Best dual-drawer air fryers: Two cooking zones are better than one

If you want to use your oven less, the FlexDrawer is an excellent alternative. Its unique offering is the ability to combine its two 5.2-litre cooking spaces into a 10.4-litre ‘megazone’ for roasts and baking full-size cakes.

In the US, the equivalent air fryer, the FlexBasket, only has a 7QT capacity. It also lacks the UK model’s ‘prove’ cooking mode. It’s otherwise a similar model, and we’d still recommend it.

But you can also use the two cooking areas separately, in the same way that you’d use any dual-zone air fryer. The FlexDrawer has all the functionality you’d expect, with match and sync functions to make dual-drawer cooking simple.

There are seven cooking modes: max crisp (for frozen food), air fry, roast, bake, reheat (for leftovers), dehydrate (for jerky and dried fruit) and prove (for dough). The FlexDrawer comes with a manual containing recipes and a cooking chart, with suggested times and temperatures for popular food, so it’s a good option for air fryer novices.

Still, its controls and digital display are so intuitive and easy to use that you likely won’t need to resort to the manual.

It’s extremely powerful, so you’ll probably need to adjust your air fryer recipes down but once you do so, it’ll produce evenly cooked, crispy food.

This Tefal air fryer and grill has a lot to offer, especially for tis attractive price point. Although it has an RRP of £199.99, it’s available from a number of retailers for £129.

As for the air fryer’s design, we really like its stainless steel panels, which give it a brighter look than the average model, which tends to be overwhelm a kitchen counter. Inside, it has two drawers of different sizes: 5.2L and 3.2L. These give you the option of cooking a larger main, such as roasting a whole chicken, or using the smaller drawer for quick, economical sides and snacks for one. As you’d hope, it has a sync function, so you can have both cooking drawers finish at the same time, for easy dishing up.

It also has a grill function, which we found did a pretty good job of creating the flavour of grilled food, without the cooking odour and smoke that grilling can produce.

The digital display is intuitive and easy to use and the appliance has eight pre-set programmes – fries, chicken, vegetables, fish, dessert, dehydrate, manual and the grill mode. You can adjust the time and temperature on each. There isn’t a dedicated setting for frozen food however, so you’ll need to work that out by trial and error.

We found that the pre-sets cook accurately and that the air fryer produces evenly cooked and reliably crispy food. Altogether, it’s a good buy.

In the US, this Ninja model is called the called the Foodi 6-in-1 Smart 10-qt. 2-Basket Air Fryer (DZ550). In the UK, it’s the Foodi MAX Dual Zone Air Fryer (AF451UK).

It’s at the top of the list because it has every feature you could possibly want, including a cooking probe for perfect meat and fish.

Each basket has a 5QT/ 4.75L capacity and you can programme them independently, match them, or even set them in sync mode – to finish cooking at the same time, for hassle-free meals.

It has six cooking modes: air fry, max crisp air fry, bake, roast, dehydrate, and reheat. There’s no grill function, however.

Like all Ninja models, it’s intuitive and incredibly easy to use and produces well-cooked, crispy food. It demands plenty of space though, with dimensions of 32.5 (H) x 41.5 (W) x 27cm (D)/12.8 (H) x 13.9 (W) 17.1in (D).

One more note: if you already have a Ninja Speedi or Health Grill, you may find yourself slightly disappointed by the fact that’s it’s an almost entirely plastic build.

One thing that sets this model apart from other entries in this round-up is that its 9L capacity is unevenly split across two drawers. There’s a main 6L drawer and a smaller, 3L drawer for sides. However, at 42 x 31 x 38cm, it’ll take up more space than the Ninja Foodi and you’ll get a slightly lower cooking capacity.

Still, it is an attractive appliance, with digital touchscreen controls on top and a grey and metallic build that makes it appear much less of a countertop monolith than some rivals.

It has eight presets. Many are specific rather than general, such as frozen potato, fresh fries, whole fish, and meat chops, although there is a handy reheat setting. The cooking temperature is also low enough to dehydrate fruit and meat and proof dough.

You can sync the drawers so they finish cooking at the same time, copy so both drawers have the same setting, and add a shake reminder. (A shake alert isn’t something you get on all Ninja models.) It also comes with a companion app, so you’ll get an alert to your phone when food is ready.

But the downside is that the on-appliance controls aren’t as intuitive as those of some rivals, and the icon controls can be hard to read in bright light, so there’s a bit of a learning curve to using it.

In our test, we were impressed with the quality of the food produced and would recommend it, although it may not be the best choice for novice air fryer cooks.

