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It’s fair to say air fryers have earned a place in the kitchen. They can be economical, build access in the kitchen, and help folks make healthier meals. But if you’re looking to buy an air fryer, whether it’s your first one or a replacement, the sheer number of options on the market can lead to buyer-paralysis. Maybe I can help: For the past few months, I’ve been using the Ninja DoubleStack XL air fryer, and its unusual design might make it the right air fryer for you.
Why this air fryer is specialÂ
The Ninja DoubleStack XL has two unusual features: There are two baskets, and they’re vertically oriented. Many air fryers have only a single basket, or if they have two, they’re side-by-side. This vertical exploration appeals to a big concern of mine—maximizing counter space.Â
In apartments, counter space is limited the day you move in, and there are even kitchens in houses that seem like an afterthought. Don’t get me wrong, the Ninja DoubleStack is by no means tiny. It measures 11.25 inches by 19.22 inches by 15.14 inches, which is bigger than a carry-on for some domestic airlines. However, the DoubleStack’s design truly does make it feel like it’s dominating less space in my kitchen.Â
You have to be smart about its placement though. I happen to have a rather useless corner of my counter and this air fryer snuggles in just under my cabinets perfectly without me having to work around it. I pull it out when it’s in use so the ventilation is better, but when I’m done I just push it all the way to the wall, and my cats use it as a springboard to get on and off the fridge.
How the Ninja DoubleStack XL stacks up
The pros
The stacked baskets are actually upstaging the more practical feature of this air fryer, which are the dual cooking zones—two baskets, two separate compartments, two separate fans and heating elements. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
One of the biggest limitations of most air fryers is that you can’t efficiently cook multiple items that use different fans speeds or temperatures. You have to load up the basket or tray, cook one thing, unload it and reload it with the next. Your roast pork loin or chicken cutlets might be cold by the time the sides emerge.Â
With the Ninja DoubleStack, you can load up the two baskets, secure in the fact that each one will appropriately cook the individual item, and you can coordinate your food to finish at around the same time. The digital panel is intuitive and makes it easy to start one cooking zone, pause another, increase the cooking time, or change the fan speed (which usually reads as air fry, roast, bake, warm, and more). I’ll often give my veggie burgers an extra two minutes to air fry while the buns are gently warming in the top drawer.
The cons
This is a small but real nuisance: Air fryers aren’t exactly silent machines, they all have a high-powered fan forcing the hot air around the oven space—but this one has two. Once you get over the white noise of the appliance, it’s no big deal; until you press a button to pause it or restart it. All Ninja air fryers have the same loud “boo-BOOP” and I wish in my heart that there was a volume control feature.Â
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Since this Ninja has two heating elements and fans, the designers figured it best to situate them in the back of the baskets. For reference, most air fryers heat from the top. This is OK, but it’s not great because the back of the basket gets a more direct blast of heat. I’ve found that other air fryers that heat from the top down crisp and brown the items inside faster and more evenly.Â
In an effort to take up less space widthwise, the Ninja has skinnier baskets than single-basket air fryers. Ninja makes up for that with a little wire rack for each basket so you can add more food inside. The thinner basket is only a problem if you like to air fry cheesecakes or custard pies.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
This Ninja has a control panel on the right side, which I described as a “pro” for being easy to use. However, this panel pokes out of the side, and it is fixed. That means you can’t push this up to a wall on the right side, or fold it away when it’s not in use. The handles are also huge. Several inches of space are eaten up by these gigantic protrusions.
The control panel sticks out about three finger-widths from the appliance’s body.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Is this air fryer right for you?
This is a great air fryer for multi-person households, folks who air fry often, or like to cook multiple components at once—basically, their entire meal in the air fryer. Drop an entire pork loin in one basket and roast peppers and potatoes in the other. You can actually make a quick and proper meal without touching the stove.
If you’re a person who plugs in your air fryer once a week to reheat French fries, then the Ninja DoubleStack XL is probably overkill. Likewise, if you really have limited counter space, think long and hard about whether you want to eliminate 15 by 11-inches of that real estate. This is not the kind of air fryer you can easily pick up and toss into a cabinet day in and day out.Â
