Have you heard about air fryers before? If not, I can confidently say that you’ve missed a lot!
Air fryers are considered the latest innovation in the world of healthy food. They don’t require oil or butter. Instead, they cook whatever you put inside using nothing but hot air. Sounds good, right? Well, there’s more to them than meets the eye.
In the Big Boss air fryer review, I’ll discuss how this particular fryer can cook food that’s healthy, crispy, and, most importantly, tasty.
A Quick Brief About Big Boss
Big Boss is a fairly recent brand in the market of kitchen devices. In addition to air fryers, they also produce deep fryers, pressure cookers, blenders, juicers, and much more.
Generally, their products are known for having high quality at a relatively affordable price. That’s why they gained a wide customer base in a short time.
Quick Specs About the Big Boss Air Fryer
I hate it when I have to search for the small technical details in lengthy articles. That’s why I prefer to start with a quick list of specs, pros, and cons.
Specs
- Width: 16 inches
- Length: 12.5 inches
- Basic height: 16 inches
- Height with the extension ring: 19 inches
- Weight: 15 pounds
- Maximum capacity: 16 quarts
- Power: 1300 watts
- Timer: 60 minutes
- Temperature range: 250 – 480°F
Pros
- Huge capacity
- Energy efficient
- Easy to clean
- Equipped with a safety handle
- Can reach a temperature as high as 480°F
- Equipped with a 60-minute timer
- Comes with a mesh basket, metal tongs, and 2 cooking racks
- The halogen light provides visual notification
- It comes with a recipe book
Cons
- Bulky design
- Might be intimidating to use at first
- The glass bowl gets insanely hot
- Food is more likely to stick
- The printed details might fade away
Big Boss Air Fryer Features
In this section, we’ll take a look at the overall features of the Big Boss air fryer. I’ll review things like capacity, design, performance, etc.
Design: A Huge Air Fryer with Many Parts
When you purchase the Big Boss air fryer, it’ll probably intimidate you with the multiple parts it has. This gets especially true if you’ve considered more compact air fryers, like Kalorik’s or Philips’s.
That’s why I thought I should start by breaking it down to see how it goes into action.
The Base: A Plastic Holder and Glass Bowl
When you’re setting up the Big Boss air fryer, you have to start by forming a well-supported base. To do that, Big Boss ships a U-shaped plastic holder that locks the fryer components in place.
I definitely like this perk since it might be dangerous to have a hot glass bowl sitting directly over your countertop. Also, this holder extends well beyond the margins of the fryer. This way, it’ll be less possible for someone to knock down the fryer while it’s working.
The second important part is the 16-inch glass bowl. It’s fabricated with a size that fits perfectly inside the plastic holder.
The Inside: Cooking Racks and Mesh Basket
Luckily, you don’t have to randomly cram the large glass bowl with food. Big Boss sends 2 cooking racks and a mesh basket that can layer your food.
The first rack is called the ‘low cooking rack.’ As the name implies, this rack has a height of probably less than 0.5”. It should be placed directly over the bowl’s bottom. This way, it’ll allow excess oil to drip from your food onto the glass bowl, giving you the healthiest snack possible.
Next up is the ‘high cooking rack.’ This one sets higher than the first rack by about 3 or 4 inches. It’s used to cook another layer of food without cramping the first one.
Then, there’s the ‘mesh basket.’ This is used to place food that’s too small for the large openings of the cooking racks. Perhaps the most common example is french fries. If you placed them directly over a rack, they’ll fall onto the layer below.
Last but not least, you’ll also receive metal tongs. They can be used to pick up the racks while they’re still hot.
The Top: A Glass Lid with the Control Unit
Here comes the actual fryer. After you place your foods with whatever racks you like, you’ll be ready to close the fryer with the securing lid.
However, this lid isn’t just a piece of glass. It has the main control unit permanently fixed around the middle.
Over the top of the control unit, you’ll find two dials, one for temperature and one for the 60-minute timer. The temperature dial is able to cook food in the range between 250 and 480°F.
For convenience, Big Boss printed 4 meal presets with their required time and temperature right beside the dials. They chose french fries, onion rings, fish, and chicken. This way, you don’t have to check the recipe book each time you want a snack.
Performance
Now that we’ve broken down the parts, we can move to the working principle behind this fryer.
A Unique On/Off Switch
After you place your food inside the bowl and close with the lid, you’ll be ready to set the temperature and time with their respective dials.
In other fryers, turning the dials would instantly activate the heat. Clearly, this isn’t safe enough. If you accidentally turn the dials when the lid isn’t secured, it can damage the surroundings.
That’s why Big Boss added an amazing safety feature. Over the top of the control unit, there’s a hinged handle that moves up and down. The fryer won’t initiate the heat unless the handle is lowered and ‘locked’ in place.
If you want to check the food in the middle of the cooking cycle, you can simply lift the handle to pause the device.
The Heat Source: Halogen and Convection
Once the handle is locked in place, the halogen bulb activates. This bulb generates light rays loaded with a huge amount of heat.
