Cooking Veggies in the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer

Cooking Veggies in the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer - Food & Nutrition Magazine - Stone Soup
Photo courtesy of NuWave Brio

Product reviewed: NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer

I’ve always been a little jealous of my colleagues and clients getting creative with their air fryers; I hadn’t yet invested in this kitchen gadget. I heard a lot of stories about how versatile these machines are and how they make the best crispy tofu and delicious veggies, but I was just sticking to baking and steaming… until I got the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer.

When the air fryer arrived, I realized this is a large kitchen appliance (17-by-15.25-by-22.5 inches). I have the 15.5-quart capacity, which has several different levels for various racks. It also comes with a rotisserie, so it’s definitely large enough to cook an entire chicken. If you need something smaller, the machine is also available in 14-, 10-, 6-, 4.5- and 3-quart options.Cooking Veggies in the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer - Choose the best capacity for your needs! The cooking range is 100 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and offers options to air fry, broil, roast, grill, sear or dehydrate food. Honestly, if you had limited equipment, you could cook most foods in this machine.

Getting the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer ready to use took some work. I had to unpack and wash several pieces: numerous racks, the rotisserie, a metal basket and a variety of instruction booklets and list of preset cooking options. The instructions said to handwash each piece and also wipe the machine out with a wet cloth, which took time. I wish the pieces were safe to put in the dishwasher. After deeper search online, I found that many of the accessories could be washed on the top rack of a dishwasher, but the instructions provided do say to wash by hand.

I wanted to jump right in and use the air fryer. Some of the recipes in the book looked intriguing, but I quickly realized that this machine wasn’t like a microwave or multi-cooker. I was going to have to read the instruction booklet carefully before using it. Poring through the instructions and navigating the digital touchscreen were more challenging than I thought they would be. This is certainly not an intuitive machine. Trying to figure out which rack to use, which position to put it on within the air fryer, how and when to use the preheat function and what setting to push for a given recipe is still taking time, though I have made several items in the machine.

That being said, and even though it’s not the easiest tool I use in the kitchen, I’m really enjoying the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer. I made spicy vegan cauliflower bites, crispy tofu and even French toast and everything turned out great. I like that I can cut down on some of the fat I use in cooking and that I can get a crisp texture that I’m unable to produce any other way in my kitchen. I can definitely see this machine turning someone into a tofu lover or get them eating more vegetables.

I’m enjoying the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer in my regular, full kitchen, but it also would be a great appliance to have in a dorm room, small apartment or RV, allowing for variety in recipes without needing an oven, stove and microwave. This air fryer really does it all — you just need to be patient and good at reading instructions.

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Ginger Hultin
Ginger Hultin, MS, RDN is the owner of the private practices, Champagne Nutrition, and Seattle Cancer Nutritionist in Seattle, WA. She specializes in integrative health and oncology, nutrigenomics, and plant-based diets. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.