Ninja Prestige Smart XL Oven review: A compact powerhouse

If you often find yourself wishing for more cooking space in the kitchen, the best toaster oven might be just what you need. These versatile appliances offer all the same functionality as a full-size oven, as well as additional cooking functions like air frying, toasting, and dehydrating, and most have a large inner capacity that lets you cook everything from cookies to a whole turkey.

Ninja offers a variety of countertop ovens, including the Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven. It has a sleek design with 10 different cooking functions, and its large capacity lets you easily cook meals for the whole family. However, countertop ovens can be finicky in their performance, especially when compared to the convenience of air fryers, so I tested out this gadget to see just how well it can cook up foods like frozen pizza, cookies, chicken, and more.

Here’s everything I liked about the Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven, as well as a few areas where it fell flat.

Ninja Prestige Smart XL: Availability

The Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven DT501 is available for $329.99 at Amazon and other major retailers like Target. You can also purchase it directly from the brand’s website for the same price.

For an extra $20 you can buy the Ninja Prestige Smart XL Pro DT551, which comes with an in-built temperature probe

Ninja Prestige Smart XL: Design

The Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven arrived in a big, heavy box, and I was just barely able to maneuver it inside on my own. The oven itself weighs more than 30 pounds, and it has a sizable footprint that’s 20 inches wide and takes up a lot of real estate on the kitchen counter.

This countertop oven has a fully stainless steel exterior, and its control panel is on the handle that allows you to hinge open its door. The appliance has a power button, start/stop button, as well as buttons to change the function, timer, and cooking temperature. All the buttons are clearly labeled, and I found everything to be very intuitive to operate.

You can choose from a total of 10 cooking functions, including air fry, air roast, boil, bake, whole roast, pizza, toast, bagel, reheat, or dehydrate. When you select a cooking mode, it suggests default temperature and time settings, but you can adjust them to suit your recipe. There’s also a button that lets you turn the interior light on, as well as one that turns on two-level cooking, in case you want to cook two trays simultaneously.

In terms of accessories, this countertop oven comes with two wire racks, an air frying basket, two baking sheets, and a roasting tray that slots into the baking sheet. There’s also a removable crumb tray that slides into the bottom of the oven to make cleaning easier.

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Ninja Prestige Smart XL: Performance

Before using the oven for the first time, the instruction manual suggests running the oven empty to burn off any lingering residue from manufacturing. The directions say to use the air roast setting and run the appliance for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, and I’m glad I made time for this extra step.

While it was running, my whole kitchen smelled strongly of burning chemicals, and my air purifier reported high levels of air pollution. Thankfully, the smell did dissipate after around 15 minutes, and only then was I comfortable putting food into the appliance.

Cooking frozen pizza

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The first thing I cooked in the Ninja Prestige Oven was a 12-inch frozen pizza. I used the oven’s designated pizza setting, and following the instructions on the pizza box, I set the temperature to 400 degrees and placed the pizza directly onto the oven’s wire rack. The interior of the oven could easily accommodate the whole pizza, and you could even cook two of them at a time using the secondary rack, if you needed.

After 12 minutes, the edges of the pizza were nicely crisped and the cheese was bubbly. It cooked just as quickly as it generally does in my full-size oven, but I wish the bottom of the crust was a little more browned. In the future, I’ll likely move the rack to a lower level so the pizza is closer to the heating elements on the bottom of the oven.

Air frying salmon

For dinner one night, I was cooking blackened salmon, and I decided to air fry it instead of baking it like usual. I placed the two filets in the air frying basket, which has a perforated mesh bottom, and put the fish in for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. I was surprised at how loud the oven is on its air fry setting. The appliance operates at a low hum on bake and roast mode, but the air fry mode is significantly louder due to the fan that circulates air around the interior cavity. It’s noisier than other air fryers I’ve tested and a bit disruptive, even from the next room.

While cooking, juices from the filets dripped down onto the bottom of the oven, which made the kitchen smell quite fishy. The fish wasn’t fully cooked when the timer went off, so I put it back in for five more minutes, after which it was cooked throughout and had a nice crispy exterior.

During the course of testing, I used the air fry setting to cook a variety of other foods, including frozen tater tots and breaded chicken bites. They came out beautifully crisp and crunchy, but I do wish the oven had an option to turn on a mid-cycle “shake” alarm, like you can with the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. I found that these types of foods cooked more evenly when I agitated them a bit halfway through the cooking cycle, and it would be handy to have a notification that reminded me to do so.

