Dreo ChefMaker Combi Fryer (Review)

We have been patiently awaiting the moment that we’d get a chance to sit down in front of this cooker to try things out for ourselves. Ever since our team came back from CES 2024 bragging about how versatile the Dreo ChefMaker Combi Fryer was and how delicious the steak it produced at the show was. Finally, that time came and boy have we put it through its tests.

There are a number of smart air fryers out there in the world, but they are hit or miss for many reasons. This usually led many of us to settle with a normal air fryer as the features vs the price didn’t always balance out for some of these supposed “nicer options”. Some were more gimmicks, while others were simply missing the needed features to make them special.

Dreo, once again, doesn’t seem to suffer from these flaws. The company rolled out the ChefMaker last year with great success and for good reasons. It really does a good job at cooking, while making the experience as simple as you possibly can (at least, for a first-generation attempt at something).

Like many combo air fryers, this one comes with a list of cooking modes/capabilities, including the ability to air fry (of course), defrost, reheat, broil, roast, toast, bake, and dehydrate. That’s right, you can even dehydrate with this model. Not that you can deliver 3 lbs of beef jerky every time, but enough to go with a meal as a nice companion food or a separate snack.

It pushes things further by integrating a water atomizer. It features a small water tank at the top that is used for certain recipes that call for water. It will spray the food inside from time to time during the cooking process based on what the recipe calls for, to either cool down or moisturize it. After all, some things benefit from staying moist during the cooking process.

At the moment, only Chef Mode (I’ll get to modes a little further in) makes use of this feature, but who knows where the company will go with this as it rolls out updates and future recipes!

Not only that, but it also includes one of the most important things you can have when cooking meats: a probe. Probes have been around for a while now, but over the last 5-6 years, they have blown up in popularity due to brands like Meater that have made these smarter than just having a temperature gauge on the other end of a wire.

Using a probe, you can accurately cook meat to a specific internal temperature, so that you always get the right doneness (ie, medium rare, medium, medium well, etc). Or obtain the desired temperatures for certain foods that need to reach a specific temperature for safe eating.

This helps to produce the perfect meal every time, assuming you buy quality meat to begin with. I couldn’t possibly imagine cooking steaks, for example, without using a probe.

The user snaps the probe’s cable into a section of the basket that slides into the machine. When the basket is slid shut, the ChefMaker will make contact with it, powering the probe and allowing it observe the data coming from it.

So now you have an air fryer that does all sorts of things (cooking modes), while also being able to keep the contents moist (when needed), and monitor the internal temperature of meats so that you have total control over doneness and safety.

Even better, the front of the cooker has a window so that you can visually see the food inside as it cooks. Allowing this to roughly be a balance between a normal basket-style and a tray-fed approach (sort of). It’s just that most of the basket-style cookers out there suffer from not having a window to see what’s cooking. Forcing you to have to slide it out from time to time to check on things (like how crispy your potatoes are getting, for example).

You don’t realize how useful having a window like that can be until you have used this a few times and then looked back on how many times you had to open a air fryer to check on the contents.

cooking tray (left) and grilling rack (right)So the ChefMaker doesn’t suffer from a short list of features, by any means. It even comes with two separate trays to slide inside, depending on what you are trying to cook. This includes a cooking tray and a grilling rack.

Both of these can easily be slid out and washed separately, including in the dishwasher. Making just the basket something that you have to be a little more careful with cleaning (like most air fryers), but even then, it isn’t rocket science. I just wouldn’t put the basket in the dishwasher, to be safe. That’s definitely a wash-by-hand kind of part.

Speaking of the basket, it is a 6-quart basket, which gives you a decent-sized space for most foods. You won’t cook a full-size chicken in this, but almost all air fryers lack that ability. But mini chickens and parts of the chicken cook quite nicely, and enough to feed two to three people with ease.

It easily slides in and out of the cooker without having to press any buttons or latches. Not that this is a selling point as this can be preferred one way or the other depending on user preferences.

Did I mention there is an app? Of course, there is an app! It’s a smart cooker, after all. Not only does it have an app, but it’s the same app that is used for any of Dreo’s devices. One app, one central place to control it all. No need to bounce between apps for all of your Dreo devices. This is something unique since Dreo specializes in so many types of products now. And yet, it can still manage to keep everything in one place.

So adding the ChefMaker to the Dreo app is easy. Like any app, you register for an account, and then you add the cooker to the app. If you already have Dreo products, then you simply add it along with everything else. It’s nice not having to have a handful of apps for all of these devices.

