By stacking the two drawers on top of each other, the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK offers 9.5-litres of cooking space in a device that doesn’t take up any more counter space than a single-drawer device. The new design also introduces two-level cooking, so up to four different items can be cooked at once. It’s a little fiddly to use the wire racks, but it’s still nice to have the flexibility. With simple controls and brilliant results, this is the ultimate two-drawer air fryer.
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Hugely flexible -
Cooks brilliantly -
Simple controls -
Doesn’t take up much counter space
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Two-level cooking is fiddly
Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L: Introduction
Ninja’s dual-drawer air fryers are brilliant, offering flexibility and extra capacity. They are, generally, massive, taking up a huge amount of kitchen space, which makes them hard to justify for those without much counter space.
Step forward the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer (SL400UK in Britain, SL401 Stateside), which offers 9.5-litres of cooking space, but as the drawers are vertically stacked, the cooker takes up around half the counter space.
It’s not just a tweak of an existing design, by going with the vertical alignment, the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK can cook on two levels in each drawer, further extending flexibility.
Read on for our full review to see how it, er, stacks up…
Design and components
- 9.5-litres of space, split between two 4.75-litre drawers
- Simple controls
- Wire racks extend cooking capacity
Described in the simplest of terms, the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK is a reworking of the existing dual-drawer air fryer, only rather than having the drawers side-by-side, they’re stacked vertically.
The obvious benefit is that the vertical stacking means that the air fryer takes up around half the counter space, while being short enough to slide underneath wall-mounted kitchen counters.
While the air fryer might take up less space, there are 9.5-litres of cooking space available, split between two 4.75-litre drawers, each with its own crisper plate at the bottom. That’s a huge amount of total cooking space.
Moving to a vertical layout has meant that Ninja needed to alter the placement of the heating element.
With a traditional air fryer, the fan and heating element are at the top of the device; here, they’re at the back of the drawers.
Doing this has meant that the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK has one more trick: install the provided wire rack in each drawer and you can cook on two levels.
This means that you can cook four items at the same time, or just double up on capacity.
Features
- Brilliantly simple controls
- Handy cooking suggestions manual
- Sync and Match zones
Once again, Ninja has proved that it’s king of the user interface. While rivals overload the control panel with a confusing array of cooking programmes, Ninja keeps things simple.
There are multiple cooking modes to choose from: Air Fry, Roast, Max Crisp, Reheat, Bake and Dehydrate.
Once a mode is chosen for a drawer, you can choose the temperature (except with Max Crisp, which runs at the maximum 240°C), and the cooking time.
Temperatures and cooking times can be adjusted mid-cook, letting you tweak the cooking process as you go.
Once again, Ninja provides a brilliant quick-start guide that has suggested modes, temperatures and cooking times for the most common ingredients.
It’s this drive for simplicity that makes Ninja’s products, and the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK, a joy to use.
With two drawers available, each can be set to run completely separate cooking modes. Plus, there’s the Double Stack Pro mode that lets you use the wire racks to cook on multiple levels.
Additionally, there are modes to make the drawers work together: Match sets the two drawers to the same setting, for doubling-up on capacity; Sync lets you run two different cooking cycles, but have them finish at the same time.
The latter mode is so smart, that if you pull out one drawer mid-cook to give food a shake, the other drawer pauses cooking, too.
There’s simply no other air fryer that’s as simple to use and as smart; this is an air fryer designed for those that love to cook.
Performance
- Crispy results
- Two-layer cooking needs planning
- Maintains moisture
One of the main reasons to buy an air fryer is to get crispy results with fried food. To test this capability, I cooked hash browns using the Max Crisp function.
Running at 240°C, the hash browns cooked fast, had a nice crisp exterior and a fluffy interior. This is an air fryer running at its best.
Chips and the like come out just as well, but to give the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK a real test, I tried it with two-layer cooking.
There are some limitations to this mode. Because of the size of the wire rack, larger items need to go on top, thinner items at the bottom.
To this end, I decided to put fish fingers at the top and chips at the bottom of the drawer. That worked well, but the slight issue is that it’s a little tricky to shake and turn the lower items.
The rack is easy to remove with some oven gloves, and then shake the drawer; just make sure you don’t drop any food.
Secondly, it’s important to use food on both layers that have a similar cooking time; in my case, I found that the fish fingers were done slightly before the chips, so I removed the early. Overall, the results were brilliant, with the meal perfectly cooked.
Each large drawer can hold an entire chicken, so I used the roast mode to cook one. Cooking in just an hour, the chicken had a nice crispy skin. I used a temperature probe to check that the chicken was done; it was perfectly cooked.
Cutting into it, the chicken was nice and moist on the inside, and way better than the results you get from most ovens, which can dry chicken out.
Final thoughts
If you like the idea of a dual drawer air fryer but didn’t like the size of them, the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L Air Fryer SL400UK is for you.
More than just a simple reworking of an existing product, this air fryer adds dual-layer cooking. This mode does make it a little tricky to turn food, but that’s forgiveable for the extra flexibility it gives. Overall, the brilliant controls, excellent results and huge capacity make this the ultimate air fryer.
How we test
When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.
Because we’re testing new devices all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular gadget compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.
Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.
Read our guide on how we test to learn more.
FAQs
Yes, the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L allows you to cook multiple types of food at the same time using its double-stack feature. You can use different settings for each layer, making it ideal for preparing complete meals in one go.
Absolutely. One of the highlights of the Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L is its ability to cook frozen food directly, without the need for defrosting, saving time while still delivering great results.
The Ninja Double Stack XL 9.5L can reach a maximum temperature of 240°C (475°F) and has a maximum cooking time of 60 minutes per cycle, making it suitable for a wide range of recipes and cooking needs.
The appliance is designed for easy cleaning. Both the removable cooking trays and the baskets are dishwasher-safe, and the non-stick coating ensures that food doesn’t stick, making manual washing quick and simple.
