If you're a frequent visitor to Also the Crumbs Please, you'll be familiar with my love of the Ninja Foodi 11-in-1 Multicooker, so you might be surprised to learn that I've been having an affair with the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone MAX AF400K air fryer (not exactly a name rolls off the tongue).
So, I decided to put my culinary infidelity to good use and write a Ninja Foodi 2-Basket air fryer review.
While I wasn't looking to replace my Ninja multicooker, I needed an appliance to compliment it that could make my meal-time routines even more efficient while not negatively impacting my utility bills.
After doing some research and registering my Ninja fanboy card online, I bought the Dual Zone MAX and began putting it through its paces to see if it lives up to the hype.
In this Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer review, I'll answer these questions: What makes this appliance so special? What culinary magic can you whip up in it? What Ninja could have done better? Who is this air fryer for? Is it the best family air fryer?
And most importantly, is the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone MAX worth its relatively hefty price tag? Check the Price Here
Jump to:
- Specifications and What’s in the Box
- The Dual Zone Max: A Closer Look
- Are Two Baskets Better Than One?
- What I Like:
- What I Didn’t Like:
- Timing is Everything!
- What Can You Cook in the Ninja 2 Basket Air Fryer?
- What Are the Limitations of the Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer?
- How Easy Is It to Clean the Ninja Foodi Air Fryer?
- What Are My Other 2-Basket Options?
- Is the Ninja Foodi 2 Basket Air Fryer Worth Its Rather Large Price Point?
Specifications and What’s in the Box
- Dimensions: H 32.5cm x W 41.5cm x D 27cm
- Weight: 8.8kg
- 2470-watt heating element with precision temperature control
- 9.5 Litre capacity (2x 4.75 liter baskets)
- Temperature range: 40°C-250°C
- Cord length: 78cm
- 2 x Air fryer basket
- 2 x Air crisp plates
- Digital display and analog dial control panel
- 6 different cooking functions
- Dishwasher-safe parts
- BPA-Free parts
- Accessories: None. Nothing. Nada.
The Dual Zone Max: A Closer Look
The SharkNinja design team never stops pushing the envelope and is always on the lookout for groundbreaking design features to set their products apart from everything else on the market. They want to produce something that delivers more than just air frying, they want to give you an experience.
The Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer, also known as the Dual Zone MAX, is a clever appliance designed to make cooking family meals easier. It features two separate crisper baskets in one machine, ensuring perfect cooking without any cross-contamination.
Better still, the 2-basket air fryer has "Sync" and "Match" functions that let you set temperatures and timers for each basket and will automatically set the second basket going exactly when you need it.
So, If you're cooking chicken wings (20 minutes) and french fries (15 minutes), the Dual Zone MAX will automatically set the french fries to cook 5 minutes after the chicken wings. It's the perfect system for someone like me who has a memory—so bad that I occasionally get my kids' names wrong.
Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer Features and Functions
This Ninja air fryer comes with some standard air frying features and two that change the game entirely.
They are:
- Max Crisp
- Air Fry
- Roast
- Bake
- Reheat
- Dehydrate
- Match
- Sync
The features "Sync" and "Match" are what make this appliance more than just an air fryer with a couple of baskets; it's like your personal sous chef that helps you keep time.
Are Two Baskets Better Than One?
Because I already own another significantly sized air fryer, I typically use the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone MAX for supplemental cooking (sweet potato fries, onion rings, roasted veggies, etc.) while using my man air fryer for substantial cuts of meat (like a whole chicken or joint of beef), but because the Ninja Foodi 2-basket air fryer caters to a very specific crowd.
So you’ll need to closely examine the pros and cons of two baskets to decide if this type of air fryer is the right one for you.
What I Like:
- Cook different foods simultaneously
- No complex cooking equations
- Reduced cooking time
- No cross-contamination
- More efficient meal prep
- Effortless to clean
What I Didn’t Like:
- Inferior airflow in baskets
- Not enough space for larger food items
- Max Crisp function is too hot for small individual baskets
- Takes up a lot of countertop space
While the choice between a 2-basket air fryer and air frying with a regular appliance is a personal choice, the inferior airflow you’ll experience in the 2-basket Ninja Foodi is very much a design flaw.
Where there is ample room for hot air to circulate around the baskets of most regular air fryers, the basket design in the Dual Zone MAX only has perforations on the bottom plate with no room around the edges.
Most of these perforations get covered when cooking lots of food, further reducing airflow efficiency. When I made these sausages, they were cooked perfectly on top and looked anemic underneath.