However, the light won’t be able to penetrate deep between all the food layers on its own. That’s where the fan comes in handy. It pushes the heat around by convection.
During a cooking cycle, the halogen bulb automatically turns off for a little bit to avoid overheating. You don’t need to keep observing it since it turns on again on its own.
What’s Unique About Big Boss Air Fryer?
In the previous section, I talked about the general concept behind this fryer while highlighting its parts. In this section, I’ll start talking about the unique features that truly set this fryer apart from its competitors.
The Huge Capacity
As stated earlier, the Big Boss fryer offers a stupendous capacity of around 16 quarts. If you do a quick google search, you’ll know that conventional fryers offer much tighter sizes.
The Ultrean air fryer, for instance, offers 8.5 quarts only. More affordable options, like the Kalorik Personal fryer, are capped at 2 quarts.
However, it’s important to note that the basic capacity of this fryer is less than 16 quarts by about 3 or 4 units. To use the full capacity, you’ll have to install the metal extender ring that comes with the fryer.
Lucky for us, there are no special screwdrivers needed to install this ring. It simply goes over the bowl, and then you place the lid on top. And that’s it! The device will work normally without any problems.
With the ring installed, you can cook small turkeys and chicken without having to cut them into small pieces.
Transparent Cooking
This is perhaps one of the best features in the Big Boss fryer. Thanks to its glass bowl and lid, you can clearly see your food without having to stop the device and open the lid. This way, food will cook better and faster.
On the other hand, the opaque plastic construction of conventional air fryers makes this impossible. You’ll have to pause the cooking cycle every time you want to check your food.
The Visual Notification Is More Convenient
When the halogen light turns on, it produces a magical yellow glow. During the night, this effect will be even more intensified. It’s not all about aesthetics, though.
As you might already know. when the timer stops, both the halogen bulb and fan automatically turn off. Additionally, it notifies you with a loud ‘ding.’
Conventional air fryers, on the other hand, depend solely on the audible alarm. In some models, this sound is a bit quieter than it should be.
With the Big Boss fryer, you don’t have to hear that ding. You can set back in your chair and depend completely on the light.
Built-In Washing Feature
On the temperature dial, there’s a setting called ‘thaw/wash.’ To use it, you have to fill the bowl with 2 inches of water and soap. After around 10 minutes, most of the stuck-on food should be removed by the warm water.
As the name suggests, this feature can also be used to warm up already-cooked food right before eating. It’s such a valuable bargain to have a device that can do that much while being affordable.
What I Like
Reviewing the features is essential. But the actual experience can be a lot different. That’s why I went along and collected some of the positive feedback that this fryer received online.
It’s Affordable
The Big Boss air fryer costs around the same price as an 8-quart conventional unit. If you want to get a fryer with a capacity similar to Big Boss, you’ll nearly pay the double.
Therefore, if you’re tight on budget, I can confidently say that the Big Boss air fryer will give you the best bang for your buck.
You Can Cook Multiple Foods at Once
Thanks to the multiple racks sent with this fryer, you can prepare a whole meal in one cycle. Ideally, you can place some chicken wings on the lower rack, and add some french fries on the upper one.
Conventional fryers don’t allow for this, not by a long shot. As I said earlier, most of them are too small to accept more than one meal at a time. Even the ones big enough don’t come with racks that separate between food. You’ll have to put everything together, which won’t taste that well.
Higher Temperature Range
As stated before, the Big Boss fryer is capable of cooking food with a maximum temperature of 480°F. This makes it way more powerful than most, if not all, of the conventional air fryers. The Cosori air fryer, for instance, can’t go higher than 400°F.
Most importantly, it doesn’t consume more power to produce that higher temperature. The Big Boss fryer is rated at 1700 watts, just like the Cosori’s.
As you can tell, this doesn’t allow only for more food variety, but also faster cooking.
Wide Temperature Dial
Speaking of the temperature, there’s a design flaw that always bothers me in air fryers. More times than not, the dial is designed with a constricted range. In other words, it goes from the lowest setting to the highest one with a simple 90-degree movement.
As a result, you can’t really fine-tune the temperature to match your exact need. If you try to increase the temperature to get that crispy texture, you might end up burning the food.
Luckily, Big Boss was smart enough to avoid this problem. It designed the temperature dial with a whopping 180 degrees between the lowest and highest settings.
What’s more, they printed four dots between each temperature level. Therefore, you can increase the temperature with increments as small as 10°F! That’s such good news for all the professional cooks out there.
Large Timer
The temperature dial isn’t the only one with a wide range. The timer also surpasses the common limit seen on most of the conventional air fryers.
For example, you can’t set the Dash Deluxe air fryer for longer than 30 minutes. This falls shorter than Big Boss by a whopping 30 minutes.
It’s true that most meals don’t need that much time to cook. But it’s definitely better to have a device that can be used to cook anything.
