NuWave Brio 14-Qt Air Fryer Oven Review (2026)

Why you should trust this review

I bought this NuWave Brio myself and ran it as my primary countertop oven for a couple of months. NuWave did not provide a sample and there is no relationship with the brand. I keep a dedicated basket fryer on the same counter, so I could run identical batches side by side and report exactly where the oven format wins and where it loses. That direct comparison is the only honest way to review this category, because the Brio competes less with basket fryers than with toaster ovens.

Everything below comes from cooking real food, whole birds, frozen pizzas, two-rack dinners, not from reading the manual. Where I cite a temperature or a cook time, it is something I measured with a probe thermometer at my own counter. The goal is to keep you from buying a 6-quart basket fryer, discovering it cannot fit a whole chicken, and wishing you had understood the oven format first.

How we evaluated

I ran my standard air fryer protocol but weighted it toward large-format cooking. The core tests were a whole 4.5-pound spatchcocked chicken, a full 12-inch frozen pizza, a two-rack batch of bone-in chicken thighs and Brussels sprouts cooked simultaneously, and a dual-layer dehydrating run with apple slices and beef jerky. I then ran identical small-batch tests, 8 ounces of fries and two chicken tenders, directly against my COSORI Pro LE to document the small-portion gap.

Because the Brio claims a tight temperature hold, I tested that more rigorously than usual: a 45-minute hold at 325 degrees with a probe thermometer logging every five minutes. The dual-rack simultaneous test ran three times to confirm consistency, and I tracked fan noise across the whole set.

Large-format cooking: the real strength

This is where the Brio justifies its footprint. A whole 4.5-pound spatchcocked chicken at 375 degrees for 45 minutes came out with evenly browned, crisp skin across the back and wings and hit 167 degrees at the thigh, properly cooked through with no grey undercooked patch at the breast-thigh joint. That result is simply not achievable in a 6-quart basket, where the bird curves against the walls and the airflow cannot circulate evenly around it.

The dual-rack test was the quality-of-life moment. Four bone-in thighs on the upper rack and two cups of Brussels sprouts on the lower rack ran at 385 degrees for 28 minutes with a rack rotation at the halfway mark. The thighs reached 174 degrees with properly rendered skin and the sprouts caramelized evenly with minimal charring. Getting a protein and a vegetable done in one session, at effectively different heat exposures top and bottom, is a genuine win for family cooking that no basket fryer can replicate.

Temperature accuracy and consistency

The temperature hold is the spec I was most skeptical of and it held up. Across the 45-minute test at a 325-degree set point, the actual chamber temperature ranged from 320 to 330 degrees, a 10-degree spread that was the tightest in my test group. For baking and roasting tasks where a basket fryer’s swingy thermostat causes uneven results, that stability is a meaningful advantage and the reason the Brio genuinely functions as an oven rather than a glorified fryer.

The dual heating elements, top and bottom, are what make this work. Bake and roast functions use both together, which distributes heat more evenly than a single-element toaster oven. Across three repeats of the two-rack test, results were consistent enough that I stopped babysitting it. If you cook things where temperature precision matters, frozen baked goods, roasts, anything that browns unevenly in a cheaper unit, this is where the Brio pulls ahead of both basket fryers and basic toaster ovens.

Small-batch performance and noise

Here is the honest weakness. Eight ounces of fries at 380 degrees for 14 minutes came out good but noticeably less crunchy than the same batch in my COSORI basket fryer. The larger chamber means more air volume to heat and more distance for the forced-air current to travel, so the airflow hits a small portion less intensely. For two chicken tenders or a single handful of fries, a dedicated basket fryer crisps better, full stop. If most of your cooking is small portions for one or two people, the Brio is the wrong tool.

Noise is the other cost of the larger format. Fan noise peaked at 68 dB, the loudest in my test group, which is exactly what you would expect from a bigger fan moving more air through a bigger chamber. It is not unbearable, but it is audible across a kitchen. Combined with the 18-by-13-by-13-inch footprint, this is not a put-away appliance; it needs permanent counter real estate, and that is the real commitment of buying one.

Who should buy the NuWave Brio 14-Qt?

Buy it if you cook for a family of four or more and want to replace an aging toaster oven with something that also air fries well. Buy it if you regularly cook whole proteins or batch-cook for the week, because the capacity and the dual-rack cooking are genuine, repeatable advantages. If your current toaster oven is on its way out, evaluate this before defaulting to a Breville or Cuisinart that cannot air fry at all, because that is the real competition.

Skip it if you primarily want crispy small portions for one or two people, where a dedicated basket fryer delivers better crispiness for the money. Skip it if your counter cannot give up permanent space for an 18-inch appliance, or if fan noise in the kitchen would bother you. The Brio is a large, capable oven, not a compact convenience fryer, and buying it for the wrong job is the only way to be disappointed by it.

The verdict

The NuWave Brio 14-Qt is an excellent air fryer oven that should not be judged as a basket fryer. It cooks whole chickens and two-rack dinners that no 6-quart basket can touch, its temperature hold is the tightest I measured, and the dual-element bake and roast functions genuinely replace a toaster oven. The trade-offs are real and predictable: weaker crisping on small portions, the loudest fan in the group, and a footprint that demands permanent counter space. Buy it to replace a toaster oven and feed a family, and it is the right appliance. Buy it to crisp two tenders, and it is not.