I was really pleased with the results from the VonShef Digital Air Fryer. The fries were cooked more evenly than in the oven, and I didn’t have to deal with fries sticking to the oven pan like I often have to with oven baking. I think the results were much better than with my usual cooking method. The fries were crisp on the outside with a lovely fluffy middle.

I’ve also had great success with sweet potato fries (which I’ve never successfully cooked in the oven!) and with roast vegetables as well. You can cook all sorts of things in the Air Fryer, from steaks to cupcakes – I’m really enjoying trying things out!

The VonShef Digital Air Frier: The Verdict

If you are looking to reduce the fat in your diet, the VonShef Digital Air Fryer is a great addition to your kitchen. It’s easy to use, and does away with a lot of the downsides of a traditional deep fat fryer.

The Air Fryer looks sleek, is easy to use and simple to clean. And at £54.99, I think it represents great value for money.

I know that we’ll get plenty of use from our VonShef Digital Air Fryer, and I’m looking forward to trying out lots of different recipes in it.

Sally Akins

Hi, I'm Sally Akins and this is my travel and lifestyle blog. I love exploring new places, good food, high thread counts and the sea, and I write about them all here on the blog. I'm not travelling so much at the moment, but you'll often find me out and about in my beautiful home county of Shropshire.

397 thoughts on “The VonShef Digital Air Fryer: All the taste without the fat”

  5. Sara says:

    “what food would you like to cook in the VonShef Digital Air Fryer?”
    Anything that should be fried and it does. It might seem simplistic an answer & not what you might have been looking for, but it would be for that purpose.

  7. Chris Andrews says:

    What food would you like to cook in the VonShef Air Fryer . . . . .as well as chips l’d like to cook chicken

  11. lesley renshaw says:

    I’ve always wanted to use an airfrier as a healtier option to the deep fat fryer which is so annoying to clean. Thanks for the chance x

  20. Hayley Colburn says:

    they look great for cooking chips, my over (i blame the tools of course) never seems to get oven chips right, they are always brown around the edges and soggy in the middle, my mum swears by her air fryer

  26. ruth robinson says:

    id like to cook chips and southern fried chicken i never normally have it because of the fat content iv been wanting one of these for ages

  37. Kellie Steed says:

    I would try any vegetable, to try and make them into fries so that my little man will eat more of them. Personally though, I love fried aubergine, but it never works for me and just ends up really oily, so I’d love to see if this worked better.

  48. claire Thorpe says:

    I would like to cook some delicious chips – I am currently doing the slimming world plan and miss delicious fries!!

  66. Michael W says:

    Well, I hate to say it, but I’d cook chips! I’d like to try other things tho’ from sausages to fish.

  87. Vivien Baird says:

    Great giveaway I would cook chicken and chips. I have just joins SW so this would be fantastic help to cutting down on fat.

  88. Lorna Ledger says:

    A really authentic, yet healthier! KFC style chicken! Yummy, with a bit of a kick, some wedges too

  95. Marc H says:

    Actually chips! I’d be very interested to see how they compare to my usual unhealthy deep fried fare.

  96. Hilda Wright says:

    I would love to cook chips or sweet potato chips! Something I rarely have because of the fat content but I miss as an occasional treat!

  105. Diana Webb says:

    Not just less fat, but fresh fat every time too. Whilst using the deep fat fryer as it takes nearly two litres the fat has to last several times which bothers me.

  107. Judith MacInnes says:

    I’d love to try sweet potato chips – they always go soggy in the oven – I’m sure they’d be nicer done this way!

  112. Heather Haigh says:

    I’d love to be able to cook healthier chips. Not sure what else I think I would like to experiment after that.

  117. Dorota says:

    I too am eating healthy and air fryer is on my never ending woshlust so this would be PERFECT! I’d love to experiment with veggies & sweet potato fries (I too can’t cook them in the over, they come out a mushy & horrible lol) x

  120. laura jones says:

    i would fry chips it would be nice to include this food in a healthier way instead of being depirved

  135. Sarah Roberts says:

    Chicken, chips and homemade onion rings! plus on the healthy side sweet potato fries and humous!.

