Ninja Foodi 8-Quart 2-Basket Review

Ease of Use

The Ninja Foodi has a small digital window that clearly displays the time and temperature and is angled for easy viewing. The interface layout is intuitive, but the on/off lights are a bit hard to tell apart.

There is no auto-pause when the basket is removed, so you must pause cooking before opening the drawer. The lack of a preheat warning and large temperature increments make it difficult to accurately follow a recipe. Alternatively, the double baskets are very convenient for cooking multiple items at once, and the smart finish lets you finish cooking in both baskets simultaneously.

Ease of Cleaning

Two baskets mean you have more to clean, but the cleanup is straightforward with easy-to-wipe baskets.

There is a gap between the side panels, and the top needs a little extra attention, but it's easy to squish a sponge in there to prevent anything from accumulating between uses. There are no indents at the bottom, so a quick swipe is all you need. The trays and baskets are also dishwasher safe for deeper cleaning.

Cooking Speed

The Foodi cooked faster than the average unit, performing better in our tests with salmon than tater tots.

For tater tots, it took close to 20 minutes to cook, including the 3 minutes to preheat. While this is quicker than the preheat times of a standard oven, the overall cook time is similar. The salmon took 13 minutes, plus 3 more for preheating. On the upside, with the smart start feature, you can set each basket for the perfect temp and time, and the Foodi will ensure they finish together.

Cooking Quality

The Ninja Foodi offers an average cooking experience across most of our food items. Some of the sweet potato fries have a nice crunch, while others are undercooked and soft.

The onion rings offer a solid crunch, and the batter is cooked through; however, the onion in the center remains undercooked in much of the batch. We also noticed that the left basket cooked faster than the right. Unlike the onion rings, the tots are cooked evenly across both baskets, with a nice golden-brown exterior. But, similar to the onion rings, the tots remain a little mushy in the middle. Donuts rise nicely but remain slightly undercooked in the center, and chicken is juicy but a little tougher than some of the top performers.

Temperature Accuracy

Having two baskets could easily lead to discrepancies in temperature accuracy, but we are impressed by the dual baskets' accuracy and precision. The Foodi stays within a few degrees of the set temperature, even when we set the baskets to two different temperatures. We set one basket to 400 degrees and the other to 200; neither basket was affected by the other. Overall, this air fryer offers fairly accurate temperature readings, especially for a two-basket model.

Should You Buy the Ninja Foodi 8-Quart 2-Basket?

If you are specifically looking for an air fryer with two separate baskets, the Ninja Foodi 2-Basket is a good option. The cooking performance is somewhat average, but the temperature accuracy is stellar and very easy to clean. We love the ability to have dishes completed at the same time, so everything is hot and ready to go straight to a plate for serving. While it costs more than most of the options we tested, if your goal is food prep or feeding a family, the two-basket design gives you versatility that the smaller one-basket options don't.

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