Sometimes when a new appliance arrives, I find myself wondering if there is going to be nothing interesting to report about it. But they always seem to have a story, and I have loads to say about this one. Meet the Breville Halo Flexi, an air fryer that comes with loads of accessories and some bold promises about versatility and the number of people it can cook for. But it also seems to have a little bit of a problem with maths.
As ever, I am going to show you everything about this air fryer, the things I cooked in it, and some of its quirks. This makes for a chunky blog with a lot of points to cover, so I have divided it up into sections to help you skip around if you need particular information.
Table of Contents
The 12 Cooking Ways Claim
The Breville Halo Flexi’s big sales pitch is that it cooks in 12 different ways. When it arrived, I was expecting a clear explanation in the instruction book, but not only is there no clear explanation, there is in fact no mention of it at all. That left me trying to figure it out myself.
Was it perhaps a reference to the different ways you can set the air fryer up with its many accessories? I tried counting those but only found five ways. What about the different settings? There are only six, but if you include the presets too, that makes 10, which is still less than 12. I did email Breville, and they provided an answer, but it still does not quite add up. As it turns out, that is not the only place where strange things are going on with numbers in this air fryer.
Capacity Claims
Let us talk about capacity for a moment. Normally with a drawer air fryer, the capacity figure you see quoted is obtained by adding up the volume of each drawer. For instance, with the Cosori Dual Basket, you have two drawers which each hold 4.25 litres, making it an 8.5 litre air fryer overall.
With the Breville Halo Flexi, however, they appear to have started by calculating the internal space of the air fryer, then rounding it up a little, then dividing it by two and quoting this figure as the capacity of each cooking zone. Someone considering buying this air fryer would see that 5.5 litre figure quoted for each cooking zone and reasonably assume that the baskets are that capacity too. If they did, they would be very wrong.
Compared to the 4.25 litre drawer of the Cosori, the Breville Halo Flexi basket is clearly much smaller. I measured it and it turns out to be just 3.5 litres, which is only slightly larger than the small drawer of the Philips 3000 Series. Yes, you can remove the drawers and the divider to use it as one space, but even with a large chicken inside you are never going to be able to use every inch of that space. To describe it as 11 litres in total is, in my opinion, simply misleading.
Can It Really Cook for 10 People?
As for the claim that this air fryer can cook for 10 people, it is just fantasy. Air fryer manufacturers typically quote one person per one litre of capacity, but in my experience, one person per two litres is far more realistic. This air fryer is, in my opinion, actually more suited to cooking for three or four people rather than the ten that Breville quotes.
To put this into practice, I cooked a 1.8 kg chicken in it. As expected, there is absolutely no way the chicken fits inside one of these drawers. You have to cook it on the large roasting tray, which then means you have no space for side dishes at the same time, unless you layer vegetables around the chicken.
Accessories and What You Get
That large roasting tray is one of 11 accessories included with this model. They are all nonstick and dishwasher safe, although no further information is provided about the nonstick coating. Here is what is included in the package.
You get two baskets with crisper trays, a single removable basket handle, two small roasting trays, two small mesh trays, one large roasting tray, one large mesh tray, and a substantial removable partition. The roasting trays are very shallow, so you probably want to avoid using them for anything that needs shaking, as you might find yourself losing part of your meal at the back of the oven, as I did. The mesh trays are designed to be used high up with the roasting trays underneath to catch any oil or crumbs.
All of these accessories do make you feel like you are getting good value for money, but I could not help feeling that all the kit takes away from the simplicity that makes air fryers so appealing in the first place. Although there is a storage compartment at the bottom, you cannot actually fit everything in it.
Two Models, One Confusing Situation
There is a reason for that storage issue. The model I reviewed is the Breville Halo Flexi VDF138, which I bought from Amazon with an RRP of £189.99. However, Amazon also sells the Breville Halo Flexi VDF130 with an RRP of £229.99, which appears to be essentially the same model but lacks the large mesh basket.
Here is what I think happened. The VDF130 was likely released first, and then Breville added the large mesh basket to the package and dropped the price to create the VDF138. As a result, there are now two nearly identical models available, and with the newer cheaper one, you cannot fit all the accessories into the drawer that was designed to hold them.
The Single Handle Problem
One of my bigger frustrations with the Breville Halo Flexi is the single basket handle that is supplied with the appliance. There are several reasons why I dislike this design.
First, it requires an unnecessary degree of dexterity. You need to squeeze it and insert it into the clasp on the back of the basket, which means that if you have any issues with hand mobility, this air fryer is not going to work well for you. Second, it is a separate part that you can and will inevitably lose at some point, most likely right when the air fryer is beeping at you to tell you the food is ready.
Third, the shaking or tossing process that is advised during cooking becomes unnecessarily lengthy with a removable handle. If you are using two baskets, you need to open the door, insert the handle, pull the basket out, shake it, put it back, detach the handle, and close the door, then repeat the whole process with the second basket, rather than simply pulling a drawer open. Finally, the baskets only have a clasp on one end, so if you insert them the wrong way in a rush, you will have no easy way to get them out, especially when they are hot.
Also Read: Ninja vs Cosori vs Philips Air Fryer
Functions, Settings and Controls
Function wise, the Breville Halo Flexi has six different settings. From left to right these are air fryer, turbo crisp, roast, grill, bake, and reheat. Turbo crisp runs at 240 degrees Celsius and is the equivalent of Max Crisp on a Ninja, meaning it is designed for final crisping of food after normal cooking. That 240 degrees is the maximum this air fryer can reach, and the lowest temperature is 80 degrees.
There are also four food presets for fries, chicken, steak, and veg. There is a match function to duplicate time and temperature to both cooking zones, and a sync function so you can set each side with different times and have them finish together. Using the buttons on the control panel can be a little hit and miss at times. Sometimes they need repeated presses, and other times you accidentally trigger fast scrolling when you do not want to.
The air fryer has audible alerts throughout cooking. One alert goes off five times halfway through cooking when you are using a setting where shaking is advised, and it bleeps three times on every setting when cooking finishes.
Cleaning and Visibility
As far as cleaning goes, the roasting trays and mesh trays are really easy to clean and do not take up much room in the dishwasher. However, because they do not have high sides, you do get spillage and splatters in the main body of the air fryer, which makes cleaning feel more like scrubbing out an oven.
The Breville Halo Flexi does have windows in each door and two internal lights, which turn on automatically for the first 30 seconds and for the final minute of cooking. This serves as a nice early warning that your food is nearly ready. The lights can also be turned on and off manually using a button on the display. Just bear in mind that if you are using the baskets, they do not have windows, so you will not be able to see anything through the glass doors while they are in use.
Temperature Testing and Cooking Results
Like some drawer air fryers, the Breville Halo Flexi has a removable central divider, and on this model it is pretty substantial. When you insert it, it automatically adjusts the options available on the display. Without it in place, you have options for single zone cooking, and with it inserted, you have options for two zones. It performed well in my temperature bleed test, with only a minimal amount of heat transferring between the two cooking zones.
However, results were not so positive in the cooking temperature test. The first two dishes I cooked came out burnt, so I ran the air fryer empty at 200 degrees Celsius, and after 10 minutes the thermometer read 220 degrees. I also tested one of the single cooking zones separately and had much better results. To play it safe from that point onwards, I dropped all cooking temperatures by 20 degrees and achieved good results.
It is worth noting that dropping temperatures with air fryers is fairly standard practice, but that is usually because the fans cook things faster, not because the appliance is running hotter than programmed. It is also worth mentioning that the outside of this appliance gets warmer than others I have tested, although it is still within safe limits.
Energy Consumption
To complete my testing, I measured the energy consumption of the Breville Halo Flexi by running it on the air fry setting for 10 minutes and recording the result in kilowatt hours. I then compared this figure against several other popular dual drawer air fryers to see how it stacks up in terms of running costs.
What About Those Five Star Reviews?
With all of these complications, I was quite surprised to see so many five star reviews on Breville’s website. No one seemed to have picked up on the small drawers or the overheating, and almost everyone appeared to love it. Then I noticed something worth pointing out.
Twenty of the 28 reviews on the website were from people who had been gifted the air fryer through a website called influencer.com. In theory, products on this platform are gifted in exchange for honest reviews. However, reviewers in these arrangements often feel a degree of obligation to leave reviews with a positive bias. I will let you make up your own mind about whether that has affected what they wrote.
- Good range of included accessories adds cooking flexibility.
- Internal lights and door windows offer helpful visibility while cooking.
- Removable divider works well with minimal heat bleed between zones.
- Nonstick accessories are easy to clean and dishwasher safe.
Specification Table
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Model Reviewed | Breville Halo Flexi VDF138 |
| Also Available As | Breville Halo Flexi VDF130 |
| RRP (VDF138) | £189.99 |
| RRP (VDF130) | £229.99 |
| Quoted Total Capacity | 11 Litres |
| Actual Basket Capacity (Each) | 3.5 Litres |
| Quoted Capacity Per Zone | 5.5 Litres |
| Maximum Temperature | 240 Degrees Celsius (Turbo Crisp) |
| Minimum Temperature | 80 Degrees Celsius |
| Cooking Settings | 6 (Air Fry, Turbo Crisp, Roast, Grill, Bake, Reheat) |
| Food Presets | 4 (Fries, Chicken, Steak, Veg) |
| Number of Accessories | 11 |
| Accessories Dishwasher Safe | Yes |
| Removable Divider | Yes |
| Internal Lights | Yes (Auto at start and end of cooking) |
| Door Windows | Yes |
| Sync and Match Functions | Yes |
| Recommended Serving Size (Actual) | 3 to 4 People |
| Manufacturer Claimed Serving Size | 10 People |
Final Thoughts on the Breville Halo Flexi
The Breville Halo Flexi is an air fryer that arrives with big claims and a lot of accessories. The capacity figures are misleading, the cooking for 10 people claim is unrealistic, the single handle design creates unnecessary hassle, and the air fryer runs hotter than its programmed temperature. That said, once you adjust for the temperature difference, it does produce decent cooking results, and the range of accessories does offer genuine flexibility for different types of cooking.
If you are cooking for three to four people and are happy to work around its quirks, it can be a capable kitchen appliance. But go in with realistic expectations rather than taking the headline claims at face value.
Read More: Why Everyone Is Obsessed With Air Fryers
