The MasterChef AF9003A is a single-basket air fryer with a small 3.6-quart capacity. Widely available throughout the Canadian market, we tested this model in collaboration with Radio-Canada, Canada's francophone public broadcaster. You can see their French language recommendation article and video investigation on air fryer performance. This air fryer has a simple design with a digital display on top that features preset programs for a few specific foods and an option to dehydrate, which uses a lower temperature range. Its non-stick drawer and basket are dishwasher safe for easy cleanup.
Our Verdict
The MasterChef AF9003A is alright for ary frying. It makes good-quality fried food. Vegetables, onion rings, French fries, and other classic air-fried foods come out mostly crispy and well-browned, with only a small portion undercooked or burnt. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to achieve this result. It's also not very versatile, with a fairly narrow temperature range and just one fan speed. Plus, it has limited cooking programs, and its touchscreen interface is very unresponsive, making it more difficult to use than other air fryers.
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Makes good-quality fried food.
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Decent amount of cooking surface area.
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Only one fan speed.
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Unresponsive touchscreen.
The MasterChef AF9003A has a comparatively small capacity. It's large enough to serve one or two people but not ideal if you want to cook for a crowd. That said, it has a decent amount of surface area in its basket, which helps it make good-quality fried food. It preheats quite quickly, but it takes a while to cook food, and with only one fan speed, it's not the most versatile option.
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Makes good-quality fried food.
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Decent amount of cooking surface area.
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Cooks slowly.
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Somewhat small cooking capacity.
The MasterChef AF9003A offers decent frying performance, producing batches of mainly golden brown food with just a few over or undercooked pieces. Despite its small capacity, its basket has a decent amount of surface area, so you have enough room to spread food out for the best results. That said, it takes a long time to finish cooking, and its temperature fluctuates as it runs. It's also limited to just one somewhat slow fan speed, which impacts how crispy your food gets.
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Makes good-quality fried food.
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Cooks slowly.
The MasterChef AF9003A air fryer has a mediocre cooking speed. It preheats decently fast but takes a long time to cook food.
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Preheats fairly quickly.
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Cooks slowly.
The MasterChef AF9003A air fryer has a relatively small cooking capacity. Its 3.6-quart capacity is enough to serve one to two people, making it smaller than most air fryers we've tested. The basket has a satisfactory amount of surface area, so you can spread food out for the best results.
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Decent amount of cooking surface area.
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Somewhat small cooking capacity.
The MasterChef Non-Stick Electric Air Fryer is quite compact. It's not very tall and won't take up much space on your countertop.
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Compact design.
- 6.8 Air Frying
- 7.1 Large Batch Cooking
Performance Usages
- 7.0 Frying Performance
- 6.1 Cooking Speed
- 7.3 Cooking Capacity
- 8.0 Size
Changelog
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
This air fryer comes in 'Black.' Here's the label for our unit.
If you encounter another variant, please let us know in the comments so we can update this review.
Compared To Other Air Fryers
This air fryer is a small, single-basket model with a simple, squarish design that resembles options like the Cuisinart AIR-200. It's one of the smallest air fryers we've tested, with more capacity than the Gotham Steel Air Fryer but less than the Ninja AF101. It makes good-quality fried food, outperforming these similarly sized models and even matching the results of some larger-capacity and more high-end options, like the Dreo ChefMaker. Like the COSORI TurboBlaze, this air fryer has a touchscreen where you can enter various cooking programs; however, this model's interface is very unresponsive, making it more difficult to use.
If you want more options to consider, take a look at our recommendations for the best air fryers, the best small air fryers, and the best budget and cheap air fryers.
Overall, the Ninja AF101 is a better air fryer than the MasterChef AF9003A, which is available on the Canadian market. The Ninja cooks a lot faster and maintains a more stable temperature while running. It's much more versatile as well. While these air fryers have the same temperature range and both feature air frying and dehydrating modes, the Ninja has two extra cooking modes ('Roast' and 'Reheat'), and its fan can run at a wide variety of speeds, unlike the MasterChef's, which only has one speed. That said, the MasterChef has more surface area to cook with, and it produces air-fried food that is slightly better quality. It also takes up a bit less counter space.
