The Ninja Foodi Smart XL 6-in-1 Indoor Grill is one of the few countertop appliances that actually grills indoors, with high-heat char marks and texture that come close to an outdoor grill without the smoke that usually keeps grilling outside. Five other cooking modes round out the unit, including air fry, bake, roast, dehydrate, and broil, with a built-in smart thermometer for getting meat to the right internal temperature without guessing.
An easy way to get food out on the table in record time
The Foodi grills can reach up to 500°F by directing heat downward from the top of the unit onto the grill surface. This provides the grill marks and textures normally associated with an outdoor grill, but does so in your kitchen without the need for ventilation. The smart thermometer is inserted directly into the meat, so there is no need to estimate how done the food is, and you don’t have to continually open the grill to visually inspect it.
Beyond grilling, the Foodi runs as an air fryer, oven, dehydrator, and broiler. Air Crisp is the air fryer mode, which uses the same hot-air movement as a standalone air fryer to crisp up fries, wings, or vegetables. Bake and Roast turn the unit into a small convection oven, Dehydrate works for jerky or dried fruit, and Broil hits the food with direct top heat to finish a steak or melt cheese. Each mode uses its own accessory, whether that’s the grill grate, crisper basket, or cooking pot, and you pick the mode from the control panel on the front.
The XL designation refers to the cooking surface, which fits up to four pounds of chicken wings, six burgers, or a four-pound roast at once. Out of the box, the unit comes with a grill grate, a crisper basket, a cooking pot, and a smart thermometer for using each cooking mode. All the cooking accessories are dishwasher safe, so cleanup is faster than scrubbing a grill grate by hand. A splatter shield catches grease before it hits the heating element, and the closed lid contains cooking smells better than an open grill or a stovetop pan.
Most indoor grills either come with too little cooking surface or can’t get hot enough to really char. The Foodi Smart XL gets around both problems with a 500°F top heat and the larger XL footprint, and the $200 sale price is $80 off the usual $280 list.
