Ninja - DoubleStack XL 10 QT, 6-in-1, 2-Basket Air Fryer, Space Saving Design - Gray

Easy to clean and use, can have different food cooking simultaneously, very spacious and efficient. Saves counter space.

Beautiful and very compact machine. It comes with a detailed instruction guide.

With an all new vertical design, the Ninja Doublestack XL fryer allows you to cook up to 4 foods at once in a form factor that is much more narrow than comparable sized fryers. It has 10QT capacity, using individual 5QT baskets, that can be configured with removable grill spacers that allow you to divide foods between top and bottom or remove the grill spacer and use the entire 5QT basket for one food, like a traditional fryer. The design is nice, but it’s mostly plastic on the outside. The vertical basket placement is great and they slide in and out with ease. The control settings have a very nice digital display off the right hand side of the unit. You have a large and bright LCD display for time and temp and readout, along with a nice jog dial selector control. The vent fans on this one are also out the right side, not the back. For our kitchen, this works out great due to where we placed the fryer on our counter, but just be aware if that might cause an issue. It fits nicely under standard cabinets and is not too heavy if you need to move it around. One thing we do notice that I’m guessing is due to the type of plastic design of the unit, it gets very hot to touch pretty much all around the outside, and it also seems louder than other comparable fryers we’ve tried, not much insulation for temp or sound is found here. Also, while cleaning the fryer before our first use, the solder of one of the grill spacer handles broke, not a good look before we even cook something… The Doublestack does a lot. Air Fryer is just one of 6 settings that thing claims to do, including bake, broil, roast reheat and dehydrate. We’ve not tried them all, and Air Fry is probably where you’ll use it the most, but it does have the stated capability to much more. I would also assume, based on our usage so far, that a similar trial and error learning curve will be found across all the different settings. In terms of Air Frying, it’s just fine. Easy and right to the point. We had some trial and error with time and temp based on different foods, since the vertical design splits your food into 5QT portions, and if you use the grill spacers, that adds a new wrinkle related to how long you cook the food. The one benefit that we were able to see right away, is the feature of the grill spacers that when used, that cooks the food to an extra crispy style. So it’s great for those foods that need that extra crisp, that might be hard to get in other fryers. However using both baskets and both grill spacers for multiple types of food, means you will more than likely play around with the time and temp for a bit, until you’re comfortable that the food you’re cooking comes out the way you like. I noticed this more on the Bake setting myself. Using Bake settings similar to a standard oven didn’t work for any of the food we tried, so lots of adjustments were needed. But once you get the hang of adjusting the time and temp relative to what you’re cooking, it works great. One of the great features of the Doublestack is the Match Cook setting. Basically set different foods with different time and temps in either basket, and the Ninja will make sure that both are done at the same time, sort of a set it and forget it feature. No more hurrying to get one food out and wait on the other. Another great feature we love is that when the cooking is done, it actively goes into a cool down mode, where the vent fans kick into overdrive a little bit and work to cool down the fryer and not just let all that exess heat stay and build up. Cleaning is easy, as both baskets and the grill spacers are dishwasher safe, and they all have non stick coatings that allow even hand washing to be a snap, food doesn’t stick and wipes right off. Overall, the main feature here is the space saving design, along with the various cooking options this allows. it makes the case to be left out on the counter as an all around go to for quick, easy cooking with fast clean up. It has some great features built in, but nothing revolutionary here, just a great solid product from the Ninja brand.

Verdict: The Ninja DoubleStack XL delivers wonderful air frying (and 5 other functions), while saving counter space through its vertical design. This fryer works well for cramped kitchens (see picture). The fryer can cook good-sized meals using both baskets, small meals with just one basket, or versatile meals with four primary ingredients with two drawers and stacked racks. Initial impressions. The unit looks great: sleek, modern, easy to use control panel, and cool color that somehow works well next to other stainless steal machines. It’s not heavy. It’s mostly plastic, but still feels and looks like a premium product. The drawers are not big, so thinking about what/how to cook is important. I love the vertical design… we have unused vertical space, and not much horizontal counter space. I love that the control panel acts as a buffer to ensure there is space for the vents, smart! Setup. Setting up is essentially plug-and-play, and reading the quick start guide to figure out how to best use the machine and different features. Design. We love having two baskets, as well as the versatility of the stacked racks. This week, we made two meals with this air fryer. The first meal was just for my wife and I, and we use one drawer, placing the vegies at the bottom, and salmon on the rack. The second meal we cooked was for us and the kids, so we used both drawers to make chicken and potatoes, using the Smart Finish option to complete both drawers at the same time. The first time we used it, we used thin foil to ease cleaning… this is not necessary! The baskets are designed to come out for easy washing, which is wonderful! Performance. It works exceptionally well and changes our approach to easy cooking and cleaning. Easy cooking for us has been the microwave, the outdoor grill, or some sort of pasta dish or easy protein with rice. This machine opens up so many possibilities because it’s easy to use, it makes great food with little effort, and it’s easy to clean. Things I love: - It looks great - Love the vertical design for our kitchen - Well thought-out control panel - Lots of cooking functions - Versatile options to cook with two drawers and racks - Performs great - Easy to clean! Basket can be easily washed. Things I don’t love: - I wish it had wi-fi for additional functionality, such as a digital cook book, setting temperatures, setting and checking timers, and getting notifications - The “no pre-heating necessary” is not perfectly accurate; salmon takes a few extra minutes when the machine is just starting out, whereas when adding a new batch of salmon into the already hot machine, it is a few minutes shorter. Not a big deal; just something to keep in mind Overall, the Ninja DoubleStack is a wonderful fryer. It performs flawlessly, while saving counter space and adding more versatility to our cooking. We highly recommend it.

