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The Ninja Foodi
Firstly, I must make a confession. I am a kitchen gadget addict and I have a whole five shelves to store them on. These shelves are hidden behind a door so no one can see my shame. Some of them I use quite often, some not so much.
My favourite go to device in the past has been my slow cooker. I have a large one and two small ones. Told you I was addicted. Apart from the Foodi Ninja (FN), if you have to have just one kitchen device, I suggest a slow cooker but with the Ninja you not only get a slow cooker but also many, many other things as well. Still not going to get rid of my slow cookers though, very handy for keeping food warm and serving it at dinner parties (I know, very Margot). Goodbye will be said to my my air fryer, steamer and halogen tabletop cooker after getting the FN.
I had seen the FN advertised on TV over the summer and thought that even though it looks like a Cyberman ™, that looks like a good combination of functions, but I bet it isn’t as good as the ad makes out. (Spoiler – it is). Then I found out the price (OMG). Yes, it is on the pricy side for one item but when you break it down into the individual functions it doesn’t seem that bad. I was lucky enough to get mine on Black Friday and I had some Amazon credit, so it only cost me £15. If you shop around it can be bought bellow the RRP.
There are two models available the OP300, which has 7 features and the OP500 which has 9. I have the OP300 as I didn’t need the Yoghurt and Dehydrate function. Looking at the front of them it looks like you need a degree in computer operations to use them, but you don’t. It is just a case of switching it on, selecting function, time, heat and off you go. There is information included in a cheat sheet that gives you the basic times for things and there are cookbooks out there for it. If I do a quick search on the interwebs I can generally find what I want. Be warned a lot of it is in American so translation to British English is needed. Also, the trusted trial and error method of cooking works so well.
The pressure cooker function is what I am most surprised at. If you, like I was, terrified of pressure cookers thanks to the ones you remember from your childhood (Pressure Bombs more like), then do not fret. This one doesn’t give you the feeling that it will explode at any time. It does need a separate lid to use the pressure function, but it is necessary due to the number of functions available. Using the pressure-cooking function and the crisping function you can cook a roast chicken, which is lovely and tender, in less than an hour. Boiled potatoes also come out a treat and so does a gammon joint. I have yet to try it to cook rice, but that is my next experiment as I always manage to cover cook it on the stove top. The air fryer holds more than my current dedicated one and it seems to circulate the air better so it cooks more evenly around the food. Obviously, you can’t cook fresh batter items in it, well at least I think you can’t and I wouldn’t want to try it. Messy. The only food I haven’t quite perfected is chips, but that is more user error on my part. More trial and error will be needed.
The accessories that come with it are: the pressure lid, 2-tier reversible rack, a large cooking pot and the crisping basket. Additional accessories for baking etc. can be bought for it. The only problem is storing of the accessories as they do not nest in the main pot of the device. Due to its large size, it is quite heavy and therefore you don’t want to move it every time you want to use it, so it takes up quite a large amount of room on a countertop. The cable could do with being a bit longer as well. Apart from the main body of the FN and the pressure top all the accessories are dishwasher safe it would seem as I have had no issues with them being put in the dishwasher.
Pros Cons
Replaces many devices Large and Heavy
Easy to use Expensive
Lots of free recipes on interwebs A lot of the recipes are in American
Generous cooking area Large storage footprint
Easy to clean accessories
Additional accessories available
Overall rating 9/10
Batwench
I also have a Ninja, I was finding my cooker unreliable and saw these on Youtube. They were on sale on cable TV shopping channels but I was in PC World and saw they were £150 so I bought it.... mine is the next model up from Batwenches with dehydration and yoghurt setting but apart from that identical. I know another Slack member also has one. I found them easy to use the pressure cooking is not like those old 1960s ones that you worried might explode but very quiet and efficient way to cook.... I do a roast chicken 20 mins on pressure and then air crisp for about 15-20 minutes for perfect roast..... oven chips also cook quicker in this Ninja so you save energy....
Overall rating 9/10
Pros
1 Quick clean and useful
2 Easy to clean
3 Easy to use
Cons
1 large that’s it
I’m going 9/10 too
Mullerbiker
Author
Mullerbiker
The Ninja Foodi