Baking cookies

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I also used the Ninja Prestige Oven to bake a batch of peanut butter cookies. While the oven preheats in around 90 seconds, it didn’t seem to be quite warm enough, so I gave it an extra few minutes to heat up while I scooped cookie dough onto the sheet pans that came with the appliance. I lined them with parchment paper for easy cleanup, and I was able to fit around eight to 10 cookies on each sheet.

I baked the cookies one tray at a time, and they were nicely cooked after just eight minutes. I did notice that the cookies near the door were slightly more browned than the ones at the back of the oven, so I rotated the tray for an extra minute to make sure they all cooked evenly. When I pulled them out, they were nicely golden browned and cooked through. My only complaint is that the sheet trays have a lip around the edge that gives the cookies an uneven bottom, but it’s just a cosmetic issue—they still tasted delicious.

Toasting bread

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The Ninja Prestige has designated settings for toast and bagels, and I decided to try out the toast function one morning for breakfast. When you select this setting, you’re able to select the number of slices, as well as your shade preference on a scale of 1 to 7. I opted for level 4, and it took around three minutes to toast my two slices of white bread.

When the timer went off, the bread was lightly golden brown all over both sides. In the future, I would definitely select a slightly higher setting, but I think it’s a great option for quickly toasting bread, especially if you want to make several slices at a time. If you did want a larger capacity though, the Ninja Foodi 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Oven DT201 has three shelves for maximum space.

Roasting chicken

Finally, I used the Ninja’s air roast setting to cook a piece of chicken for a salad. I pounded the chicken breast thin, then placed it on one of the baking sheets with a piece of tin foil. It cooked at 400 degrees for around 15 minutes, and it came out nicely moist.

This countertop oven is also large enough to roast a whole chicken or other large piece of meat—the brand says it can accommodate up to a 12-pound turkey. However, if you’re planning to do this kind of cooking, it’s likely worthwhile to upgrade to the Pro version of the oven, which has an integrated meat thermometer that monitors your meat’s doneness as it cooks.

Ninja Prestige Smart XL: Cleaning

One of my biggest qualms with the Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven is that it’s difficult to clean. All of its accessories, including the baking sheets and air fryer basket, are hand-wash only—they can’t be put in the dishwasher, as it will ruin their finish. I dislike hand-washing dishes, so this would likely be a deal-breaker for me. During testing, I opted to line the baking sheets as much as possible to minimize the amount of cleaning I had to do, but the air fryer basket got quite dirty and discolored after cooking foods like salmon.

The oven does have a removable crumb tray in the bottom that catches drips, but again, it must be hand-washed—and frequently. I didn’t wash it after a few cooking sessions, and it developed large, prominent stains that were impossible to get off, even with soaking and scrubbing. If you want to keep it looking clean, you’re going to need to clean it off after every use. The crumb tray also doesn’t prevent food from dripping down onto the lower heating elements, which can cause the oven to smell.

Ninja Prestige Smart XL: Cleaning

The Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven is quite large, and if you have a smaller kitchen, the Our Place Wonder Oven might be more size-appropriate. This compact countertop oven has a much smaller footprint, and it can still air fry, bake, roast, toast, and more. Its capacity isn’t as large as the Ninja, but it’s still big enough to cook one or two servings of food at a time. Plus, it’s a bit more budget-friendly, with a price tag of $195.

If you’re looking for something a bit more stylish, the new Smeg Countertop Combi Steam Oven is a splurge-worthy option with similar functionality and a retro-inspired design. Despite its minimalistic control panel, this oven boasts 10 functions and 33 preset cooking programs, as well as the ability to steam food. It has a spacious interior and excelled at a wide range of cooking tasks during testing, but it’s quite expensive, retailing for $999.

Should you buy the Ninja Prestige Smart XL?

If you’re looking for a versatile countertop oven, the Ninja Prestige Smart XL Air Fryer and Countertop Oven offers fast, even cooking and a total of 10 functions, including toasting, dehydrating, and air frying. It’s large enough to accommodate meals for the whole family, and it could easily be used as your home’s primary oven, if needed. Just keep in mind that it can be noisy on certain settings and requires a lot of upkeep—all its components require hand-washing and will get stained if you don’t clean them frequently.

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