Ninja Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer MAX + Tongs, 9.5 L, 2470 W, 2 Drawers, 8 Portions, 6-in-1, Air Fry, Roast, Bake, Nonstick, Dishwasher Safe Baskets, Amazon Exclusive, Copper/Black AF400UKCP

Product Information

If you want to use the two drawers together, you have a choice of two modes: Match and Sync. Match applies the same settings to both drawers, letting you double-up portions. Sync allows individual settings, but the AF400UK ensures that both drawers complete cooking at the same time. Cook the same food in both zones to make twice the amount of food in the same amount of time! Or easily cook two different foods with the same cooking instructions. There’s no getting around the fact that the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF400UK is a beast of a model. Measuring 325 x 415 x 270mm and weighing 8.8kg, you’re going to need a fair amount of space to store it. To give the Max Crisp function a go, I used it to cook frozen hash browns – which all too often come out of a regular oven slightly soggy. Although they’re supposed to be cooked in the oven for around 20 minutes, I set the cooking time to 11 minutes because of the high 240ºC temperature.

At the end of cooking time, my chips were perfectly cooked – evenly crisp throughout, without any sign of being burnt or overcooked. Cleaning all of the dual-zone air fryers I was testing on this day was pretty similar, with both baskets needing a good scrub in the sink to get rid of grease and residue, especially as the last test in the series was cooking bacon. Another Ideal Home favourite is the Instant Vortex Plus dual basket air fryer. It’s smaller than the above Ninja, offering up just 7.6 litres of cooking space. Like the Ninja there are several cooking modes and you can cook with different modes at the same time. But the big feature that sets this air fryer apart from the rest is the viewing window in the front of each cooking drawer. So you can watch your food as it cooks and monitor browning without opening it up every five minutes - a game-changing upgrade. Cleaning I started by cooking some chips in the air fryer, using the 200ºC setting. Although I had to shake the contents of the drawer two or three times during cooking, it’s all the interaction the AF400UK required. But what makes it so good? For one, it’s absolutely bursting with features, all of which help to make the device easy to use and efficient for all cooking scenarios. There are six cooking options: air fry, max crisp air fry, bake, roast, dehydrate, and reheat. The only thing it’s missing is the option to grill. Ninja clearly wants you to buy a separate health grill for that. In my tests, each and every function has worked as expected, even when I tried dehydrating some oranges ahead of my weekend of negroni sipping.

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Cooking for two different dietary requirements? Cater for everyone by cooking vegetarian food in one drawer and meat in the other. The other controls of note are the 'Sync' and 'Match' buttons, which is where the Ninja Dual Zone really comes into its own. The Sync function means that the two baskets will finish at the same time regardless of the timings or temperatures of the individual drawers, while Match means that whatever you apply to one basket will be auto-applied to the other, cutting down on programming time. There are several great reasons to buy this air fryer. Namely, its huge capacity makes it the perfect choice for families or people who like to entertain a lot. And then there’s the undeniably useful flexibility of being able to switch between one larger cooking zone and two smaller ones. At this point it goes without saying that it’s simple to use and cooks superbly. Cooking for extra guests or feeding the whole family? Use the MATCH feature to double your serving size, with the same cooking program and time across both drawers. On the day of testing itself, it was plainly obvious that the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone was by far the superior appliance. It was the nicest to program, while some of the Tower models had oppressive beeps and stiff drawers and it had by far the best cooking ability. It was the fastest and achieved an incredible crisp on nuggets and fish fingers, with the quality of the machine itself also being standout.

The Ninja favours a dial over a touchscreen system (like the Instant Vortex Dual Zone has), which makes operating it really simple. You're not restricted by the preset temperatures or timings either, as you can use the two sets of arrows to set your own cooking course. Another claim that Ninja makes in its marketing of this product is that it can cook “up to 75% faster” than traditional fan ovens. While it can definitely help to save on cooking time and energy costs, in my experience, I’m not too sure if it’s able to match the results of a traditional oven in just a quarter of the time. I’ve found roast potatoes, for instance, can be cooked to perfection in 20-25 minutes in the AF451UK. However, my pretty standard fan oven can roast them to a similar finish in 60-70 minutes, which is about a third of the time. To accompany the chips, I cooked some sausages. Using spray oil to give them a light coating fat, I placed them in the AF400UK at 180ºC with the timer reduced by 20% compared to the cooking instructions. After the time had elapsed, the sausages were perfectly cooked: crisp and browned evenly all over.At the end of the cooking time, the hash browns were super-crispy on the outside, yet evenly cooked and still fluffy on the inside. This is a vast improvement over cooking them in the oven. With the SYNC feature you can cook two different foods using different times, temperatures and programs – both are ready to serve at the same time!

Effectively, this model delivers all the great features of last year’s model, only with a 9.5-litre total capacity. For larger families, or simply for cooking bigger items, this is a great fryer – provided you have the room to store it. Design and Features Food cooks best in air fryers if you give it a shake mid-cooking, resulting in an even finish. With many models, you’ll need to dig out a pair of oven gloves to do this. The AF400UK makes this simple by including handles on the outside of its drawers. Pull one out and the air fryer stops (both drawers stop in Sync or Match modes), so you can shake away and reinsert. Cook everything from fries and crisps to vegetables and beef jerky thanks to the Ninja AF400UK Air Fryer. Using little to no oil, this handy appliance lets you create your favourite meals and sides just the way you like them with up to 75% less fat than traditional frying methods.In my opinion it’s way too big for single person households unless you host a lot. And if you have a teeny kitchen, you’ll need to be prepared to find space for it, since it’s quite wide and tall. Furthermore, it’s one of the most expensive Ninja air fryers - a fact that can’t be ignored in your decision about whether to buy. That said, despite having quite a big, deep butler style sink it only just fits in my sink. If you’ve got a small sink you might struggle to fit it in. Although since it just needs some warm soapy water in it - you don’t really need to be able to fit the whole thing into your sink to give it a good clean.

Thankfully, that's it when it comes to controls, making simplicity a huge benefit of this air fryer. The haptics and sounds this appliance makes also won't grate on you unless you're very sensitive to machine noises. Cooking Quorn nuggets and sweet potato friesDue to not having the oven on the kitchen is not overheated so I imagine cooking in the Summer will be so much more comfortable too! When it comes to cooking, timing is everything. Perfect for families and large households, the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone 9.5L Air Fryer does the thinking and timing for you. Cook 2 different foods with different temperatures, times and settings in 2 separate cooking drawers – and have both ready to serve at exactly the same time using the SYNC feature! More people to feed? MATCH settings across both zones to make double the amount of food in the same amount of time! Everything here can be cleaned in the dishwasher once you’re done, meaning there’s very little clearing up to deal with. Performance We were impressed by the Sync feature, which allows you to cook two different foods with different cooking modes, temperature,s and durations, to be ready at the same time. Alternatively, you can set one zone with a cooking mode, temperature, and duration, and press the Match button to duplicate the settings in both zones, doing away with fiddling with the controls again.