The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB is a compact air fryer with a transparent glass cooking bowl, which lets you monitor food as it cooks without opening the air fryer and losing heat. It runs on 1,200 watts, has a temperature range of 105 °F to 390 °F, and offers eight cooking presets accessible via an HD LED touchscreen. The non-stick mesh tray is dishwasher safe, and the air fryer includes automatic shut-off and overheat protection.
Our Verdict
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB is a mediocre air fryer. It produces inconsistent results, leaving some portions undercooked even if you shake or rearrange the food partway through cooking. The preheat time is very long, which cuts into the time savings that air fryers should provide when compared with a traditional oven. Cooking method presets are quite limited, but food-specific presets take the guesswork out of common proteins like chicken and fish.
Features convenient food-specific presets
Preheats slowly.
Produces inconsistent results in terms of crispiness.
The fan doesn't circulate air powerfully enough to cook food evenly.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB is adequate for large batch cooking, with the basket holding enough for a meal for two to three people. The air fryer tends to produce uneven results because the fan doesn't circulate air powerfully, so working in smaller batches will yield better crisping. Unfortunately, it doesn't cook very quickly, so it'll take a while to make multiple batches.
The basket's surface area is adequate for cooking single-layer portions.
Filling the basket completely yields inconsistent results.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB doesn't do a great job at air frying. It's not a very powerful option overall, with a relatively low maximum temperature setting and a fan that doesn't circulate air forcefully enough for optimal performance. The temperature fluctuates during the cooking process, leading to inconsistent heat levels. As a result, it struggles to cook food evenly, producing a mix of properly crisped and undercooked pieces in the same batch.
The basket's surface area is adequate for cooking single-layer portions.
Produces inconsistent results in terms of crispiness.
The fan doesn't circulate air powerfully enough to cook food evenly.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB doesn't cook food very quickly. While cook times are reasonable for most meals, it takes a long time to preheat, which creates a noticeable delay before you can start cooking.
Cooking times are reasonable for everyday meals.
Preheats slowly.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB has a decent cooking capacity. The basket is roomy enough to make arranging food in a single layer easy, giving you space to feed two to three people at once, but larger households will need to cook in batches.
The basket's surface area is adequate for cooking single-layer portions.
Filling the basket completely yields inconsistent results.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB is a good choice if you're looking for a compact model. Its footprint is small enough to fit comfortably in most kitchen setups without taking up much counter space.
Compact size won't monopolize counter space.
Performance Usages
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB comes in two colorways: black and white. We tested the black version. See the label for our unit.
If you come across another variant, let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review.
Popular Air Fryer Comparisons
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer is designed for shoppers who specifically want a model with a glass basket. If being able to see your food while it cooks matters to you, it fills that niche. Beyond that, it's hard to recommend over the alternatives. The core issue is that the 1,200-watt heating system is underpowered compared to most air fryers at this price, which means slower preheating, less consistent crisping, and longer cook times overall.
The COSORI TurboBlaze and the Ninja Max XL AF161, which both have a similar capacity to the NutriChef, produce more evenly crisped food and cook it faster, with far more cooking method options. If the glass design is specifically what appeals to you, the Ninja Crispi Pro AS101 uses swappable glass cooking chambers and outperforms the NutriChef on frying consistency and cooking speed. Alternatively, the Chefman Crispinator 8 Qt. has a viewing window as an alternative to a glass cooking chamber.
If you're looking for more alternatives, check out our picks for the best air fryers, the small air fryers, and the best affordable air fryers.
The Ninja Max XL AF161 is a better air fryer than the NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB. It produces better frying results, cooks food significantly faster, and preheats much more quickly. It also maintains a more stable temperature throughout the cooking process and offers more versatility, with a wider range of temperatures and fan speeds. The NutriChef has a couple of advantages, though. Its glass basket lets you monitor food throughout the entire cooking process, while the Ninja gives you no way to check on food without opening the drawer. The NutriChef also has a larger basket surface area, giving you more room to spread food in a single layer.
The COSORI TurboBlaze is a better air fryer than the NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB. It cooks food more quickly and produces more evenly-crisped results. Its larger basket also gives you more room to spread food in a single layer, which contributes to more consistent results. It's also more versatile, with a wider range of temperatures and fan speeds, making it well-suited for baking, dehydrating, and proofing dough, as well as standard air frying. The NutriChef's main advantage is its glass basket, which lets you monitor food throughout the entire cook rather than through a small window. It's also slightly more compact, which may matter if counter space is tight.
The Chefman Crispinator 8 Qt. is a better air fryer than the NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB in most respects. It preheats dramatically faster, cooks food more quickly, and delivers more consistent frying results. It's also more versatile, with a wider temperature and fan speed range, so you can bake, broil, and dehydrate alongside standard air frying. Both models offer a way to monitor food as it cooks without opening the drawer, though the Chefman uses a window and interior light, while the NutriChef uses a glass basket. The one place where the NutriChef has the edge is in footprint. Despite the Crispinator's impressively compact design for its capacity, the NutriChef is a noticeably smaller appliance overall, which may matter if counter space is limited.
The Ninja Crispi Pro AS101 is a better air fryer than the NutriChef 5.8 Quart NCAF539TB. Both use glass cooking chambers, so you can monitor food as it cooks without opening the fryer, but the Crispi Pro produces significantly better frying results, cooking food more evenly. It also offers more versatility, with a wider temperature range and additional cooking modes like dehydrating and proofing that the NutriChef can't match. Cooking and preheat speeds are faster on the Crispi Pro as well, though neither model is particularly quick to preheat. The NutriChef has a slightly larger basket surface area, which gives you a bit more room to spread food in a single layer.
Test Results
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer has a decent 5.8-quart capacity, but the basket's surface area is on the smaller side, giving you less room to spread out your food in a single layer. Other models, like the Ninja Pro AF141, have a similar capacity but have a larger surface area, providing better results.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer offers mediocre versatility. It only has two actual cooking method presets: Defrost and Manual (air fry). The temperature ceiling of 390 °F also means it's not well-suited for high-heat cooking. The minimum temperature is also relatively high, so it can't double as a food dehydrator. Not to mention, it doesn't have a particularly high maximum fan speed, so it doesn't offer top-notch air circulation.
Beyond the two cooking method presets, there are six food-specific presets:
- Shrimp: 300 °F–340 °F
- Steak: 340 °F–375 °F
- Fries: 340 °F–390 °F
- Wings: 340 °F–375 °F
- Fish: 300 °F–340 °F
- Chicken: 340 °F–375 °F
You can run any of these settings for between 1 and 60 minutes.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer only makes passable fried food, with about half of each batch coming out with the desired crispy texture. The other half, however, is largely undercooked. You can expect uneven results even if you shake or rearrange the food partway through the cooking process. For a glass air fryer with better results, take a look at the Ninja Crispi Pro AS101.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer cooking speed is mediocre, likely because of its relatively low fan speed and maximum temperature, so you'll have to wait a while for your food to finish cooking. For a faster model, consider the Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL AF181.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer preheats very slowly, so you'll need to wait for a few minutes before putting your food in, undermining one of the primary appeals of an air fryer over a conventional oven: not requiring a long preheat.
The NutriChef 5.8 Quart air fryer provides passable temperature stability. When you add food to the basket, the chamber temperature drops dramatically and takes a while to recover, meaning your food spends a significant stretch of each cook at a lower temperature than intended. The temperature also fluctuates a lot during operation, which contributes to the uneven frying results you'll notice.