Ninja Sizzle Pro XL Grill & Flat Plate GX101UK Review

Introduction

The Ninja Sizzle Pro XL Grill & Flat Plate GX101UK embiggens the brand’s standard Sizzle indoor grill and adds a little more versatility for large-scale, indoor entertaining.

It’s essentially a $199.99/£179.99 indoor flat plate and grill that provides powerful cooking for anything from burgers to bread and fish to fried eggs, which provides more control, capacity and versatility than the standard Sizzle option, so you can have the barbecue experience indoors without needing the nice weather.

At this price tag, a couple of interesting competitors emerge, with the likes of the George Foreman Indoor Outdoor BBQ Electric Grill and the Ninja Woodfire Electric BBQ Grill & Smoker OG701UK providing the Sizzle Pro with some rivals both up and down the price ladder. 

The George Foreman can operate both indoors and outdoors, and is cheaper, while the Woodfire provides more functionality for an outdoor-only grill at a slightly higher price, making this quite an interesting fight.

To see if the Sizzle Pro can come out on top and emerge as a fantastic indoor grill, I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last month.

Design and features

• Much larger than the original Sizzle
• Tactile controls
• Clever interchangeable plates and removable lid

As you might expect, the Sizzle Pro follows much the same formula as the original Sizzle in terms of looks, as it’s just a large, flat grill. It’s supposedly 40% larger in capacity than the standard model, with Ninja suggesting you can fit ten burgers on this one, making it ideal for larger volumes of cooking.

You get two different plate options, with a grill and flat plate on offer, making this at-home cooking both salmon and chicken on the former and then smash burgers and fried eggs on the latter. The plates are removable for easy cleaning, too, although they can be quite unwieldy to clean if you’ve got a smaller sink where you’ll have to clean them one end at a time.

The main chassis is constructed of a blend of metal and plastic, and has a pleasant heft to it. It is also angled slightly forward to make it easier for fat and such to drain away into a removable drip tray on the underside of the appliance.

There is a perforated lid to provide the option of either leaving it down for locking in ambient heat, or putting it up for a more authentic grilling experience. I’m not sure if this was Ninja’s intended use case, but it can act as a splash-back of sorts against specifically quite ‘angry’ food if you’re cooking on a higher heat. The lid can also be removed for easy maintenance.

The controls on the front panel of the Sizzle Pro are more well-rounded than the single dial on the standard Sizzle and the George Foreman option, too, and are closer to what you’ll find on Ninja’s outdoor Woodfire grill, although without anywhere near as many settings.

You get tactile buttons for selecting between using Low/Medium/High temperature settings, or using a specific temperature for more control, plus a large digital screen for displaying time and temperature settings, and a pre-heat progress bar when the unit is pre-heating.

For reference, the Low setting is approximately 325°F or 163°C, with Medium being 375°F to 400°F or between 190°C and 204°C, with High being 500°F or 260°C.

Once you’re done cooking, Ninja also says the removable lid is dishwasher safe, although the grill and flat plates should be hand-washed to preserve the non-stick ceramic coating on them.

Performance

• Brisk, even cooking
• Fast pre-heat time
• Excellent for family-sized meals

During my time with the Sizzle Pro, I cooked a range of food to best judge how it cooks, and was impressed with the speed and evenness of its cooking across whatever I ended up cooking.  Regardless of which mode you use, it seems to take around seven minutes for the unit to preheat, which is quite brisk.

For my first test, I cooked steak for seven minutes on High, turning halfway through, and then leaving it to rest. It had a good sear, strong grill marks, and came out medium-rare to medium, as I usually prefer.

At the same time, I also tried some breaded prawns, which were cooked through and very crispy in just five minutes. 

Two chicken breasts were cooked on Medium as part of a risotto, as Ninja recommends, and they came out moist after 23 minutes, which admittedly is longer than anticipated.

With that in mind, I also cooked some garlic bread using some spare brioche bread that I had, which was decently browned in just five minutes.

Moving over to the flat plate, I fried some eggs, and cooked bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and even some brioche toast, which was all done on Medium in just 12 minutes for three people, proving the Sizzle Pro is at home cooking for families as it is for individuals.

Some wagyu burgers were also cooked in 12 minutes on Low, as per Ninja’s recommendations, with applewood cheddar slices added on top, which melted with the residual heat from the grill with no real effort.

For a further risotto, I cooked some salmon fillets, which took just 12 minutes on a combination of high and medium, with bacon crisping up and cooking in just two minutes to boot.

I also blackened a larger portion of salmon, which came out moist and glossy after 15 minutes on Medium, and also caramelised some onions, which took longer than expected on Medium to go with some beef grills that were cooked in 12 minutes with cheese melted on top.

Should you buy it?

FAQs

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