Gourmia GTA2500 Electric Digital Air Fryer Griller and Roaster review

I love fried foods, but I know they aren’t healthy for me. Is there a way to have the same flavor, taste and texture of your favorite fried foods without all the unhealthy oil and grease that goes along with them? The Gourmia GTA2500 air fryer, roaster and cooker has that claim. They offered to send me one to review and I happily agreed because I have a weakness for french fries. Let’s see if the Gourmia has earned a permanent spot in my kitchen.

Note: Images can be clicked to view a larger size.

What’s in the box?

Gourmia cooker
Rotating Classic Rotisserie
Rotisserie Basket
Tongs
Kabob Rack
Bake Pan
Steam Pan
Hi Broil Pan
Low Broil Pan
Hi Steamer Rack
Low Steamer Rack
Crisp ‘N’ Fry Basket
Steel Mesh Filter
Manual

The Gourmia GTA2500 cooker reminds me of a stubby R2D2 with its round shape and domed lid. The exterior of the  cooker is made of plastic, with a display, and control panel on the front. The top display shows the cooking temperature, with + and – buttons on either side that allow for customization. There’s a timer display below the temp display with its own set of + and – adjustment buttons. There are also buttons for to control the rotation feature, defrost, and presets for roasting, french fries, pizza and baking.

The cooking element is housed in the lid, which lifts and locks in place when you’re loading the cooker. The GTA2500 uses halogen bulbs to cook the food.

There is a large 9.5 quart non-stick pot in the bottom of the cooker which can lift out for easy cleaning.

The Gourmia comes with a wide assortment of accessories that will let you steam, bake, fry and roast.

To test the Gourmia, I conducted three tests: pizza, french fries and a rotisserie chicken. Looking at the included user manual, I was very disappointed that there were no recipes and almost no info on how to cook anything. The only useful info in the manual is a chart that shows which accessories to use for different foods.

I decided to start simple by fixing a frozen pizza. The chart in the manual shows that you use the dual rack and the fry pan but doesnt’ tell you which way to place the rack or any other info. I  put the dual rack on the bottom like you see above and the fry pan with the pizza on top.

The Gourmia is only large enough to fix a 10 inch pizza. The frozen pizza fits perfectly in the non-stick fry pan included with the cooker.

Then you close the lid, plug in the cooker, press the start button and then the pizza button. The temperature display changes to show 410 degrees and the timer shows 15 minutes.

The interior lights up and the fan turns on while the food is cooking. The Gourmia is louder than a microwave, but not loud enough to be too annoying. Warm air comes out of the vents on the top of the lid and the outside of the cooker becomes warm but not too hot to the touch.

After 15 minutes, the cooker powers off and beeps to let you know that the food is done. The frozen pizza was cooked just fine and tasted good. No real complaints, but cooking the pizza in the oven would require the exact same amount of time and the crust would be a little crisper which is the way I prefer it.

For my next test made french fries. The first step was to peel and cut four medium sized potatoes into french fry sized pieces. I then drizzled less than a tablespoon of olive oil on them, mixed and sprinkled with salt.

For french fries, you use the baking cage which uses the rotation feature.

The baking cage uses a rod that goes through the center of the cage and is inserted into the socket and holder in the bottom portion of the cooker.  Once the cage is loaded an closed, pressing the fries button and the rotation button on the front of the Gourmia starts the process.

The fries button is set to cook the fries for 30 minutes, but when the time was up, the fries weren’t quite done, so I cooked them for several minutes more before removing the cage. Some of the fries were crisp and some were a little wimpy but they were all tasty. Just like with the pizza, I think using a normal oven would give you about the same results in about the same amount of time. We fix fries in the oven semi often by placing them on a cookie sheet. The only advantage of the Gourmia is that it doesn’t require that you manually flip the fries halfway through.

For my final test, I wanted to fix a rotisserie chicken. For that, you use the chicken forks and the same rod that is used with the baking cage. Instead of using the cage, you use two forks. One on each end. For something this “big”, it would be nice to have had an actual recipe and some guidance. The only info you get is to use the chicken forks. There’s no info on what size chicken to use.  Jeanne bought a 6 LB chicken, which we washed, skewered, which by the way wasn’t fun, and placed in the rotation sockets.

I then closed the lid and pressed the chicken/roast button and rotation button. The temperature displayed as 390 degrees and the time was set to 30 minutes. Then the bird started to rotate and stopped. It then tried to rotate in the opposite direction and stopped. At this point I realized that the chicken was too large to rotate. It was getting stuck on the bottom. Ugh. So we had to turn off the rotation feature and let it cook for the 30 minutes. I then checked the temperature with a probe and it was only 120 degrees. Chicken needs to be 165 degrees before you can safely eat it. So I pressed the chicken button again to start a second cooking session. Once that session ended, I checked the temp again and it was about 150 degrees. We flipped the chicken over and started a third cooking session which finally got the bird up to the necessary 165 degrees.

The final product looked and tasted fantastic. The skin was crisply and the meat was very moist. Just like with the pizza and the fries, I can more easily roast a chicken in my oven.

The moral of the story is that the Gourmia GTA2500 Electric Digital Air Fryer Griller and Roaster does cook food, but if you already own an oven / stove, it really won’t do anything they won’t do. I can see this cooker being useful for someone in a tiny home, apartment or dorm, who doesn’t have an oven. But for those of us that have an oven, I don’t recommend buying one. Also, the lack of real instructions are another big reason why I don’t recommend buying this product.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Gourmia. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.