If you want evenly cooked food, you'll need to remember to shake the baskets halfway through, as there's no reminder.
Timing is Everything!
Ninja’s Dual Zone MAX does everything it can to give you a stress-free air frying experience. The crowning glory of this appliance isn’t its two-basket set-up; it's the temperature and timing settings that go along with them.
You can utilize the “Match” or “Sync” to make cooking your meals as effortless as possible.
Match
The match cook setting is a convenient time saver that lets you replicate the settings from one basket to another with little-to-no effort. If you’re cooking two baskets of the same food, this setting is useful.
If I’m being honest, it’s not insanely difficult to input the same settings twice. It's not the end of the world if one basket finishes cooking a minute or two before the second, but it’s a nice touch that improves your quality of air frying life.
Sync
The “Sync” smart finish feature is where the real magic happens. If you find the stress of working out which ingredient needs to go in the oven at what temperature and when far too overwhelming, this feature will blow your mind.
Using “Sync” you’ll set the first basket up with the time and temperature of the food that takes the longest to cook and the second basket with the shortest cooking time.
This clever air fryer will power up the second basket only after enough time has passed so that both baskets finish cooking at exactly the same time.
The settings can be confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it can prove invaluable.
What Can You Cook in the Ninja 2 Basket Air Fryer?
Max Crisp
This feature promises much but delivers average results. This feature delivers super-heated air at jet engine-like speeds to give food an extremely crispy exterior.
You'll get incredible results from processed and frozen foods like french fries, chicken nuggets, and all your favorite comfort foods.
However, I'd hesitate to use this function to cook raw chicken or pork.
Air Fry
The air fry setting is the most commonly used feature on my 2-basket air fryer. I use it for almost everything.
Some of my favorite dishes (using little-to-no oil, might I add) are crispy soy basa bites, sage and panko-crusted pork loin steaks, and lemon and herb chicken breasts.
Roast
I love to air fry roasted vegetables in my 2-basket air fryer: paprika and garlic roasted potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, tender-stemmed broccoli, and crunchy courgette fries.
Mouth-watering veggies that are good for you are effortless in the Dual Zone MAX!
Bake
I'm not great at baking. I once made a banana loaf with my son that was so hard that even my most formidable knife couldn't get through it, so I haven't used this function.
But the manufacturer claims it's excellent for cupcakes, cookies, and croissants. All the Cs.
Reheat
No more soggy leftovers! The Reheat mode in this air fryer allows you to revive your previously cooked meals, restoring their crispy textures and preserving their flavors.
Whether it's reheating pizza, fries, or even fried chicken, you'll enjoy the fresh-out-of-the-oven experience.
Dehydrate
You can remove the moisture from fruits, vegetables, or even jerky to create nutritious, homemade snacks free from additives and preservatives with the dehydrate feature. It's not a feature I've ever used or ever will, but it's there if you need it.
What Are the Limitations of the Ninja Foodi 2-Basket Air Fryer?
The measure of an appliance isn't only how beneficial it is to you and your family but also how minimally its weakness affects its ability to perform.
Do the cons of this 2-basket air fryer outweigh its pros, or are the drawbacks of this Ninja Foodi something you can live with?
Poor Air Flow
The superior design of the air frying basket of my 11-in-1 multicooker highlights the ineffective basket of the Dual Zone MAX.
Rather than a traditional basket, this air fryer has plates on the bottom of each drawer, and the lack of airflow results in unevenly cooked food if you neglect to give the basket a shake halfway through.
Steep Learning Curve
The Ninja 2 Basket Air Fryer control panel can be overly complex to use, and it can be confusing, especially when you're trying to sync both baskets to finish cooking at the same time.
Once you've been cooking with it for a while, it becomes second nature for the most part, but I still find myself occasionally reaching for the operating manual to ensure I don't spoil our family meal.
Might Be Too Powerful
Most people are probably rolling their eyes at the mere thought of an air fryer being "too powerful". After all, efficiency and speed of cooking are the main selling points of air fryers and multicookers.
However, because the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone MAX has two mighty fans operating in two smaller baskets, I've found that when cooking lightweight foods like bacon or a cheese-topped burger, the ingredients can get blasted around the chamber.
This not only creates a mess but also can get stuck to the heating element which can be tricky to clean and kick off some seriously smelly grease-smoke.
I HATE the Time Increment Buttons
On other air fryers I've used (that shall remain nameless), you can change the cooking time on the appliance by holding the up or down time arrow down, and it'll increase or decrease the time in increments of 5 minutes.
For some unfathomable reason, the Ninja Foodi Dual MAX changes from 1 minute to 5 minutes to 10 minutes in the blink of an eye, and it's impossible to control.
I know I'm being pedantic, but such a rapid jump drives me crazy!
How Easy Is It to Clean the Ninja Foodi Air Fryer?
I've mentioned on a couple of occasions in this article that the Ninja Foodi air fryer has a propensity to be a little messy, especially when you cook bacon or other fatty foods.
Fortunately, the good folks at SharkNinja were forward-thinking enough to design an air fryer that is so ridiculously easy to clean it's unbelievable.
The baskets and grill plates inside them are dishwasher-safe, making it effortless to clean.
Haven't got a dishwasher? No problem. The non-stick coating on the baskets makes them almost as easy to clean by hand as in the dishwasher.
The premium materials Ninja uses for the air fryer housing will easily wipe clean if you manage to spill anything on the exterior, while the flat top of the appliance means it's child's play to stand on its head and scrub the elements and internal fan when the time comes for a deep clean.
If you hate washing up, you can probably forgive this air fryer for all its other faults just for being so easy to clean.
What Are My Other 2-Basket Options?
Other brands also realized there's a place in the market for air fryers with two baskets and have taken Ninja's lead to produce their own models. Here are a couple of options if the Dual Zone MAX isn't doing it for you.
Instant Vortex Plus 2 Basket Air Fryer With ClearCook Technology
Instant's take on the 2-basket air fryer is the only other model that tried to put its stamp on this style of appliance and offer something different to consumers.
The Vortex Plus is the only new air fryer to match Ninja's design in terms of beauty. In fact, I'd say I marginally prefer the aesthetics of this cooker thanks to the angled control panel.
This makes setting the temperatures and times easier and the beautiful ClearCook windows let you watch your food cook without removing the baskets. Though it is less powerful than the Ninja Foodi 2-basket air fryer, this Instant air fryer gets the job done with little fuss.
Its 7.6-liter cooking capacity is considerably smaller than its Ninja rival, but you could save a decent amount of money if you don't need a massive air fryer taking up all your counter space.
Tower T17088 Vortx 2 Basket Air Fryer
If you need an enormous air fryer and have the counter space, but Ninja's 2-basket air fryer is out of your price range, the 9-liter Tower Vortex is a decent alternative for you to consider.
Tower's iteration of the 2-basket air fryer is more than half the cost of the Duel Zone MAX yet offers almost the same cooking capacity and a similar power output that does a decent job in cooking food as far as budget air fryers go.
There are some build-quality issues with the Vortex air fryer, which is to be expected with budget appliances, and the LED control panel leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it's pretty amazing that Tower has incorporated smart finish technology in such an affordable device.
Is the Ninja Foodi 2 Basket Air Fryer Worth Its Rather Large Price Point?
In this Ninja Foodi 2-basket air fryer review, we've discovered that this appliance is undoubtedly an excellent piece of kit that gives you an above-average cooking performance.
It's a beautiful and well-built air fryer that solves a problem, and it's beneficial when cooking two foods requiring different times and a wide temperature range.
I've tried to look at this appliance as someone who doesn't own two air fryers because, as a complimentary device, the Dual Zone MAX is superb. However, when used on its own to try and cook large meals, it can be problematic.
Leaving aside all my nitpicks and idiosyncrasies, this large-capacity air fryer isn't that big at all, and because the overall cooking capacity is split into two baskets (e.g., you can't fit a whole chicken in two 5-liter baskets, but you could in a 10-liter appliance), larger food items need to be split in half and stuffed into the baskets.
To get the most from the Ninja Foodi 2-basket air fryer, you need to think of it as two small air fryers rather than one big one.
Be aware that you won't be able to cook full meals for big families in this air fryer, but you can utilize it to air fry perfectly cooked foods and it'll time it to perfection.
This Ninja Foodi 2-basket air fryer is the perfect appliance to cook meals for one or two people or to work alongside another air fryer or traditional range for three or more diners.
The build quality and functionality are up to Ninja's usual high standards, and the match cook feature and sync functions deliver an excellent experience if you can forgive the appliance its inadequacies.
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Cathryn Taylor
Hi, I have the dual air fryer 9.5L and agreed with most comments in your article. I love the air fryer, hardly used my main oven since purchased. However, I have cooked a whole 2kg chicken in one of my baskets. It cooked fine, really tasty and moist. I cooked it for 1hr 15m, so less time than my oven. A 1.4kg chicken can cook in 50mins..wow!
I am definitely converted.