TLDR: The DoubleStack offers advantages over the normal XL models, but the normal XL models have more accommodating baskets, allowing larger portions of food to be cooked in each one. INTRODUCTION My Ninja Air Fryers are a staple in the household. They are versatile, easy to use, and most importantly, easy to clean up afterwards. During a 5-day work week, the Ninjas get used at least 2 of those days and when I’m not using the air fryer, I am probably using the Ninja Woodfire grill. Like I said, my Ninjas get used heavily by us. The DoubleStack XL is a new twist on the dual air fryer. Instead of placing identical baskets side by side and keeping the overhead heating elements, Ninja redesigned the machine, stacking baskets on top of each other and moving the fans and heating elements to the rear. Ninja touts the space-saving design of this layout and while it is true that this saves horizontal counter space, the DoubleStack still takes up a good amount of real estate, they are just trading horizontal real estate for vertical. The DoubleStack XL sports a generous 10qt capacity, easily besting my single basket XL’s capacity of 6.5qts. Unfortunately, while overall volume has increased, having 2 baskets means each basket’s capacity drops to 5qts, substantially smaller than the 6.5qt basket and making some things challenging to fit in at one time, in one basket. To make up for this, Ninja has come up with a clever dual level basket design. A traditional, perforated plate sits on the bottom on the basket, elevating the bottom level off the floor. A wire rack can then be dropped into the basket, allowing for another level of cooking. It’s a slick idea and allows for cooking up to 4 different things all at once. Ninja also thought ahead realizing cooking up to 4 different things, all at the same time, could be a pain logistically. In their wisdom, Ninja set the DoubleStack up to take out the guesswork and stress. Cooking the exact same thing in both baskets? No problem. Use the Match Cook button. It cooks both baskets the same. Cooking 2 different meals in the baskets? No problem. Click the Smart Finish button, set your cooking time and temps and the Ninja will make sure everything gets done at the same time. It’s simple. It’s intuitive. It’s logical. Kudos Ninja!! USE I was a bit skeptical when I first looked at the new design. Why mess with something that has proven solid for Ninja and countless others? Moving the cooking elements to the back, exhausting out the right side seemed illogical. The main selling points of having an overhead cooking configuration is that all the items in the basket get even heat distribution. Heat gets blown down on all items uniformly, I don’t see how it would be possible with all the items in the DoubleStack being in the back. Surely, the items in the back of the basket will get cooked much more than those at the front and furthest away from the heating elements. To test this theory out, I wanted to start with cooking something not as forgiving as a burger or steaks. I decided on asparagus along with some blackened salmon. I will admit, whatever Ninja did during the design phase paid off. The DoubleStack cooked all the salmon filets evenly and uniformly. The filet closest to the back were no more cooked than the filet at the very front. I was quite surprised at the uniformity. CONCLUSION To date, I have made close to a dozen different foods in the new DoubleStack XL. All the kudos I’ve given to my other Ninja products applies to the DoubleStack. Food cooks evenly and quickly. The new design that I was skeptical about before use, has won me over. Regardless of what protein I’m cooking, what vegetable I’m cooking, or what meal I’m preparing together in one basket, the DoubleStack has performed flawlessly. The only nit pick is that due to the smaller basket volume, I find myself using both baskets to cook a full meal versus what I would normally be able to get away with just one in my normal XL. However, the ability to double stack food in the DoubleStack is a game changer in this household. Being able to put vegetables under your protein in the same basket and have them both turn out exceptionally well, is great. The versatility of the DoubleStack XL has cut back on the amount this family uses the cooktop and microwave during meal prep. Parts of the meals we would normally cook separate from the air fryer can now be included during cooking. Way to go Ninja. Another home run, in my opinion. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED