Gourmia 7-Qt Air Fryer Review (2024)

Affordable air fryers continue to be one of the most popular products in the small kitchen appliances market, and this Gourmia 7 Qt air fryer review is a continuation of my journey into this fascinating world.

I've been so immersed in fancy multi-cookers, two-basket air fryers, and cooking multitools that I've neglected air fryers that appeal to a broader audience thanks to a lower price point. Check Latest Price of this unit Here.

I began to remedy this oversight with my first affordable air fryer review on Also the Crumbs Please. I enjoyed it so much that I quickly set about planning my next modestly priced air fryer review.

In this blog, I'll share my findings, thoughts, and opinions on this 7-Quart Gourmia air fryer, its features and functions, build quality, ease of use, what it can produce, and how it compares to the best family air fryers.

Let's start with what's in the box.

What’s in the Box

• Gourmia 7-Quart Digital Air Fryer
• Air Fryer Basket
• Air Fryer Crisper Plate
• Air Fryer Cooking Rack
• Recipe Book
• User Manual

Specifications

The 7-Quart Gourmia Digital Air Fryer: A Closer Look

First Impressions: Packaging and Build

Never judge a book by its cover, they say, or never judge an air fryer by its box. However, the look and feel of the packaging of this Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer felt flimsy and not as structurally sound as some other air fryers I've bought before.

Unfortunately, the poor build quality of the box was a taste of things to come. When I laid my hands on the air fryer to take it from the box, I could immediately feel where Gourmia had cut a few corners to keep the price of the air fryer at a more affordable level.

The plastic housing felt, well, plasticky, which might sound obvious, but anyone who has experienced the dashboards of luxury cars and cheap cars will know what I mean.

Design Hurdles: Power Cord and Tray Insertion

I hoped the first impressions would improve when I switched the air fryer and got cooking some of my favorite dishes, but before I even switched it on, I encountered a problem that's becoming all too familiar in modern kitchen appliances: short power cords.

Things didn't get any better when I'd finally rearranged my kitchen and got the Gourmia digital air fryer plugged in.

Inserting the crisper tray into the air fryer basket was a seemingly impossible task that left me wondering if I'd bought a defective unit.

I had to ram it in so hard that it almost bent the tray, and then, keeping the same theme, the air fryer basket itself was so tight that I had to hold on to the whole air fryer to force the air fryer basket in without moving the entire cooker.

So far, so disappointing.

User Interface: A Step Back?

With my food prepped and in the basket, I was ready to cook for the very first time with the Gorumia 7-Qt air fryer. My initial enthusiasm had been dampened by my experience so far, and it was about to take another hit when I was setting the air fryer up for its first outing.

Having recently used the spectacular tempered glass user interface of my previous air fryer, I think I've been spoiled, and it was unfortunate for this Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer to follow that appliance because it made this control panel feel sluggish and lethargic.

I had to press buttons multiple times to get it to register my choices, and at this point, I'd given up the ghost of having anything positive to write about in this review.

How wrong I was!

Cooking Performance: The Redemption

If Gourmia had been forced to cut corners on the air fryer's exterior to keep the price down, it sure spared no expense when it came to the cooking capacity and technical stuff on the inside.

Despite the issues I had trying to insert the crisper plate and the air fryer basket into the unit, the basket offers a cavernous cooking space for a generous amount of food.

The basket design allows for decent air flow (which is super important when air frying), which was further improved by including an extra cooking rack that creates even more space for air to circulate under your food.

I've used ridiculously expensive air fryers that didn't include an extra rack, so this was a massive win for the Gourmia air fryer.

After cooking several dishes, it quickly became apparent that this air fryer's strengths are in performance and the quality of the meals it provides.

I was astonished at the Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer's ability to cook food so quickly, evenly, and thoroughly, especially when considering the appliance's price point.

This air fryer's performance isn't only impressive for a budget appliance; it's impressive, full stop. I'd go as far as to say that the finished products were cooked as well as any high-end air fryer I've ever used.

Ultimately, we should judge an air fryer based on its ability to make food, and despite all the minor issues I experienced while setting up this Gourmia air fryer, I can not fault its performance one bit.

I'm not ashamed to say I gave this air fryer a round of applause when I sank my teeth into my juicy and tender bacon joint.

Bravo, Gourmia, bravo!

Gourmia 7 Quart Digital Air Fryer Features & Functions

Despite its affordability, the Gourmia 7 Quart Digital Air Fryer has an impressive number of cooking features and functions alongside its large capacity and stupendous performance. They are:

• Air Fry
• Bake
• Fries
• Wings
• Roast
• Broil
• Bacon
• Reheat
• Dehydrate
• Keep Warm
• Shake Reminder
• Preheat

How Easy Is This Gourmia 7-Quart Digital Air Fryer To Use?

The ease of use of this Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer should, on the face of it, be a straightforward ten out of ten. Unfortunately, the build quality issues we've partially covered hampered how easy this air fryer is to use.

For instance, setting up the air fryer to whip up a batch of French fries or some delicious breaded chicken wings should be as easy as pressing the chicken or fries button and pressing start, waiting for the shake reminder, turning your food, and then waiting for some mouth-watering snacks.

But the unresponsive touchscreen control panel and frustratingly stiff air fryer basket leave a bad taste in your mouth when all you should be tasting is chicken.

Indeed, this air fryer could be almost impossible to use for people who struggle with their mobility or have trouble with their hands and wrists. Whether the stiffness of the components reduces over time remains to be seen.

If you ignore these issues (or are lucky enough to get a Gourmia air fryer that doesn't suffer from them), the UI is pretty well-designed and should be relatively easy to use.

There's no confusion as to which buttons you should press, and if you want to add a little extra heat or time, you can easily accomplish that with the plus/minus buttons.

That said, at no point did I need to cook food for any additional time—which I'll get to next.

What Food Can I Cook in this Gourmia Air Fryer?

I've been pretty critical of this appliance so far, but actual cooking is where this air fryer comes alive, and after some extensive testing, I fell in love with it completely.

As I've already discussed, there are ten cooking functions on this air fryer, three of which are food features. So, I put them to the test but with a little twist.

Bacon

It's no secret that I love bacon. Aside from pizza, it's one of my all-time favorite foods.

Any old air fryer can whip up a few wafer-thin slices of bacon, but how would it stand up to cooking a thick, tender, and juicy bacon joint?

Because Gourmia designed the bacon setting to cook regular bacon, I had to quadruple the cooking time to ensure my prime cut was thoroughly cooked.

As this was my first attempt at cooking with this 7-quart digital air fryer, I didn't know what to expect, and my experience so far left me with little hope of a tasty meal.

When I pulled the basket out after the timer had beeped, I was greeted by the most glorious honey-glazed mustard bacon joint I've ever seen.

Better still, the tender meat underneath the crispy exterior almost fell off the bone and then melted in my mouth.

The Gourmia 7-quart air fryer had my attention.

Southern Fried Chicken Wings

There's no bigger test for a chef than to replicate their mother's recipe to make a meal for other human beings. While I didn't yet have enough confidence in this air fryer to make my mum's southern fried chicken wings for anyone else, I was eager to see how well this air fryer could handle this test.

I decided to use the bonus rack for the chicken wings to allow more room under the wings for airflow to ensure the breadcrumbs coating and skin were crispy round.

Using the wings cooking feature, I entrusted the Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer to do its thing and didn't bother with the shake reminder as I wanted to see how effective the cooking rack was.

The Gourmia air fryer quickly notched up its second win as my freshly air-fried wings came out deliciously crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside.

I'm not going to sit here and say they were as tasty as my mum's (that would be blasphemy), but they were wings I would happily serve to my friends for the football game.

