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 fries Due 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! As with the older model, the AF400UK excels for cooking options. Each drawer can be controlled individually, with a choice of Max Crisp (240ºC heat for crisping up chips, for example), Air Fry, Roast, Bake, Dehydrate (perfect for saving herbs) and Reheat. You can control the temperature for each mode and select a cooking time.

I forgot to say that you can set each drawer at a separate temperature and time or sync them to finish at the same time! At the end of cooking time, my chips were perfectly cooked – evenly crisp throughout, without any sign of being burnt or overcooked.One great feature that I should mention here, however, is how easy the AF451UK is to clean. The grill plates pop out of the bottom and can be thrown in the dishwasher. In fact, the entire drawer pulls and can be cleaned in the dishwasher, too, which makes meal times much less of a hassle. 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

Build quality aside, the AF451UK is aesthetically pleasing, especially perched in pride of place on my kitchen countertop. The control panel has a nice solid feel to it while being satisfyingly easy to operate. Its flat top is also a welcome design feature for those with limited space, as it means you can store things on there that you might otherwise have had to relegate to a cupboard to make room, like a toaster (yes, I am speaking from experience).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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Everything here can be cleaned in the dishwasher once you’re done, meaning there’s very little clearing up to deal with. PerformanceIf you’re looking for an air fryer that can do it all, I truly think you’re not going to get any better than the Ninja Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer AF451UK. This appliance is easily one of the best in its class. Not only do you have a choice of six different cooking methods – from air fry and roast to bake and even dehydrate – but there’s a super smart dual cook feature that can ensure two different foods are correctly cooked, simultaneously, and are ready to eat at the same time. The addition of the Digital Cooking Probe is also a game changer for those who regularly cook meat dishes, especially big roast joints of beef or lamb, as it cooks the meat to your desired level without needing your constant attention. 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. Once you do splash out on the Ninja, you're going to want to know how to clean it so keep it looking pristine. My top tips for this air fryer would be to separate the grill and the basket elements out and to clean them separately, and to invest in a Dish-o-matic to make the whole process a lot easier. 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.

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. Cooking for two different dietary requirements? Cater for everyone by cooking vegetarian food in one drawer and meat in the other. Reheat – Restore leftovers to that delicious fresh-out-of-the-oven finish, perfect for reviving leftover pizza, quiche, spring rolls and more. Take mealtimes to the MAX with the large capacity air fryer that cooks 2 foods, 2 ways, and finishes at the same time.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 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. 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. What’s more, you can use the Match feature to double your portion size. Cook the same food in both drawers, with the same cooking programme to make twice the amount of food – perfect for feeding the whole family or if you have guests round for dinner. Plus, you can easily cook different foods with the same cooking instructions for added flexibility. Lots of Options