Ninja Foodi Digital Oven Review
Our Verdict
Compare to Similar Products
This Product Ninja Foodi Digital Oven | |||||
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Awards | Best Overall Air Fryer | An Excellent Mid-Volume Model | Best Air Fryer on a Budget | Two Drawers for Simul-Frying | |
Price | $280 List $180.00 at Amazon | $140 List $79.99 at Amazon | $130 List $89.99 at Amazon | $70 List $69.99 at Amazon | $180 List $169.95 at Amazon |
Overall Score | |||||
Star Rating | |||||
Bottom Line | The best toaster oven and air frying combination in our fleet | A high-performing and multi-functional device with an outstanding design | Its versatility allows it to cook a wide variety of foods well and it's quite easy to use | Good cooking performance for a reasonable price | An air fryer with intuitive controls, great temperature accuracy, and two baskets for simultaneous cooking |
Rating Categories | Ninja Foodi Digital... | Instant Vortex Plus | Ninja Air Fryer | Ultrean Air Fryer | Instant Vortex Plus XL |
Cooking Performance (35%) | |||||
User Friendliness (25%) | |||||
Ease of Cleaning (20%) | |||||
Temperature Accuracy (20%) | |||||
Specs | Ninja Foodi Digital... | Instant Vortex Plus | Ninja Air Fryer | Ultrean Air Fryer | Instant Vortex Plus XL |
Measured Dimensions | 19.7"L x 7.6"W x 15"D | 11.5"L x 13.3"W x 12.8"D | 13.6"L x 11"W x 13.3"D | 13.2"L x 11.3"W x 12.4"D | 15.9"L x 12.5"W x 15.1"D |
Capacity | 4 qt | 6 qt | 4 qt | 4.2 qt | 8 qt |
Accessories | Wire rack, air fry basket, sheet pan | None | None | None | None |
Power Consumption | 1800 watt | 1700 watt | 1550 watt | 1500 watt | 1700 watt |
Max Outside Temperature | 246 | 146 | 160 | 154 | 180 |
Measured Cooking Area | 144 sq in | 87.8 sq in | 53.5 sq in | 59.2 sq in | 113 sq in |
Time to Preheat to 400F | 2:25 | 2:31 | 4:25 | 2:37 | 4:49 |
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven is one of the most effective air fryer/toaster oven combos that we've ever come across. It can even dehydrate as well.
Performance Comparison
Cooking Performance
Throughout our air frying tests, the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven produced above-average results. Overall, we don't think you're making a sacrifice in using the Digital Oven to air fry over using a dedicated air fryer.
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven excelled in air frying almost every dish we threw at it. It produced field-leading results when making chicken breast, donuts, and tater tots. Its only weakness in this arena was that it took a bit longer than some other fryers to get the tater tots completely crispy.
We've found that getting sweet potato fries truly crispy is a big challenge for most air fryers, so we've used it as our torture test. The Digital Oven did struggle a bit in this area, with the results tasting more like slightly crispy potato wedges than sweet potato fries.
User Friendliness
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven offers a great interface and some unique features that make it quite easy to use. The fry basket is a bit less convenient to handle than those of most dedicated air fryers, but we see that as a small tradeoff.
The interface on this device is simple, straightforward, and fast. A single dial lets you quickly scroll through settings. By pressing the dial, you can switch between selecting cooking modes, times, and temperatures.
The Digital Oven is fairly short and wide, allowing for a large cooking capacity. When not in use, you can flip the oven up on its end. In this configuration, it is just under 15 inches tall, 20 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. In most kitchens this will be able to slide against the wall underneath the cabinets and almost disappear.
Like all multifunction air fryers, the Digital Oven has to make some sacrifices when it comes to air frying convenience. Namely, the air frying basket is all metal and is placed inside the oven chamber, meaning it must carefully be handled with oven mitts when shaking or removing the food. In comparison to dedicated air fryers that generally have exterior handles that don't get hot during cooking, this is a bit more challenging. However, it's well worth it if you value the machine's added functionality.
Ease of Cleaning
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven isn't particularly difficult to clean but fell behind some of the dedicated devices in our cleaning tests.
The fry basket itself is quite easy to clean. Its square shape and lack of a handle make it easier to scrub in the sink. It is also completely dishwasher safe. The slight problem comes with the oven chamber. If an air frying recipe splatters or pops at all, the interior of the oven gets dirty, which requires some elbow grease to clean and some careful wiping to dry.
Temperature Accuracy
In our tests, the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven's temperature fluctuated much more than those of other air fryers, likely due to the much larger cooking chamber and the inherent challenge of keeping the extra space evenly heated. However, it never wavered more than 20 degrees from the set temperature, and we didn't see any negative impacts of this slight fluctuation in the recipes we prepared.
Should You Buy the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven?
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven has a lot of versatility and cooked food well during our test. That said, it was a bit more challenging to clean than others we tested, and it was also not as user-friendly. Lastly, the temperature accuracy is abysmal, though we didn't notice that this affected its cooking performance too much.
What Other Air Fryers Should You Consider?
For a lot less, you could get the Ninja Air Fryer, which had much better temperature accuracy. And for almost half the price of the Digital Oven, you could get the Instant Vortex Plus. It has a 6-quart capacity and some of the best cooking, ease of use and cleaning, and temperature accuracy of any air fryer in our lineup.