Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer Review

Verdict

With two independently managed drawers, the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer enables you to prepare dinner totally different gadgets and have cooking full on the identical time. Whether you’re cooking from scratch, resembling your individual chips, need to get the very best out of frozen meals, or just want to reheat what you had for dinner yesterday, the Foodi Dual Zone produces distinctive outcomes. With an enormous vary of cooking programmes, this can turn out to be your go-to kitchen gadget for almost all of meals. It’s the very best and most versatile air fryer we’ve examined.

As good as air fryers are, all of them are likely to have one downside: you possibly can solely prepare dinner gadgets on the identical temperature and programme setting. If you need to make a meal that includes of multiple element, then you definitely both have to show to your common oven or prepare dinner in batches, maintaining one half heat when you sort out the following. Not so with the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer, which has two compartments with particular person controls.

Excellent efficiency throughout a variety of things and beneficiant capability are the stand-out options, however the person drawer measurement means which you can’t prepare dinner bigger gadgets on this air fryer.

What it is advisable to know

• Homemade chips: Using a mixture of normal and max crisp settings achieved completely cooked chips that have been crunchy the entire approach round.
• Meat check: Brilliantly cooked burger, with charring on the skin and good chunk, however smooth and succulent on the within.
• Reheat check: Our pizza emerged with a crispy base and gooey cheese prime, which is just about accurately when recent.

Related: Best air fryer

Design and options

The very first thing I’ve to say is that the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer is an absolute beast of a machine. It measures 315 x 375 x 350mm, so that you’ll want a good quantity of counter area to make use of it, and a big sufficient cabinet wherein to retailer it . Of course, the explanation that the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer is so massive is that it has two individually managed drawers. These mix for 7.6 litres of capability total, or 3.8 litres per drawer.

That’s fairly beneficiant capability, with every drawer comparatively sizeable. However, regardless of the decent-sized drawers, you continue to gained’t be capable to prepare dinner a complete hen, for instance, as you possibly can within the Ninja Air Fryer Max AF160UK – which has a large 5.2-litre single basket.

Ultimately, it’s a trade-off, and what the Dual Zone presents is the pliability to prepare dinner totally different gadgets on the identical time. So, in order for you a burger and chips, you need to use one drawer for the meat and the opposite for the fries.

Each drawer has its personal crisper plate, which lifts your meals off the drawer’s base, rising air circulation round it. You ought to use the crispers for many modes, though there are a pair the place it’s best to take away it.

Control is easy: use the selector buttons to decide on which drawer you need to management, after which proceed with the principle cooking controls. You can run every drawer with its personal settings, or you need to use the Match button for a similar settings on each side.

If you go for particular person controls, then you need to use the Sync button. This will be certain that meals will end cooking in each drawers at precisely the identical time, even should you programme them with totally different timers and cooking modes. It’s fairly intelligent, taking the arduous work out of managing timings.

If you’ve seen different Ninja air fryers, the Dual Zone controls will look acquainted. You choose the prepare dinner mode first, then the cooking temperature and then you definitely set the timer.

Air Fry might be essentially the most generally used mode, working at as much as 210ºC. The Max Crisp mode runs at 240ºC and is a welcome inclusion; it’s designed to present meals that good crunch.

There’s a person Roast mode, which makes this air fryer act like an oven, plus a Bake mode for making muffins and brownies. To use Bake mode, you’ll must take away the crisper and put substances immediately into the drawer. This could be a bit limiting, as what you prepare dinner will emerge the scale and form of the drawer. It isn’t a mode I’ve used usually.

Reheat enables you to heat up leftovers with out them turning into soggy, and Dehydrate runs at decrease temperatures for an extended time frame to take away moisture from substances, resembling herbs.

All of the buttons are super-responsive, the display screen is obvious and straightforward to know, and Ninja offers a helpful e book that features really useful preparation and cooking occasions for many widespread meals. All Foodi Dual Zone components could be cleaned within the dishwasher, though Ninja recommends hand-washing the drawers to increase their life.

Performance

I began by making my very own home made chips. I peeled and sliced the potatoes, after which left them to soak in water for half-hour, earlier than draining and patting dry. Ninja recommends utilizing a most of 450g of potatoes for recent chips (1kg per drawer should you’re utilizing frozen), though I made slightly greater than this.

Using three teaspoons of oil, I subsequent used the Air Fry mode at 200ºC for twenty-four minutes. Ninja recommends that you simply take away the drawer and shake the contents not less than two or thrice by means of the cooking course of to redistribute gadgets. As per the handbook, it’s price utilizing silicone tongs to maneuver the chips round to get the very best outcomes; specifically, gadgets on the centre of the pile will want a little bit of assist to get sizzling air over them.

At the tip of the cooking time, I ran the Max Crisp programme for 5 minutes, simply to complete off the chips. I ended up with pretty-much good outcomes: first rate colouration with out burning, with even the lighter components of the chip having a pleasant crunch to them.

Next, I cooked a burger with out oil, following the directions. The consequence was a juicy burger, cooked to perfection, with a slight crunch to the highest and a succulent inside.

Using the Roast choice, I tackled corn on the cob, brushing the corn with butter earlier than cooking. Again, the outcomes have been wonderful: succulent corn with some good colouring on the skin, however the entire flavour locked in.

An air fryer is as a lot about comfort as it’s about cooking from scratch, so I used the Ninja Dual Zone to sort out a dinner of hash browns and fish fingers. Cooked in an oven, these frozen gadgets usually emerge caught to the baking tray with an uneven end. Not so right here: completely crisp on the skin, each fish fingers and hash browns have been cooked to perfection.

Reheating meals on this air fryer additionally produces wonderful outcomes. Left-over pizza was warmed up on the Reheat setting in about 5 minutes with no burning, turning from a floppy piece of dough right into a crisp, almost-as-good-as-when-fresh slice. The solely draw back is that the drawer measurement means you’ll solely be capable to slot in about two slices per drawer.

Finally, I attempted the Dehydrate choice on some recent oregano. The advised cooking interval was slightly lengthy – which is why it’s price maintaining a tally of contents commonly – so I finished early. My recent leaves have been now crispy dried herbs, able to go in a jar and be used for cooking at a later date.

Should I purchase it?

For those that’d just like the comfort of with the ability to prepare dinner a complete hen, for instance, the Ninja Air Fryer Max AF160UK is the higher choice. For everybody else, the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer is an unbelievable little bit of equipment, one which I turned to utilizing a great 80% of the time.

The inclusion of two drawers means that you can simply prepare dinner a meal for 2 in a single go, or you need to use that extra-large capability to make use of each side without delay to extend the amount of meals you’re cooking. Spot-on leads to all cooking modes cement this mannequin’s place as essentially the most versatile air fryer, whether or not you’re cooking from scratch or simply need the very best out of frozen comfort meals. It comes extremely really useful.