The Dreo ChefMaker performs better than the MasterChef AF9003A, which is available on the Canadian market. Both air fryers make good-quality fried food, but the Dreo works much faster and is more versatile overall. It has a wider temperature range, and its fan speed can vary a bit, while the MasterChef's fan has just a single speed. The Dreo also has more cooking modes like 'Defrost,' 'Toast,' and 'Bake.' It also has a stand-out feature called 'Chef Mode,' which makes use of the machine's temperature probe and water misting feature while providing guidance on how best to cook proteins like steak, poultry, and fish.
The BELLA 6qt Pro 90165 is a better air fryer than the MasterChef AF9003A, which is available on the Canadian market. The BELLA makes slightly better-quality fried food and cooks much faster than the MasterChef. It also has more automatic cooking programs, like 'Roast,' 'Broil,' and 'Reheat,' adding convenience. On the other hand, the MasterChef has a 'Dehydrating Fruit' option, allowing you to cook at lower temperatures. It also has more surface area in its basket despite having a smaller cooking capacity and overall size than the BELLA.
The MasterChef AF9003A and the Black+Decker ID1901-1BDC are both small air fryers available in Canada, but the MasterChef is the better option overall. Most importantly, the Black+Decker produces terrible-quality fried food; less than a quarter of each batch comes out crispy, with the rest being either over or undercooked. Furthermore, it takes a long time to achieve this result. The MasterChef, while still somewhat slow, works much faster and produces good-quality fried food in the end. It's also a bit more versatile, with a dehydrating setting that can access a lower temperature range.
Test Results
This air fryer has a relatively small capacity overall, but its basket still has a decent amount of surface area to work with, so you have enough room to arrange your food in a single layer. In fact, it has slightly more space than the larger-capacity Ninja Pro AF141.
This air fryer is reasonably versatile. While its temperature range for air frying is fairly narrow, it has a dehydrating mode that can access lower heat settings. Unfortunately, it only has one fan mode, which works well for air frying but is less useful for baking and dehydrating. It has controls for six specific foods, as well as 'Baking' and 'Dehydrating Fruit' modes:
- Beef/Pork Chops: 400 °F, 15 minutes
- French Fries: 400 °F, 20 minutes
- Chicken Legs: 400 °F, 20 minutes
- Fish: 360 °F, 20 minutes
- Steak: 400 °F, 10 minutes
- Chicken Wings: 400 °F, 13 minutes
- Baking: 320 °F, 15 minutes
- Dehydrating Fruit: 105 °F (Adjustable temperatures: 105 °F-180 °F), 4 hours
Notably, these options are frustrating to enter as the icons are misaligned, making the touchscreen extremely unresponsive. There's no option beyond the touchscreen to input cooking times and temperatures, so this has a considerable impact on its ease of use.
This air fryer makes good-quality air-fried food. By the time your food is finished cooking, most of it is crispy and well-browned with just a small portion either under or overcooked.
This air fryer has passable temperature stability. After you open the drawer to add food, it takes some time to regain its heat. Its temperature fluctuates a fair bit while operating as well, which can make it trickier to follow precise recipes, especially when baking.
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Comments
MasterChef AF9003A: Main Discussion
Let us know why you want us to review the product here, or encourage others to vote for this product.
This product has been merged with JLab Go Air Pop True Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds &. Follow the discussion here.
- 32120
Hi SharkT,
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us. This is an interesting test idea and I’ve taken note of it. I just want to highlight the fact that we’re currently focusing on improving other areas of our headphone reviews at the moment, but we will consider going more in depth about interference once we define our next priorities. Do not hesitate to share any other feedback or ideas you might have!
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Perhaps consider a radio interference test, I find that turning on the microwave really hammers some earbuds, and not so much others, especially at the range of being a couple rooms away. This is one area where the jlab shines, I can microwave and not have my podcast interrupted, others like skullcandy are less resiliant, while the jib trues have the same range they start to stutter when near the microwave, the anc fuels just get wiped out completely, haylou gt6 along with this jlab weather the interference no problem. Goes to show price isn’t perfectly correlated to antenna design.