Ease of Cleaning
Lucky for you, all the components of the Big Boss fryer are compatible with the dishwasher. The only part you’ll have to clean by hand is the lid since it has the control unit with all the electrical parts.
Conventional air fryers, on the contrary, are much less convenient. Most brands advise against using a dishwasher to avoid ruining the assembly that holds the basket to the pot. Furthermore, using a dishwasher can ruin the non-stick coat.
It Comes with a Recipe Book
Like most of the other brands, Big Boss sends a recipe book together with its air fryer. It contains more than 50 recipes for poultry, seafood, stir-frys, desert, pork & lamb, and baking.
This should help beginner cooks to explore the true potential of the fryer without causing permanent damage.
What I Don’t Like
So far, we can agree that the Big Boss fryer is definitely worth the money. But nothing is perfect, right? In this section, I’ll mention some of the negative aspects that you might want to consider before making a purchase.
It Takes a Large Footprint
Needless to say, not everyone has enough space for a 16-inch-wide device.
If you don’t need the huge capacity of the Big Boss, you’ll be better off with a smaller option. For this matter, I’d recommend the Cosori air fryer. It measures about 12 inches for width, length, and height. In terms of capacity, it lies within the moderate range with a 6-quart basket.
The Not-So-Great Design
Let’s be honest. The appearance isn’t the Big Boss’s strong suit. If you care about the appearance more than performance, you probably won’t like the Big Boss fryer.
In that case, you can opt for any other conventional fryer. Brands have been competing to design the most attractive designs possible.
The Innsky air fryer, for instance, has a stunning silver/black finish. Its front face is decorated with a nice textured insert that makes the device look more premium. Best of all, the blue touchscreen makes the fryer more convenient for day-to-day use.
The Glass Bowl Gets Hot
Like I said, the glass bowl lets you see the food as it’s cooking, which is great. Nevertheless, you still have to turn off the device and remove the lid to turn the food every once in a while. Otherwise, the hot air won’t be able to reach all the surfaces evenly.
With conventional air fryers, this process couldn’t be simpler. Take the Kalorik Digital Air Fryer for example. All you have to do is pull its handle. You don’t need to use any tools or take any precautions.
Unfortunately, things aren’t that easy in the Big Boss fryer. Since glass isn’t a sufficient heat insulator, the bowl gets stupendously hot. If you dare to touch it by hand, you won’t last seconds before getting burnt.
That leaves you with the imperative use of tongs. I like that you already get free tongs with the fryer. However, these tongs are specifically made for lifting the cooking racks. Therefore, you might want to buy padded tongs that could easily turn the food.
Food Tend to Stick
If you don’t own a dishwasher, you’ll have a seriously hard time cleaning the Big Boss air fryer.
Conventional air fryers excel at this point. You can easily hand wash them thanks to their non-stick coat.
But since none of the Big Boss components are painted in such a coat, food will be more likely to stick.
Surely, you can use a no-stick oil spray to prevent this issue. But this will limit the unique healthy potential of air fryers.
The Printed Details Might Fade Away
Some customers reported that the printed details of the control unit faded away after wiping with a damp cloth. This includes the meal presets, the values of the dials, and even the logo.
The biggest problem for me is definitely in the dials, and especially the one responsible for the temperature. If all the details are wiped, you’ll have to guess the temperature every single time. Expectedly, this might lead to a bunch of burnt meals, at least until you get the hang of it.
But to be fair, the customers who reported this problem were few. The majority were super happy with the overall durability of the product.
Therefore, I’d suggest refraining from exposing the printed areas to water. Don’t touch it with an oily hand so that you don’t have to wash it later on. If you faced the same problem, try contacting Big Boss for a replacement.
Big Boss Air Fryer Alternative: Philips Premium XXL Air Fryer
If the Big Boss air fryer is too bulky for your kitchen, consider the Philips Premium air fryer.
The first and most important difference lies in the construction. The Philips air fryer is much tidier than its competitor. It comes as a 17-inch cuboid body with curved corners. The basket, where the food goes, is impeded inside the same unit.
To use it, you simply pull the basket via its handle, put the food, choose the temperature, and set the timer.
Heat Source: Coil and Fan
Instead of the halogen bulb, Philips uses a metal coil to generate the heat. Then, a fan keeps pulling and pushing the air inside the unit to evenly cook the food.
Although coils are more convenient, they’re not as powerful as halogen bulbs. The former is able to produce 400°F, while the latter goes all the way up to 480°F.
The Final Word
The Big Boss air fryer is undoubtedly one of the best fryers currently on the market. Its unmatched capacity will allow you to cook whatever you like, no matter how big.
Although its design isn’t the best in terms of appearance, it’s certainly superb in performance. Thanks to the powerful halogen bulb, this beast can cook at a stupendous 480°F.
Furthermore, its built-in wash cycle is a valuable perk, especially with the inherent stickiness of oil-less cooking. So all in all, I think it’s worth every penny!
Lastly, I hope this review helped you. See you in another one!