Beko FRL5388 review: an air fryer worth talking about

Introduction

How can you tell if somebody owns an air fryer? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. That joke has been used to take the mickey out of everyone from vegans to iPhone users over the years, but it does seem particularly relevant to owners of the latest must-have kitchen gadget.

One particularly tempting model is this: Beko’s FRL5388 – a dual-zone air fryer that offers nine different cooking modes and comes with a bunch of accessories for when you want to do more than just bung a load of oven chips in it. With a usual price of under £140, it’s also one of the more affordable dual-drawer options out there, but is it good enough to recruit another member to the vast army of air-fryer evangelists?

Design and build: plastic fantastic

A lot of people without air fryers cite lack of space for not owning one, and Beko’s boxy, microwave-sized FRL5388 does demand a fair amount of room in the kitchen. While it’s often possible to stow single-drawer models in a cupboard when you’re not using them, this one realistically needs its own permanent home on one of your kitchen surfaces.

Almost the whole of the Beko is made of plastic, apart from the two 4.25-litre drawers, although they also have chunky plastic handles and slide in and out with a satisfying clunk. It’s all nicely finished though, and probably helps to keep the weight of the thing down to 8.7kg.

Above the drawers is an LED display that spans the entire width of the front of the machine (and will also pick up mucky finger marks if you’re not careful). Most of the symbols are pretty easy to decipher without digging out the manual, although I kept it handy just to check which of the cooking modes I should be using for certain foods. The chicken icon, for example, is also the one you want for seafood.

The drawers aren’t massive, but you can use the accessories to make them double-decker. That’s fine if you want to cook more individual portions of meat (as long as you don’t mind the one on the bottom collecting any drips) but is a bit fiddly if you need to do more chips. They’re also rectangular with rounded corners, which can restrict how much of certain types of food, such as bacon, that you can fit in.

Features: nice racks

Air frying is a pretty simple business. All you really need to do is set the temperature, choose a cooking time, and hit start. A lot of air fryers will pre-heat the compartments for a short period before getting you to put your food in, but the Beko doesn’t unless you choose the grill function.

Speaking of which, there are nine separate cooking modes to choose from: manual, chicken, vegetables, oven/cake, heating, defrosting, grill, skewer, and drying. The latter takes hours and is not to be used for your pants under any circumstances. Some of those are self-explanatory, even if heating should really be called reheating, but the instruction manual doesn’t explain why you should use the chicken mode (confusingly also used for fish) or vegetable setting, for example, rather than just leaving it set to manual. I didn’t notice any real difference in the results when it came to the cooking.

The ability to ensure both drawers finish cooking at the same time is handy for chefs with bad time management (guilty as charged), but it just delays the start of whichever drawer takes less time to cook, so it’s not doing anything particularly smart. If you’re cooking the same thing in both, you can also use Match Cook mode, which just saves you from inputting all your settings twice. If you find something else you’re cooking isn’t quite ready when the air fryer finishes, there’s also a self-explanatory Keep Warm mode.

The inclusion of various dishwasher-safe cooking accessories is a nice touch, although probably not a deal-breaker. You get a grill rack, a double-layer rack with sewers, which can also be used to double the capacity, and a dehydration rack. There’s only one of each, though, despite there being two drawers.

Performance: taste the difference

As a resident of sunny Brighton, only seagulls have eaten more fish and chips than me, so that’s what I chose as my first test meal in the FRL5388.

I’m not sure there’s an air fryer on earth that can make oven chips taste like proper chip-shop chips (not even the gentrified ones I bought specifically for this review), but the cod comes out cooked to perfection: moist and meaty, with lovely crispy batter. I’ve definitely unwrapped much worse from takeaways and if this lump of fish had been put in front of me in a gastropub I’d nod enthusiastically with my mouth full when asked by the staff if my food was OK.

I had similarly tasty results with chicken, beef and bacon, but that’s all in a day’s work for any half-decent air fryer. Where I felt the Beko was slightly lacking was in the actual process of cooking itself. The timing and temperature settings can only be adjusted in relatively small increments, so changing them using the touch-sensitive buttons can be slightly laborious, but that’s only a very minor quibble. More significant is the lack of notifications to remind you to turn or shake your food midway through cooking, so you’ll have to set one separately on your phone or smart speaker.

The fans inside an air fryer mean they’re never silent in operation, and with both drawers cooking you certainly know that the FRL5388 is on, but it’s not anti-socially loud.

When it comes to washing it, all of the removable parts of the Beko can be chucked in the dishwasher, but if you’re still doing it the old-fashioned way it’s easy to scrub clean in some hot water. If you can’t be bothered to do that every time, investing in some silicone or paper liners for the trays will save you having to wash the whole thing every time.

Beko FRL5388 verdict

The Beko FRL5388 is a pretty simple air fryer, but there’s a good chance that’s exactly what you’re after. Even if the various cooking modes aren’t exactly essential – you’re better off using the microwave for defrosting, for example – and the maximum temperature is only 200º, the accessories are handy and it’s hard to fault the cooking performance of the Beko, which is the most important thing.

It’s missing a couple of handy features, particularly notifications to turn your food, and if you want to cook for more than a couple of people it might not be quite big enough (or maybe I’m just greedy), but if you’re just after a couple of hot boxes with handles, chances are you won’t be able to shut up about what you’ve cooked in your new Beko FRL5388.

Beko FRL5388 technical specifications

Drawers	2
Power	2400W
Capacity	2x 4.25L
Presets	Chicken, Vegetables, Oven/Cake, Heating, Defrosting, Grill, Skewer, Drying
Dishwasher safe parts	Baskets, dehydrating rack, cooking rack, grill, and skewer rack
Guarantee	1 year
Dimensions	317x389x410mm
Weight	8.7kg