Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer AF500UK Air Fryer

Summary

If you regularly cook for a crowd and you’re fed up with cooking in batches or waiting for the oven to do a decent roast, the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer has a huge 10.4-litre drawer that you can use as one zone or split into two independent halves of 5.2 litres each. It’s an air fryer designed for big households, not for a two-person flat with a tiny kitchen. On Amazon.co.uk it’s sold as the AF500UK in black; the unit we reviewed was the European AF500EU, the same appliance.

The clever part is the removable divider. With it in place, you can cook chips in one zone at 200 °C and vegetables in the other at 170 °C, and both finish together thanks to the sync function. Without it, there’s plenty of room for a rolled pork joint of up to 2.3 kg, a leg of lamb with sides or even a stretched-out flammkuchen. The trade-off is accepting that the appliance is big and fairly heavy (11.3 kg and almost 57 cm across by our figures). It won’t fit in every kitchen.

Its most appealing feature is the genuine versatility of the single drawer. It does what models with two separate baskets can’t: it takes whole joints of meat or a rectangular tin without cutting anything in half. That’s the reason to buy it, rather than the air frying itself, which is on a par with any other model in the range.

The main limitation is practical rather than technical. The drawer is dishwasher safe and does fit in the bottom rack (we measured 38.7 × 31.5 cm and the spray arm turns freely), but you have to remove the cutlery basket and fold down the tines every time, and once it’s in, it takes the whole rack. By hand it took 6 min 18 s of hard scrubbing, the longest wash-up of all the models in our ranking. If you want the easiest possible cleaning, this isn’t the one for you.

Analysis and verdict

Cooking results – Score: 8.5/10

With 2,470 W, the FlexDrawer has enough power to work flat out even with a full drawer. You notice it most in the preheat times and in the fact that it doesn’t lose temperature when you load a lot of food at once. The 7 functions (Air Fry, Roast, Bake, Prove, Max Crisp, Dehydrate and Reheat) cover practically everything you need day to day, with a nice surprise in dough proving, which is far more fiddly in a conventional oven.

Max Crisp takes the temperature up to 240 °C and gives very crunchy chips, nuggets and wings. At that temperature you do need to keep an eye on things, because the line between perfectly crisp and dried out is a fine one. Ninja says it cooks up to 65% faster than a fan oven and uses up to 45% less energy, and our experience with roast meat points the same way, although the real saving depends a lot on the oven you compare it with. In our tests the chips came out very crisp on the outside without any extra oil, and the chicken wings browned nicely while the broccoli in the other zone didn’t go soggy, a sign that results stay consistent even when cooking two different dishes at once.

Capacity – Score: 9.3/10

The 10.4 litres in total are what really sets this air fryer apart from any other dual-drawer model. With two separate baskets you can cook more food, yes, but you can never fit a single piece larger than each drawer allows. Here you can: take out the divider and you have one continuous surface that fits anything from a whole chicken to a tray of roast vegetables for several people. We tried it with a pork shoulder, and for the first time we didn’t have to cut it in two.

The sync function does what it promises. If you fit the divider and cook two different things, the appliance staggers the start times so both zones finish together. It’s handy when you’re making, say, a main in one zone and a side in the other. What it doesn’t do, and it’s worth being clear about this, is detect doneness automatically. You set the temperatures and times, and the appliance sticks to them.

Cleaning – Score: 6.0/10

This is where the FlexDrawer falls behind models with two separate baskets, and its lowest score is deserved. First, a common misconception needs clearing up: Ninja says the drawer, divider, crisper plates and accessories are all dishwasher safe, and only recommends hand-washing the drawer to extend its life. The drawer fits in the bottom rack at a measured 38.7 × 31.5 cm and the spray arm turns freely, but you have to remove the cutlery basket and fold down the tines, and it fills practically the whole rack, so putting it in means washing very little else in that load.

The metal divider with its silicone edge works well while you cook, but after a high-temperature session it’s very hot and you can’t lift it out with your bare hand. You need an oven glove or tongs. It’s not a big deal, but it’s a small hassle you don’t get with two separate drawers. The wide drawer handle, which sticks out to the side, also takes up a little more worktop space than you’d expect at first glance.

Design and space needed

The dimensions are what they are: by our figures, 56.79 cm long, 38.81 cm wide and 41.91 cm high, and 11.3 kg (the UK listing quotes H32.7 × W31.6 × D49.6 cm and 9.3 kg for the appliance itself). Either way, it’s not something you’ll put away in a cupboard after every use. It needs a permanent spot on the worktop, and a generous one. If your kitchen doesn’t have a good metre of clear worktop, this will be a problem.

The black finish feels solid and it looks the part, but as with anything black with smooth surfaces, fingerprints build up quickly. It doesn’t affect performance, but if that sort of thing bothers you, bear it in mind.

