Salter Crisp and Go Air Fryer: Compact, crispy and cost-effective

If Salter’s Crisp and Go air fryer looks familiar to you, you’re not going mad. In fact it’s the brand’s budget answer to a well known Ninja model. It’s an impressively compact air fryer and while it’s touted as portable, its size means it’s just as well suited to small kitchens or busy worktops as it is for holidays. 

Like its Ninja rival, the Crispi, it swaps traditional plastic baskets for completely see-through glass cooking dishes, which also double as storage containers for leftovers. This rethinking of the air fryer comes at a time when more of us are looking to swap plastic cooking appliances for something a little more sustainable, and follows a growing trend of glass-led products.

Trends aside, the Salter Crisp and Go is a simple but effective air fryer that allows you to go beyond the crispy classics thanks to its unique design. And while it’s not without its faults, it’s a model I’d highly recommend if you’re short on space or budget.

Salter Crisp and Go Air Fryer: What do you get for the money?

At £90 the Crisp and Go is a mid-price air fryer, though I’d argue it’s on the affordable side given its more unusual features and design. This is particularly the case when you compare it to the Ninja Crispi, which will set you back £150 for similar features. 

Its compact and portable nature means it’s not quite as feature-rich as more premium models. In fact, for a similar price, you can get larger capacity air fryers, such as the Instant Vortex dual drawer air fryer (£80). However if you don’t have the space for a traditional model, or simply don’t want one, this offers good value for money.

It has a smaller capacity than most air fryers, with one larger 4l dish – ideal for two people – and a 1.5l dish for solo portions. As well as two glass cooking dishes, you’ll also find the cooking ‘pod’, which clips onto the dishes and contains the heating element you’d traditionally find at the back of an air fryer. There’s also two PFAS-free crisping trays and two lids, allowing you to cook and store your food in the same dish as you cook it in.

There are four cooking modes available to you via the digital screen on the front. These are bake, reheat, max crisp and air fry. The presets will automatically generate a set time and temperature for you but you can adjust these manually as you need, with cooking times up to one hour and temperatures from 60 to 200 degrees celsius.

How I tested the Salter Crisp & Go Air Fryer

I put the Crisp and Go through a variety of tests to determine how well it performed during day-to-day operations, as well as giving it a few tricker tasks to push it to its limits. General design, ease of use and value for money were also considered for this review.

For performance, I cooked a variety of ‘oven foods’ including chips and hashbrowns, as well as an entire chicken. For value, I looked at overall cost and also used a power meter to measure the air fryer’s energy usage. This helps to determine how much it’s likely to cost you per use.

All of these tests and measurements are added to a testing spreadsheet so Expert Reviews can easily compare the energy efficiency, performance and value of every air fryer the team tests.

How easy is it to use and clean?

I believe the Crisp and Go’s basic controls really work in its favour. While some people like all the bells and whistles, I think an air fryer really only needs to be good at a couple of things. The first is crisping and the second is being easy to clean. This model does both well.

Controls at the front are simple to scroll through and the presets are handy if you don’t fancy thinking about timings. That said, I’d advise manually adjusting these, as in my experience these presets usually take a fairly wide guess at how long certain things take to cook. 

To cook with the Crisp and Go using the smaller dish, you simply sit the pod on top and the menu appears. With the larger dish, you’ll need to use the included adapter, which I found a little tricksy at first. There’s a bit of a knack to locking it in (if it’s not on correctly, the display will just say ‘open’). However, after a few attempts and a bit of confusion, I got it to work every time without really thinking twice about it. Not a deal breaker by any means either, particularly given the price, but still worth knowing.

During testing, I also found out that, rather frustratingly, Salter doesn’t currently offer replacement parts for the air fryer, though the brand will of course replace the machine if there’s a fault. If this is a concern though, my suggestion would be to hold out for a discount on the Ninja Crispi, as you can already buy replacement bowls for this.

When it comes to cleaning, the Crisp and Go cooking bowls are some of my favourites: they can go straight in the dishwasher and are also easy to wash by hand. The heatproof plastic feet can be easily unclipped from the main bowl, to reach the underside with ease.

Glass dishes are also far easier to keep clean than traditional air fryer baskets, as the grease and grime has a harder time sticking and building up on them. 

What’s the performance like?

In my cooking tests, I was able to cook around 500g of chips to a perfect crisp at 200°C in 20 to 25 minutes. Despite its comparatively affordable price, this is faster than some models I’ve tested previously. The compact size has a lot to do with this, as it allows you to cook very quickly and evenly.

I just about squeezed a whole medium-ish sized chicken into the larger dish, which cooked in an hour at 190 degrees celsius and came out with a lovely crisp skin, despite my initial concerns about overcrowding. While this isn’t quite as fast as some air fryers, it’s good for the size. I also appreciated how well it contained all the cooking mess – the clean up was incredibly quick and easy afterwards.

I’ve tested a few of these glass models now and it’s also worth mentioning that they’re great for reheating leftovers too. You can even cook and reheat things like curry and risotto – simply remove the crisping tray and it works like a standard oven dish.

Energy performance is also great with the Crisp and Go. I measured its electricity usage using a power meter and the results, running it empty at 200°C from cold, showed a consumption rate of just 0.48kwh. With a unit cost of 26.11p, that’s just 13p for a full hour of use and definitely one of the more energy efficient air fryers I’ve tested in recent months.

Should you buy the Salter Crisp & Go Air Fryer?

If you’ve been eyeing up a glass air fryer like the Ninja Crispi but can’t quite justify the price, Salter’s Crisp and Go is a fantastic alternative. It’s affordable and very compact, which is a life saver for small kitchens and cluttered worktops. I found it easy to navigate for the most part and performance is just as good as more expensive rivals, so you’re not really losing out on much by choosing Salter’s model. 

One of the biggest downsides is that Salter doesn’t currently offer official replacement bowls on its site, so if there is a fault with one, they’ll have to replace the entire machine. Hopefully this will change in the future when the model is more established. But as I said earlier, if that’s an issue for you now, you might be better off opting for the Ninja Crispi instead.

Written By

Danielle Amato

Danielle is an NCTJ accredited consumer reviews journalist with a decade of experience in the industry. Her specialism in the home and garden space sees her reviewing products such as air fryers, coffee machines, BBQs and vacuums. As well as writing for the likes of the Guardian, Daily Mail, T3 and Woman’s Own, Danielle was also previously a commissioning editor at Expert Reviews.

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