If you want a dual-drawer air fryer but can’t justify its countertop footprint, the Double Stack (DoubleStack in the US) is worth a look. It provides a lot of cooking capacity for the amount of space it takes up. Not only does it have two cooking drawers with an overall 9.5L/10QT capacity, but the cooking racks allow you to stack food in two layers in each drawer. If a common meal for you is chicken or fish accompanied by two or three types of vegetables, you’ll be able to do it all in the Double Stack without resorting to other cooking methods.

Like Ninja’s other dual-drawer air fryers, it has an easy-to-use control panel, with match and sync functions. It has has fewer modes than many other models – air fry, max crisp (for frozen food), bake, roast, reheat and dehydrate – but you can adjust them by time and temperature to cook almost anything you want.

But as its heat sources are at the backs of the drawers we found that it cooks some types of foods slightly unevenly. As there’s no shake alert, you’ll need to remember to step in midway and mix up potatoes or fries. Altogether though, it’s fast, efficient and makes crispy, crunchy food.

This affordable air fryer has a different design to most models in this round-up. It brings together a capacious, 6-litre air frying drawer above with a 5-litre grilling compartment at its base. But it still has the advantages of matching and syncing both cooking areas for ease of use.

Although it has a smaller footprint than most dual-drawer rivals, it’s still fairly deep. And it’s tall too, coming in at H40.5 x W32.6 x D43cm.

Its drawer has a good amount of flat space on the cooking trivet inside and the element is above. Underneath, the five-litre grill compartment has elements above and below with a fan at the back. Its baking tray can fit an 8-inch pizza, and there’s also a crumb tray to help keep the compartment clean.

It has easy-to-use controls and comes with cooking instructions, so it’s a good option for air fryer newbies. However, as our testing showed, you’ll still need to experiment with cooking times for the best results.

Our only real gripe was with the included cooking accessories, which must all be washed by hand.

Like the Ninja FlexDrawer, the Cosori Dual Blaze Twinfry can transform between a two-drawer (each with a 5-litre capacity) and a single-zone cooker (with a huge, 10-litre capacity, large enough to bake a loaf or cook a full roast).

If you’re considering one of the two models, the Cosori has some features the Ninja doesn’t, but its internal capacity is slightly smaller and it takes up a bit more counter space. But it does have a grill function and smart features. The most useful of these are alerts to your phone when your food is ready and a cooking chart, with information on how to cook popular foods of all types. This extra guidance could be very useful to people new to air fryer cooking, or those who want to do more than heat up beige frozen food.

At 38cm wide, 31.5cm deep and 30.5cm high, the Chefree dual-drawer is around the same size as the Ninja Foodi, although it has a slightly lower, 8L capacity. However, it also has a lower price and offers the same functionality as the better-known model.

It has easy-to-use touchscreen controls, with eight one-touch programme settings: air fry, roast, air crisp, broil, bake, dehydrate, reheat and grill. You can adjust the time and temperature for each of these as well. It also has sync and match functions and a shake alert.

It delivers excellent results – although you might find that you need to adjust time and temperature down if you’re used to a less powerful appliance. It’s good for newbies as well: it comes with a comprehensive cooking chart that’ll give you cooking timings and temperatures for everything from butternut squash, to bacon, to salmon fillets, to prawn tempura.

Cosori’s dual-basket air fryer has a 9-quart/8.5-litre capacity, split into two evenly-sized cooking drawers. Each drawer has a viewing window and internal light, so you can check on the progress of your cooking. Unusually, it comes with a baking rack (which you can use for toast) and a skewer rack with five skewers.

The air fryer has six cooking modes: air fry, bake, roast, reheat, grill and dry, and a wide time and temperature range, so you can use it for everything from dehydrating fruit to making cupcakes. It also has a shake alert (optional, but a default on some programmes), preheat, sync cook (to copy cooking settings to the second drawer) and sync finish (so both baskets are ready at the same time).

The digital control panel is intuitively laid out but instructions are minimal. To find recipes with step-by-step guides, you’ll need to use the associated app. This means that to get good results, you’ll probably need to experiment with cooking temperatures and times. If you don’t mind that, and can get this air fryer on offer, we think you’ll be pleased with it.

If your budget won’t stretch to a Ninja, this Sharp dual-drawer air fryer is an excellent alternative. It has many of the same features, including the ability to match and sync cooking across both drawers. It’s more compact than most dual-zone models as well, but it does have a slightly lower, 8L cooking capacity.

The controls can be slightly confusing until you get comfortable with them, which isn’t helped by the fact that the accompanying manual is thin, so be prepared for a bit of experimentation at first. You can choose to cook by food type (including fries, beef, vegetable, whole chicken, bacon, fish, potato, pizza, chicken nuggets, prawns, snacks, and toasted sandwich) or by cooking mode (air fry, bake, roast, cook from frozen, dehydrate, keep warm, pre-heat, or reheat).

Once you’ve figured out how you prefer to use it, you’ll find that cooking is fast and produces great results. It’s easy to clean as well.