Pros

• 10.4-litre drawer without the divider: lets you cook whole joints of meat, rectangular trays or long items that simply won’t fit in any other dual-drawer air fryer.
• Dual zones with sync: you can cook two different dishes at different temperatures and have them finish at exactly the same time, without watching the clock.
• 7 functions including proving and dehydrating: they take it beyond a standard air fryer, so you can make everything from bread to jerky without another appliance.
• 2,470 W of power: performance doesn’t drop even with a full drawer, which you really notice when cooking for 6 or 8 people at once.
• Manufacturer’s guarantee and spare parts: the UK listing includes Ninja’s guarantee when you register the product, and the divider, crisper plates and drawer are sold separately, so if something breaks you don’t have to replace the whole appliance. Your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 apply as well.

Cons

• It’s the hardest to clean in our ranking: 6 min 18 s of hard scrubbing by hand, and in the dishwasher you have to remove the cutlery basket and give up almost the whole bottom rack.
• The divider gets very hot during cooking and you can’t remove it with your bare hand; you always need a utensil or glove, which adds an annoying extra step.
• At 56.79 cm long and 11.3 kg by our figures, it needs a permanent spot on the worktop. If your kitchen can’t spare that space for good, daily use gets awkward.

Our test

Test 1: Cooking results – chips without preheating in a drawer that doesn’t stir itself

We tested the FlexDrawer in Spain, and it’s the same machine sold on Amazon.co.uk under the AF500UK reference. The first thing we checked was whether the centre of a 10.4-litre drawer cooks as evenly as the edges, because the bigger the surface, the easier it is for cold spots to form. We put 500 g of chips in a single batch, without preheating, on the chips programme, and repeated the test with wings and vegetables. The FlexDrawer has one feature that affects all of this: it doesn’t stir the food itself, so if you don’t shake it halfway through, whatever is at the bottom stays paler than the rest.

We don’t have a measured time to publish for the 500 g of chips in this exact setup, so we’re not going to make one up. What we can tell you is what we saw with similar food in the same drawer: potato wedges cooked alongside a pork shoulder at 200 °C came out very crisp on the outside without a drop of extra oil, and in the divider test the wings (200 °C, 22 minutes) browned nicely while the broccoli in the other zone (170 °C, 15 minutes) didn’t go soggy, with both finishing barely 30 seconds apart thanks to sync. With Max Crisp at 240 °C, though, the margin between perfectly crisp and dried out is narrow, so keep an eye on the first few minutes until you get to know the appliance. What we can’t confirm is that the centre of a full 500 g load comes out as evenly as the edges without you stepping in halfway.

Test 2: Capacity – the drawer without the divider versus split in two

Here we check whether, as well as holding a lot, that volume lets you cook whole pieces without cutting them up, which is this model’s real promise. The protocol is to fill the drawer to the stated maximum and count the real portions, checking whether a whole chicken or four fillets fit without touching. With the FlexDrawer it’s a little more involved because there are two setups: one continuous 10.4-litre drawer, or the divider in place, turning it into two 5.2-litre zones.

What we actually tested was a boneless pork shoulder of about 2 kg without the divider, and for the first time with an air fryer we didn’t have to cut it in half to make it fit, which would have been unavoidable with separate baskets. We don’t have an exact count of how many fillets fit without overlapping in this drawer, so we won’t give a figure, but the continuous surface does leave room for rectangular trays and long pieces. With the divider in, each 5.2-litre half worked independently: wings in one zone and broccoli in the other, finishing practically together. What we can’t confirm is exactly how many portions of something small, like a fillet, fit without touching with the divider removed.

Test 3: Cleaning – the big drawer, the hot divider and the sink

This test looks at whether the non-stick releases residue first time with a non-abrasive sponge after cooking something greasy, and which parts go in the dishwasher without fuss. We cooked 1 kg of wings directly on the plates, using the full MegaZone without the divider, left it to cool for ten minutes and washed by hand with a non-abrasive sponge and no soaking, as our protocol requires. One point needs correcting compared with what we used to say: Ninja says the drawer, divider, crisper plates and accessories are all dishwasher safe, and only recommends hand-washing the drawer to extend its life.

The non-stick isn’t the problem, but the whole setup is. Washing up took us 6 min 18 s, with 11 passes on the drawer and 14 on the plates, and it was the only model in the batch that made us scrub hard, leaving grease where the plates rest on the base. You need a large sink and a tap high enough to manoeuvre such a big piece, and the wide handle sticking out to the side makes it a bit more awkward. In the dishwasher the drawer does fit in the bottom rack at 38.7 × 31.5 cm and the spray arm turns freely, but only after removing the cutlery basket and folding down the tines, and it takes up almost the whole rack. The drawer, divider and plates come out of the cycle clean, with no damage to the non-stick, although some residue remains in the corners. The metal divider with its silicone edge is a separate issue: after high-temperature cooking it’s too hot to remove by hand, so you need a glove or tongs before you can wash it, an extra step that doesn’t exist with two separate baskets.

If you’d like to know more about what to look for, take a look at our air fryer buying guide, where you’ll find the best models we’ve tested and help choosing the right one for you.