The DeLonghi Roto Deep Fryer produced good fried chicken with just 1 liter of oil. The Roto scores high points for safety. It is a small-capacity deep fryer, but it cooks a decent amount of food, roughly 2 pounds. It’s an affordable deep fryer that is easy to use and clean, and performed well in our tests cooking fries and chicken tenders.
The Roto submerges food into the oil, and the revolving basket continually pulls the food out and then re-submerges it. With this system, we were able to fry 2 pounds of food while using less oil than any of the other fryers we tested. This 1,500-watt electric deep fryer heats the oil in 14 minutes, which is about average for the fryers we evaluated. Once a batch was done, it recovered optimal cooking temperature again in about 6 minutes, which was slightly below average but not bad.
It took longer than average to cook meat and French fries to the right consistency, but with a little patience this fryer cooked juicy chicken with moderately crispy breading. It eventually produced a light brown color that wasn’t quite golden. The people who tested the meat were impressed with the flavor and some of them preferred this fryer to fryers that produced crispy breading with more of a crunch. The fries were also marginally crispy on the outside, but had a nice consistency and flavor.
This small deep fryer has a unique look and some unique functionality that makes it safer than the average deep fryer. It looks more like a rice cooker than a deep fryer and its interior is about the size of a rice cooker. It’s exterior also heats up about as much as a rice cooker, never going beyond touchable temperatures. The exterior temperature of the cylinder during testing stayed at around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with temperatures around the lid maxing out at about 115 degrees. This is warm, but not hot enough to cause any burns and you can feel comfortable frying food with children around. In fact, it contained heat better than any fryer in our lineup.
Another nice safety feature is the Roto, unlike the other fryers we tested, allows you to close the lid first before depressing a lever that submerges food into the hot oil. When your food is ready, you lift the lever to raise the basket up out of the oil and allow it to drain before removing items from the basket. The Roto Deep Fryer is excellent at containing all the oil so as to minimize the risk of burns from splattering oil.
Once we got the hang of this unit, the rotating basket and lid work together well. Cleaning it is not too much of a problem, but it presents some unique challenges. There is no removable vat or container for the oil. You can clean it out with a wet cloth, but it’s a little awkward since nothing comes apart, except the basket.
The Roto Deep Fryer has an angled viewing window, designed to minimize condensation but we still had quite a bit of grease blocking our view. It’s easy to drain oil from the DeLonghi. There is a hidden spout on the front of the fryer, accessible by opening a panel. In addition to its unique splatter-free cooking method, the DeLonghi comes with a magnetic safety cord and skid-resistant feet.
This home deep fryer comes with a one-year warranty. You can find the manual and warranty information on DeLonghi’s website, and you can contact customer service by email or reach them by phone between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern time. You can also order additional parts or accessories on the website. If a long warranty is important to you the Cuisinart Compact is an economically-priced unit with the best warranty of any deep fryer in our lineup at three years.
If you want an electric deep fryer that younger cooks can use without making a mess or getting burned, the DeLonghi Roto Deep Fryer is the right choice. It's moderately priced, and you won't have to spend much money on oil. It's also a great fryer if you want to keep the smell and spattering contained. It did an effective job of cooking chicken and french fries, though you had to wait a little longer than average to get the right consistency. Overall, this fryer is a good value with great safety features.