Potato Croquettes

The fries feature on most air fryers is potentially the cooking function that you'll use the most, but I didn't want to cook any old fries—I didn't want to cook fries at all.

However, I love my fries with a crispy exterior and are light and fluffy on the inside, so I decided that cooking croquettes would be a good test of the air fryer. My logic felt sound at the time.

When the cooking cycle had finished, I opened the drawer to see some very anaemic-looking potato croquettes.

Of course, they were; they're so much thicker than fries that there's no reason that I should have thought this would work. That was on me.

So I whacked them back in the air fryer for another 5 minutes, and hey presto! Perfectly cooked croquettes, crispy and fluffy, just what I was looking for.

Everything Else

I won't go into intricate detail about the rest of the foods you can air fry in this machine, but here's a quick list of other everyday foods I've made without issues in the Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer.

• Burgers
• Sausages
• Actual French fries
• Roast vegetables
• Chicken nuggets
• Reheated pizza
• Jacket potatoes

These are just a few of our favorite foods this air fryer excels at, but the world is your oyster, and you're only limited by your culinary imagination.

Bonus Tip:

While the additional rack is designed to sit in the bottom of the air fryer basket, you can place it in while the crisp plate is inserted and effectively double your cooking capacity when cooking food like wings, sausages, and burgers.

How Easy Is It to Clean This Gourmia 7-Quart Digital Air Fryer?

You'll know my absolute disdain for washing up if you've read my other reviews. Hate, hate, hate.

If I can palm the job off on someone else, I will, so it fills my heart with joy when an appliance comes into my life that feels like it requires no effort to clean.

This Gourmia air fryer is one such device.

After conducting my tests without cleaning the basket, rack, or crisper tray, I thought the baked-on grease, scorched bread crumbs, and burnt potato would pose a challenge, but all it took was a little soap and water, a bottle brush, and microfibre dishcloth.

I don't own a dishwasher (but the parts are dishwasher safe if you have one), but this air fryer is so easy to clean that I'd hazard a guess it's faster, easier, and more sustainable to wash the basket, rack, and plate by hand than it is in the dishwasher.

It's worth noting that any brand appliance or piece of cookware with non-stick coating is usually easy to clean away the fat, grease, and bits of burnt food, and the real challenge arrives after you've been using them for a while.

What Other Budget Options Do I Have?

If you think you'll struggle with the stiff drawer, have problems fitting the crisper plate, or get frustrated with the touchscreen display and would like to consider other similar air fryers, here are a couple of options to consider.

Cosori 5-Quart Air Fryer- read my full Cosori Air Fryer Review

Suppose you've got extra money in your budget and a large cooking capacity isn't vital to your needs. In that case, this air fryer is one of the appliances I recently bought as part of my awakening towards more affordable cooking tools.

While it suffers from some of the same issues as its Gourmia counterpart, the Cosori user experience is streets ahead of everything else on the market thanks to its excellent touchscreen display. It's a good cook too!

Tower T17021 Family-Sized Air Fryer

If you don't like all this new-fangled technology or your budget won't stretch to the Gourmia 7-quart digital air fryer, Tower makes a range of affordable air fryers that could be just the ticket.

Turn the temperature dial to the right heat, the time dial to your preferred cooking time, and let the powerful 1500W power output take care of the rest. It's simple technology that gets the job done.

Do the Cooking Talents of the Gourmia 7-quart Air Fryer Outweigh its Shortcomings?

In my real life, this quirky air fryer would be automatically disqualified because its cooking capacity isn't substantial enough for big families, but I can't blame Gourmia for my massive tribe.

But would I recommend it to someone who needs an appliance of this size? Yes and no.

If you're the type of person who values thoughtful design, precision engineering, and innovative technology, I all but guarantee that you'd hate this air fryer.

But if you can forgive this 7-quart digital air fryer for having a short power cord, stiff working parts, and unresponsive touchscreens, what you're left with is one of the best air fryers on the market for cooking your food to perfection and is great value for money.