REVIEW – Being empty nesters has greatly reduced the size of our meals. Firing up our big conventional oven seems like a waste of electricity, which of course means money. Since using the Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven for the last month or so, we have not used our big oven one time. Our 4-slice toaster has also been relegated to the soon-to-be garage sale pile. This Air Fryer Oven has transformed our cooking and baking lives. It has become an everyday used appliance, like my wife’s tea kettle.
What is it?
The Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven is a large capacity (24 qt) 10-function oven, that is also an excellent air fryer. Its French door design makes getting trays and baskets in and out of the oven very easy and safe. No more forearm burns! The oven has a “360º” convection fan which makes heating more efficient and consistent, all while cooking up to 25% faster than non-convection ovens. Its compact size doesn’t take up very much counter space, yet it is spacious enough to fit a full-sized pizza.
What’s included?
- Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven
- Baking tray
- Baking rack
- Air fry basket
- Crumb tray
- Instruction manual
Tech specs
Click to expand
- 10 cooking modes: Air Fry (6 options), Roast, Bake, Broil, Toast, Pizza, Reheat, Slow Cook, Dehydrate, and Warm
- 26.4 QT capacity
- 25% faster cooking
- Uses 90% less oil compared to traditional fryers
- Temperature range: 150º – 450º F in 5° increments (65C – 232C)
- Set time in 1-minute increments
- 6 heating elements
- Model Number: MET26C3AST
- Construction: Stainless Steel & glass
- Product Dimensions: W:16.93 in (430 mm), D:15.93 in (404mm), H:13.75 in (350 mm) Product Weight: 20.94 lbs (9.5 kg)
- Power consumption: 1750w
Design and features
What I said before is not at all an exaggeration. I’ll say it again, that this large capacity little oven has transformed our cooking and baking life. It can do so much in a small package. Let’s go through its features and all of the uses we put it through during our testing.
The Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven is made almost entirely of stainless steel. It’s compact, yet spacious inside. We have been able to cook entire meals in it, including full-sized pizzas. We previously had a 4-slice toaster, and although this Midea Oven is larger, it doesn’t seem to take up much more counter space. It’s the perfect size for our small home.
If you have ever used a toaster oven, You’ll know that most of them have a single pull-down door. While this design is functional, touching a hot door with your forearm is something most toaster oven owners have done from time to time.
This Midea Oven has French doors that open at the same time, even if you only pull on one of them. The doors open to slightly more than 90º, which gets them out of the way of your hands and arms when you reach in to remove the food.
The oven has a convection fan in the oven’s ceiling. The fan circulates the hot air, makes cooking more even, and eliminates any hot spots inside the oven.
For most of the cooking modes (there are 10 different ones), the fan is used by default. This can be turned off by a simple press of one of the buttons on the control panel.
The oven has a large digital display that conveys all the information you need as to what cooking mode you are selecting, the time to cook, and the temperature selected. There are various icons to represent that a feature is either turned on or off.
One feature I did find missing of the display is a clock. As most microwaves and conventional ovens have a clock, the Midea Oven does not. I would have preferred one.
The Media Oven’s control panel consists of 6 buttons, and a large knob. Operating the oven is just about as simple as it could be. Most of the cooking modes are selected and set in four quick steps: (1) Select cooking mode, (2) Set the temperature, (3) Set the time, and (4) Press Start.
Cooking can be paused and restarted if you need to. For example, I had to do this when I forgot to season some potatoes I was air frying. I paused the oven, seasoned them, and then restarted. The heating elements do turn off and begin to cool down, so I did have to lengthen the cooking time by about a minute, which was easy to do with the large knob.
There is a button to turn the convection fan on and off, as well as a button for the internal light.
Cooking modes
There are 10 cooking modes that the Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven can perform.
Air Fry
The Media Oven has 6 air fry options so it can perform as an Air Fryer, but it requires 90% less oil than conventional air fryers to “fry” the food. The size air fry modes are for: Fries, Chicken Wings, Potatoes, Shrimp, Tacos, and Vegetables. These 6 options are used to set default “suggested” cooking times for typical air frying scenarios. I typically used the first option, and just set the time and temperature to what I needed, regardless of what I was air frying. Everything I cooked using the air fry mode came out perfectly, and evenly cooked.
Toast
The Midea Oven is the best toaster oven I’ve ever used. My wife and I both said the toast came out like it was from a restaurant. It has been perfect every time. This oven may use more energy than a toaster since the open capacity is larger than a typical toaster, but the results are immensely better.
Bake
Baking in the Midea Oven is just as it would be in a large conventional oven, but it takes less time. Midea advertises the oven can cook in about 25% less time. I found this claim to be fairly accurate. We cooked a meatloaf, chick and veggies, cookies, and several other things in it. All are cooked evenly and quicker than other ovens or methods.
Broil
We did use the Broil cooking mode to cook some veggies and cinnamon bread, my favorite breakfast treat since I was a kid. The oven has several positions for the cooking tray or rack. Just like in a large conventional oven, the closer to the heating elements in the top of the oven you place the food, the faster it will cook.
Pizza
Cooking pizza is a breeze. Selecting the Pizza cooking mode then prompts for the size of the pizza (6, 9, or 12 inches), and this will set the cooking time according to size. I found cooking a frozen pizza did not conform to the cooking times the pizza mode set for me, so I used the Bake cooking mode for a more precise setting of time and temperature.
Reheat
We did use the Reheat cooking mode occasionally to reheat takeout after bringing it home. Reheating leftovers is still faster in a microwave. Air frying leftover fries is preferable to get the crunchiness back though.
Dehydrate
I have never used or had a need for a dehydrator. But since the Midea Oven has one, I gave it a try one afternoon. I tried to make banana chips according to a YouTube video I looked up. I set the time and temperature according to the video and waited. And waited. And waited some more. 4 hours later, it was time to try out my new healthy snack. What I got was not banana chips, but banana jerky. I think they needed to cook for a lot longer. Next time, it will be for 6 hours.
Slow Cook and Warm
We did not get a chance to try the Slow Cook or Warm cooking modes, but I would expect them to be just as easy and useful as the other modes.
Setup
The Midea Oven is very well packaged, and the setup was simply removing it from the box, and unpacking all the accessories. Prior to the first use, I washed all the cooking surfaces and wiped down the inside of the oven itself. The instructions said the oven should be run at a high temperature for 15 minutes to burn off any oils remaining from the manufacturing process.
What I like about the Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven
- Super easy to use
- Food cooks faster and more even
- Makes perfect toast
- Has replaced our toaster and pretty much our conventional oven
- Easy to clean
- Excellent price-to-feature ratio
What needs to be improved?
- Instructions/Manual are lacking
- Needs a clock
Final thoughts
Oh Midea Flexify French Door Air Fryer Oven, where have you been all my life? Of all the things I’ve had the privilege to review here on The Gadgeteer, this oven is easily in my top five. It has replaced 2 other appliances and made cooking (and cleaning up after) more of a joy. We have used it daily since we’ve had it, and couldn’t recommend it more.
Price: $169.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Midea. Midea did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
