This isn’t my first air fryer, but it’s the first one that feels like it could actually replace half my oven. The Ninja XXXL FlexDrawer is massive. It eats so much bench space that once it’s on the counter, that’s where it lives. Moving it is a two-hand job. The size does earn its keep once you start cooking with it, so I’ve mostly made peace with it sitting there.
So what do you get for all that bench space? It’s one big 10.4 litre drawer with a removable divider. Drop the divider in and you’ve got two 5.2 litre zones you can run independently. Pull it out and the whole thing becomes a single MegaZone big enough for a roast or a couple of chickens. It’s a 2470 watt unit with seven functions (air fry, bake, roast, reheat, dehydrate, proof, and keep warm) and a temperature range of 30 to 200°C. The footprint is around 50cm deep and 32cm wide, which is the number the spec sheet quietly undersells until the thing is squatting on your bench in real life.
Wings were the first test. I’ve had smaller fryers that brown unevenly no matter how many times you shake the basket, and this one just doesn’t have that problem. The drawer’s wide enough to spread a big pile out in a single layer, so every piece crisps up without me opening it every five minutes. They came out properly pub-worthy, crunchy outside and juicy in the middle.
Nuggets are my lazy weeknight dinner, and it does them better than the oven. Tip in a family bag, spread them out, press start, walk off. Golden and crisp, not soggy in the middle the way they go when you cram a small basket. Frozen chips are the same story, except the thin ones and anything small slip straight through the gaps in the crisper plates and end up in the bottom of the drawer. Chopped veg does the same. You only find that out the messy way, scraping little charred bits off the bottom afterwards.
Then there’s the steak. Everyone tells you not to cook steak in an air fryer, and they’re mostly right, but the frozen trick is worth knowing. Straight from the freezer into the drawer, no thawing. You get a surprisingly good crust with a pink middle. Does it beat a cast iron pan? No, not close. But on a weeknight when I can’t be bothered standing over a spitting pan, it’s good enough.
I mostly bought it for roast pork. I pulled the divider out, scored the skin, and let it run as one big zone. The crackling came out blistered and properly crunchy, and the meat stayed juicy. I’ve also done two small whole chickens side by side and they cooked evenly without me swapping them around halfway. For one appliance on a bench, that’s impressive.
It’s become my default for reheating, too. Leftover pizza comes back with a crisp base instead of the sad floppy microwave version.
The two-zone stuff sounds great in the demo, and honestly we barely touch it. Most nights you’re cooking one thing, not two, so we just leave the divider out and run the whole drawer as one big space. It’s easier, and it’s one less part to wash. The divider has its moments, a tray of veg while the chips go, that kind of thing, but it’s not the everyday hero the box makes it out to be. Sync is the same deal. The idea is that two different foods finish at the same time, and it works fine, but the novelty wore off about a week in and I haven’t thought about it since.
Now the bits that annoy me, because it isn’t all perfect.
It’s loud. Properly loud. The fan winds up like a hairdryer, and if someone’s trying to watch TV in the same room while you cook, you’ll hear about it. None of the reviews I read beforehand really prepared me for the racket.
Cleaning is the other one. The ceramic plates are easy enough, they pop out and wipe down and still look new after months. The drawer itself is the problem. It’s wide and heavy, and washing it in a normal sink is awkward. It’s also too big to leave any room in the dishwasher, so it ends up a hand-wash job most of the time. And even when I only use half the drawer with the divider in, I’ve still got to wash the whole giant thing afterwards.
The size works against itself, too. We’re a family of four, and there are plenty of nights where it’s easier to reach for a frying pan or the microwave than to commit to cleaning this beast afterwards. An appliance this big is supposed to make dinner easier, and most of the time it does, but every so often the thought of washing that drawer is enough to make me cook something else entirely.
The 200°C ceiling is worth knowing about, too. Plenty of air fryers and ovens push to 220 or 240, and some recipes really want that extra heat for a proper blast at the end. The Ninja stops at 200. It’s hot enough for nearly everything I cook, but every now and then you hit the wall and wish for one more notch. The controls otherwise are dead simple, a dial and a few buttons with a clear display, no fiddly touchscreen to smear up with greasy fingers.
A few smaller gripes round it out. There’s no window, so if you like peeking you’ll be yanking the drawer open instead. The handle looks slick but doesn’t give you much to hold when the drawer’s loaded up. And there are no idiot-proof presets, so you need to know your times and temps rather than mashing a “chips” button and hoping.
It’s not cheap, either. You’re paying a fair bit more than a normal single-drawer fryer, and whether that’s worth it comes down to how many mouths you’re feeding. If you’re in Australia, keep an eye on Costco, because it goes on sale there pretty regularly. About six weeks after I bought mine, I watched it drop by a hundred bucks at Costco. I could’ve chased a price adjustment, but I couldn’t be bothered, haha.
So is it for everyone? No. If you live alone or your kitchen’s small, this thing is overkill and it’ll take over the bench. But if you’re cooking for a family or you entertain a bit, the capacity is the entire point, and it’s the best I’ve used at that job. I’d call it the SUV of air fryers. Big, thirsty for space, a bit much, but it hauls. The cooking has been the easy part. It’s the noise and the cleaning I’d think hardest about before handing over the money.