Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 AFC9U Air Fryer review: A pizza-sized air fryer with cooking on display

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You don’t have to look very far to discover how the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer came to be so named. As well as a drawer with a window at the front, it doubles up on visibility with a 280 degree top window that lets you monitor cooking progress from above, and an interior light that leaves no corner unseen.

This by itself might be a reason to buy, but the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer is no one-trick pony. Inside the drawer, there’s a huge amount of flat space, making it brilliant for consistent air frying, as well as grilling meat and fish, roasting and even cooking a 12-inch pizza. 

Add to this a maximum temperature of 230°C for extra crisping, a minimum of 40°C for dehydrating, and the ability to save your own favourite setting, and the advantages are as clear as its cooking. But how does it rank alongside some of the best air fryers? In testing, I found the performance to be excellent: crisp, evenly browned chips, perfectly roasted chicken and only a few elements that could use a tweak.  

Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer review: What do you get for the money? 

The Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer might only have one drawer, but it’s a versatile one. Its 8.5l capacity and 10.8in² plate is large enough to fit a 12-inch pizza, a whole chicken or a family-sized batch of chips without overcrowding. However, the side effect of this is that it takes up a fair chunk of worktop space, measuring 31.5 x 40.9 x 41cm (WDH). Fortunately, it’s not especially heavy at 6.45kg, so it’s possible to stash it in a cupboard when not in use.

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With the exception of a dedicated pizza setting, the presets are named after their cooking method, covering those you’re likely to use regularly such as air fry, bake, and roast. There’s also a ‘recrisp’ instead of a reheat, and a keep warm: great for families and busy households who don’t always eat at the same time. A “Fav” button (short for “Favourites”) allows you to save your preferred times, temperatures and functions. Other features include an interior light that can be toggled on and off, an optional shake alert and a dehydrate programme, which runs for up to 18 hours. 

There’s little in the way of cooking guidance, however, or suggested amounts of food for each setting, meaning you’ll have to head online for recipe suggestions, or be willing to experiment. 

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The ClearView costs £130 and, at 2,000W with only one large drawer, it isn’t especially power-hungry: from cold, one hour’s usage at 200°C consumed 0.835kWh of electricity. At a rate of 25p per unit this would cost around 20p. There’s also a three-year warranty.

How I tested the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer

Before any cooking happens, the first thing I do is test the power consumption of the air fryer by running it empty for 1 hour at 200°C, using a plug-in power meter to record usage. If the air fryer has two drawers, I will run both. If it’s one large drawer, I’ll make sure I remove any dividers before running it.

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The first test is frozen food: I fill one section of the air fryer with frozen hash browns and note how many the drawer/s can comfortably fit. If the manufacturer provides cooking guidance, I will follow its recommended settings. Otherwise, I cook them for 18 minutes at 200°C, turning them over halfway through cooking. Once cooked, I note how soft or crispy the hash browns are, and how evenly they’ve been browned – if at all.

Next is homemade chips. After peeling and chopping potatoes into pieces, and soaking them for a few hours, they’re patted dry, and tossed in a small amount of oil (I use a blend of avocado and rapeseed oil). Again, if there’s cooking guidance for homemade chips, I follow it, but my go-to setting is 200°C for 30 minutes, shaking multiple times throughout cooking. I note how crispy the resulting chips are, if cooking is even throughout the batch, if any pieces are not cooked properly, and if they’re soft in the middle.

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Finally, I’ll use the air fryer to cook chicken. A whole bird is ideal, usually at 180°C for 50 minutes, but I’ll opt for chicken legs if there’s limited space. I’ll turn the chicken over halfway through cooking. And once roasted, I carve the flesh, and note if the juices are running clear, if there is any pink flesh remaining, especially around the bone, and if the skin is crisp or brown. 

In addition to my standardised cooking tests, I’ll make a note of how easy the air fryer is to use, how intuitive its settings and cooking instructions are, how quick and efficient it is, and how much space it takes up on my kitchen worktop. 

Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer review: What’s it like to use?

Setting the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer is as straightforward as they come. Clearly named buttons enable you to choose the preset, while time and temperature buttons on either side of the large, clear display can be adjusted easily, the latter in 5°C increments. Unlike most air fryers, the ClearView’s keep warm feature automatically kicks in after a programme is finished cooking, and stays on for up to an hour. While handy for not coming back to lukewarm food, it can dry out the contents of the drawer if you’re not careful, and there’s no option to disable it. 

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The aforementioned top window makes keeping an eye on cooking progress easy. It’s actually two windows: an inner one that covers the drawer compartment itself, with a second on top of the appliance. This means that, while the inner window might become greasy or splattered, the exterior one remains clean. After several cooks, I had to wipe down the interior to remove splashes of fat that had begun to accumulate. That said, along with the internal light, the excellent visibility that the ClearView affords can’t be understated. Not having to disrupt cooking to check on food was a real benefit. I also liked the large cooking area that prevented the need to stack food, resulting in better crisping overall.

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The drawer itself has a low-maintenance ceramic coating, as does the crisper plate, making it effortless to clean by hand. It’s also dishwasher safe but this caused issues for me. The drawer is large, making it tricky to fit into a standard-sized dishwasher, and even harder in a slimline model. Plus, I found dishwashing left condensation in the drawer’s window, which took days to evaporate. While not a huge issue, it could obscure the view from the front if you use and wash the drawer daily. 

Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer review: How well does it cook?

Cooking guidance is where the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer could do better: there’s very little beyond a short guide to programmes. This means that if you’re upgrading from another air fryer, you may need to adjust your usual times and temperatures as you go. For example, while I found that chips cooked rapidly, frozen food could have benefitted from a higher heat or extra time.

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Twelve frozen hash browns fitted in the drawer comfortably and, by using the air fry preset, a shake alert was set automatically. This sounds halfway through cooking, which was fine for hash browns that only require turning once, but less so for the chips I cooked afterwards, which needed shaking frequently. The shake reminder is also quiet, so you may miss it if you’re in another room.

Once cooking had finished, the hash browns were a mixed bag: some were pale, while others had golden brown corners. A few were softer but none were dry. While it’s not explicitly recommended for cooking from frozen, the max crisp setting could be a useful solution here.

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The visibility of the ClearView was useful when cooking chips as I could keep a close eye on their progress. I was able to fit a large portion in one layer on the crisper plate. While I initially set the air fryer for 30 minutes, the chips were well browned and evenly cooked after 22. The surface of the chips bubbled nicely and they were crisp at the ends and fluffy in the middle. A few smaller bits burned, so consistency of chip size made a difference to the batch. I also noticed that several chips managed to slip underneath the plate. Its holes aren’t huge, but there are a lot of them, so food size is something to be aware of.

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There’s no real guide to the size of bird that the ClearView can accommodate but I was able to squeeze in a medium 1.6kg chicken. In doing so, I got the impression that this is probably the largest that would fit without grazing the top of the drawer. The default roast setting was 190°C for 40 minutes, which I altered to 50 minutes at 180°C, while also adding in a shake alert that isn’t a default for this preset. After cooking had elapsed, the chicken was thoroughly roasted, with clear juices and bubbled golden brown skin. What’s more, the breast meat was juicy, not dry.

Should you buy the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer? 

There’s a lot to like about the Cuisinart ClearView 9-in-1 Air Fryer: its space is as good for pizza as it is for crisping up large amounts of food. Being able to see progress at a glance will be a boon for busy kitchens too. 

However, one big single drawer does come with its drawbacks. If you’re only cooking a small amount of food, it can feel wasteful heating a larger space, while there isn’t the flexibility of cooking multiple foods on different settings, which is something the best dual-drawer air fryers offer. It also has a large worktop footprint. For a similarly priced compact air fryer that will also fit pizza, try Tefal’s Easy Fry Pizza. Or for a smaller, more affordable model overall, the Instant Pot Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer is an excellent choice.

Written By

Rachel Ogden

Rachel Ogden is a freelance journalist who has been writing about small and large appliances, interiors and home tech since 2007. Her kitchen has seen hundreds of air fryers, cookers and coffee machines over the years as well as food processors, mixers and blenders. Other outlets she has contributed to include Ideal Home, BBC Good Food, Woman & Home, Tech Advisor and Trusted Reviews.

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