Using the app is pretty simple as well. You pull up the ChefMaker, select the cooking mode (which I am about to finally go into below), and then follow the instructions. It will then ask you to confirm by physically hitting the play/pause button (which is the OK/start button) on the fryer for safety reasons so it knows you are there, and then it will share the countdown for you. You can stop it, turn on the light inside, and monitor overall cooking time and ambient temperature.

There are some additional settings as well, such as the ability to add the current cooking process to your favorites. So if you plan to cook something often, you’ll have your settings already in place.

The app, along with the LCD display on the front of the ChefMaker, can help guide the user through the various cooking modes and recipes. I didn’t even mention the LCD display earlier, but that was because I wanted to wait for the perfect time. Because this is where we finally start talking about the cooking modes.

There are three cooking modes that you can choose from.

Chef Mode, is a collection of preset cooking functions. This allows you to choose specific food items, such as the type of meat you place inside. Taking from tested recipes to make sure you get a good cook every time.

Classic Mode, which is what you’d expect to make use of on any air fryer with various functions. You start by choosing which cooking function you want (air fry, defrost, roast, toast, etc), and then the temperature and time you want to cook for.

Thus, this is the basic cooking mode you’d likely find familiar if you’ve made use of a basic air fryer before using this. Simple and straight to the point.

Probe Mode is the third and final mode and is the option you’d pick if you want to make use of the probe. But that was kind of obvious in the name. This is where you can place a steak inside and tell it to cook to 135(F), if you want the perfect medium rare meal.

Allowing you to track it down to the precise temperature manually.

So what about the food? Does it cook well? Does it taste good? Does it look as delicious as the above image? Well, this depends on how quickly you take to it.

Like most new air fryers, you’ll find that it might take a few tries to get things right. One air fryer doesn’t always cook food at 400(F) for 10 minutes like another one might. Thus you will want to go through some trial and error to see where this one meets your expectations.

For us, we started with various practice foods like frozen chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, stuffed jalapenos, and so on. We made a ton of delicious frozen bites and passed them around until we figured out that we typically want to took things around 1-2 minutes less than we are used to, or at a lower temperature than what we are used to (compared to some dumb air fryers). This is likely because the ChefMaker offers up to 1800 watts of cooking power, so it isn’t playing around.

To goof around a little, we threw in a frozen Angus patty when looking to take things further, to see how it would come out. We normally cook these in an air fryer for around 11 minutes at 400(F). Oddly, it somewhat maintained the shape of the frozen patty, including some of the flat side running around. We just used the Classic Mode to do this since you can’t stab a probe into a frozen patty.

It tasted good, although it was cooked a little further than I’d prefer. So we tried a few others and found that 10 minutes at 400 was good, as well as 12 minutes at a lower temperature. The latter was my favorite result as it allowed the shape of the meat to relax a little and naturally form toward the end.

At this point, we were brave enough to move forward with things.

Now it was time to take things seriously and make some steaks. This allowed us to marinade, prep the steaks to our liking, and then make use of the other cooking features of the ChefMaker. We moved on to other items as well, but I wanted to highlight some of these steaks.

Having that probe and including it in the mix is everything. Allowing you to get the right level of doneness. Between this and the ability to pull from known presets, it really does wield some great results. Now all of us here were able to experience what a steak from a competent air fryer (never thought I’d say that) should taste like.

The only thing we didn’t take too seriously were the sides since most of it was a trial to see what would come from it all. So I do admit, we kind of went basic on the sides during our trials as we expected there to be some waste. I figured I’d point that out since you normally wouldn’t pair canned green beans with a steak. Thankfully, there wasn’t much waste at all as everything came out great.

Our Conclusion

So do we like it? Yes! In general, air fryers are for everyone. They have a purpose in the homes of bachelors and college students as much as they do in well-established homes with large families (our break area has two). They are useful and easy to use, allowing users to quickly cook so many types of foods.

But this one takes things so much further. Before this, I would never have placed a steak into an air fryer. The thought of it sounds insane to me. Why would anyone do that, right?  Except that the end result surprised us every time. Sure, if you want the perfect steak, you are still going to cook it as you would normally (assuming you know how to do that). But if you need one (or two) quickly and with as little effort as possible, this will deliver that.

The probe, the water atomizer, the window, the app, and the LCD display, all bring together an impressive user experience, making for one of the best small multi-cooking devices I have used yet. Sure, it might seem a little expensive, but it definitely pays for itself as long as it lasts for a good number of years.

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Co-Authors: James H.

Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.