  138. Mark R says:

    I would like to try cooking sweet potato chips they are a favourite but I’ve never made my own

  140. Jo m welsh says:

    I’d like to try good old classic chips but I would also like to try sweet potato chips in it

  175. Donna N says:

    What wouldn’t I cook! I could make tempura in it! And my favourite desert- deep fried banannas to go with salted caramel and coconut icecream!!! And obviously fries for a late night snack :)

  182. Alison Johnson says:

    I’d like to try healthier chips. Although I cook over chips, the amount of grease on the baking tray afterwards does concern me.

  197. Isabell Whitenstall says:

    I would cook some chips first. My sister has one and she says the chips are the best ever!

  219. Victoria Prince says:

    The first thing I’d try would be sweet potato chips – I am craving some good sweet potato chips at home, and I just haven’t managed it yet!

  233. Pippa Farmiga says:

    Best giveaway this would make everything feel eating chips would be healthy and not full of rubbish. So thank you for this chance.

  234. Wendy Tolhurst says:

    Oh, I would like to make my own scampi and chips, mushrooms, chicken fillets – there are so many things I would love to try :-)

  244. debbie jayne davies says:

    I have heard that these are fab for cooking sweet potato fries so i would cook them first if im lucky enough to win.

  250. Emma Smiley says:

    Other than chips I love baby potatoes pepper onions chorizo and garlic all done in the fryer.

  264. Eliz Suffolk says:

    I found this blog really relevant as I’m in the process of trying to find a good and affordable air fryer as I’ve Just started slimming world. Thank you

  273. Nikki Hayes says:

    Some healthy homemade chips – we threw our deep fat fryer out when the other half had a heart attack :o)

  278. Edward Guerreiro says:

    I think these airfryers are ideal for cooking chips/fries. So that is definitely what this would be used for most.

  279. Jayne Kelsall says:

    I would love to cook chips in it, the kids love chips but I try not to give them to them to often as they are not the healthiest of options .x

  282. Patricia Avery says:

    Chips! Trying to eat more healthily we cut them out a couple of years ago but they are sorely missed by us all :)

  285. Katie Harmer says:

    Chips, chips and more chips! Potato and sweet potato. And I wonder if they are any good at cooking Kale chips? Would be such a treat to find out

  294. Helen Swales says:

    Tempura prawns are one of my favourite fried foods and I’m sure they’d be amazing in the air fryer.

  297. Ian Campbell says:

    Crinkle cut chips – nothing better made healthily and with some delicious dip and tasty fish alongside them :)

  307. nikki easton says:

    Love to try some chips. my granny used to fry the best chips, bet they were awful for you though, tasted great!!

  318. Fiona jk42 says:

    My husband (the main cook in our household) has recently learned how to make samosa fro scratch, it would be great if he could air fry them instead of deep frying

  329. joanne casey says:

    Definitely chips, I loved my Actifry but its finally broken beyond repair and we really loved chips made in it

  333. Jules says:

    I’d love to cook healthy chips and roast potatoes. I understand they’re beautiful cooked in an Air Dryer.

  352. Farah Elmer says:

    Chips & West Indian fried dumplings. My parents are now living in Jamaica for a slower pace of life & I miss my Mums dumplings! (And her too of course!) Here’s hoping your winner is me & ♡Thanks for the opportunity♡

  359. Jeanette Leighton says:

    Definitely potatoes to see how the chips turn out I gave up using a deep fat fryer a decade ago for health reasons I now oven cook chips

  382. Beverley Whitby says:

    Cajun jerk salmon is one of my favourite recipes ..would love to try it in an airfryer

  383. Marion Payne says:

    I would love to cook sweet potato chips as they have started adding things I am sensitive to in the shop ones and I can no longer buy frozen ones and don’t have much luck cooking mine in the Oven. it sounds from the review as though there as so many things that can be cooked in the Von Shef and it would be a wonderful kitchen addition, I have other Von Shef appliances and they have been reliable and are stylish too! fingers crossed to win

  389. Kerry Webber says:

    I would love to make some chips! They have been off the menu since I joined Slimming World, so I would love to indulge!!

  391. Carol Cliffe says:

    I’ve never actually cooked chips other than oven chips (my Hubby is the chief chip maker in our house!). So I’d love to become an expert chip maker!

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