Customer Ratings & Reviews

It’s complicated, but once you learn it, it makes sense! Maybe it was just me, but this unit felt like there were a ton of rules you had to know before using it. It made the entire experience feel convoluted at first, but I think I was making mountains out of mole hills. Because once I got it all figured out, it is actually quite intuitive. One example: nothing is dishwasher safe minus the wire rack, everything else has to be hand washed. So the rule in our family is NOTHING goes in the dishwasher in regards to this Ninja. The top oven can only be used for some things, and the sheet pan can rest on top of the wire rack, but on the bottom oven has two slots, some things go into one slot while others do not. The combination of the two can be tricky as well. But the rule of thumb is the top is a toaster, the bottom is an airfryer. This little distinction made it far more simple. The other thing is you can’t use low smoke point oils, such as olive oil or butter. So most if not all of your meals needs veggie oil, canola, etc. Also when using both ovens at the same time, you have to estimate additional time, Ninja recommends a couple minutes or so additional cook time. So if your recipe requires 20 mins to cook, try 22 instead. The other complication was I bought a whole chicken, but it ended up being too big for the unit. Turns out the unit can only accept 5 pound chickens or lower with another page in the manual recommending 4 to 4.5 pounds. Needless to say, I had to use my conventional oven for the chicken instead of the Ninja. But that didn’t stop me, I also bought a salmon and that cooked gloriously! More on that later. Once I got it figured out, the buttons on the front are pretty self explanatory. There is a “Top” and “Bottom” button, which just lets you the user know what is happening on the display for that particular space. Or turns on the unit enabling that particular spot. The “Smart Finish” button is a little tricky, but it has a couple features in that one button. You can use the built in meat thermometer to have it stop cooking when it reaches the desired temp! Remember when I mentioned my super delicious salmon? Well I used the leave-in auto detect feature and it stopped cooking as soon as the temp got perfect! So good! I loved it. At the same time, I had potatoes and veggies roasting on the top! The family loved it and it was super easy to do. The other thing I noticed is the veggies didn’t taste like fish, so I think Ninja did a good job with aroma control. The biggest thing I don’t like about this unit is the toaster! The settings variations on toast is not real, I had it set to 3 and 2 pieces of bread and my toast was essentially burnt! I turned it to 1 and 1, and both my pieces were fine. But if you want a lightly toasted piece of bread, it’s impossible to do without watching the bread. For example my toddler likes very lightly warmed poptarts, and I can’t do that with this unit using the toast setting. I can however work around the issue using the “Keep Warm” setting. So far I’ve made chicken tenders, chicken breast, salmon, veggies, nachos, fries, poptarts, toast, bagels, and mozzarella sticks. I plan on making so much more with this thing, including another attempt at a whole chicken. All in all, I love this and I’m so happy to have it added into our kitchen!

The Ninja Double Stack XL oven is versatile and convenient. With 12 functions spread across two cooking areas, you can do a lot of different things and even do some of them at the same time. It took a bit of getting used to, though. Each function has its own settings, and it took me a few sessions with the quick start guide to get the hang of how the shared controls work. Fortunately, that guide has lots of great information, so I highly recommend reading it while you’re new to the Double Stack XL. Also, the toast function cooks toast a lot more “well done” than I had expected (more on that later), so that also took some adjusting on my part. When I first took this out of the box, I couldn’t decide if this appliance was larger or smaller than I was expecting. At first, comparing it to other countertop ovens, it seemed very large. Then I considered the two separate cooking chambers, and it seemed really compact. I soon realized that the top (smaller) chamber is large enough to do more than just toast, and that the bottom (larger) chamber can handle a sheet pan meal for a family of four. It all fits on the counter below the storage above (with a bit of room to spare), so I settled on an overall description of this being a highly efficient use of space. We’ve had this for a few days, and I’ve used it for simple stuff like toasting bread and bagels and gotten as adventurous as baking cookies on top while also roasting chicken and veggies in the bottom and air frying potatoes on the bottom while also broiling sausage links on top. Being able to do separate things in the same appliance (and even synchronize finish times) is convenient. The integrated thermometer, allowing me to ensure meats are cooked properly without opening the door to check a temp, has really improved my culinary game. My one complaint so far might be that the “toast” function makes bread way darker than you might think. This model was an upgrade for me from another Ninja countertop oven. On the previous model, I was usually using the “shade” setting of 3 or 4 often and getting medium toast. On this model, shade 3 (out of 7) makes my (store-bought whole-wheat bread) VERY dark, and 4 straight up burns the edges. Now that I’ve re-calibrated my expectations, I just always use settings 1 or 2. It makes me wonder if there are other settings that I just haven’t gotten to try yet that will also take some getting used to. Overall, I’m glad to add the Ninja Double Stack XL to my kitchen countertop. I think I’ve used it every day since it came out of the box, and expect it will get frequent, regular use moving forward. I'll continue to get used to how it works and think up new ways to cook two things at once!

I gave this a 4 star because toasting is hit or miss. Some breads toast ok others not well at all. Everything else works well.