One minute review
Ninja is the kitchen appliance brand that seems to be getting better and better. Not only is it known for making some of the best multicookers and air fryers, but it also continually innovates and produces many versatile appliances, like its blenders that double as food processors.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer is known as Ninja Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill in the United States or Ninja Foodi Airgrill in Australia. Like many air fryers, it offers other cooking functions in addition to air frying. These include bake, roast, and dehydrate, but it's the grill function that sets it apart from the rest. It allows you to grill food, but a smoke control system means you can do it indoors without setting off your smoke detector. It's like having an outdoor grill or barbecue in your kitchen.
It comes with a pot, a vegetable basket and a griddle, all nonstick and dishwasher safe; but not all of them can be stored inside the device at the same time. When measured in quarts or liters, the air fry basket isn't huge. However, it appears generous in size thanks to its wide and shallow design, meaning food can be spread out for best results.
In the test, we were impressed with the results of air cooking and frying, but there's no denying that this is a bulky appliance that takes up a lot of counter space, especially compared to slightly smaller competitors who like it. they like some of the best fryers we have. You've seen. As such, it is not ideal for small kitchens. However, it's worth it if you use the grill function a lot; if not, you could also opt for one of Ninjas' standard air fryers.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer Price and Availability
- List price: € 199.99 / € 229.99 / AU € 399.99
As mentioned above, the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer is known as the Ninja Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill in the United States or the Ninja Foodi Airgrill in Australia. You can buy it directly from Ninja and the price is similar to other Ninja large capacity air fryers. However, with this model you also have the option to grill inside, as well as bake, dehydrate and roast.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer: Design
- Intuitive control panel
- automatic preheating
- Dishwasher safe parts
This Ninja Grill and Fryer was larger than expected, measuring 11 x 14 x 17 inches/ 26 x 35,6 x 45 cm (H x W x D). Also, the hinged lid configuration means it requires some space around the rear to allow it to open fully. Not being able to push it to the back of the counter just makes the unit feel bigger than it is. Sure, you can push it back when not in use, but it still takes up a good chunk of counter space.
The main pot has a 6-quart/5,7 liter capacity, and if you're air frying you'll need to insert the vegetable basket, which reduces the capacity to 4 quarts/3,8 liters. For grilling, there is a heavy grill plate that sits inside the main pot. Everything is dishwasher safe, but those without such a device need not worry as a stiff brush is also provided to help clean the grill plate by hand. If you want to store Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer in a cabinet, you will need space not only for the appliance itself, but also for the grill plate or vegetable basket, because both items cannot be stored inside. unit at the same time.
The control panel is easily accessible on the front of the device and is easy to use. For grilling, you can choose one of four heat levels. The air fryer can be set to temperatures between 300-450oF / 150-240oC; for grilling, the temperature range is 250-500oF / 120-260oC; or you can bake at 250-400oF / 120-210oC. The dehydration function uses lower temperatures between 105-195oF / 40-90oC, but requires longer cook times. The display combined with simple arrow buttons to set time and temperature means no complicated setup. The Ninja Foodi Health Air Fryer and Grill even automatically preheats, letting you know when it's hot enough to add your food. However, it does not remind you to shake or stir when air frying.
A quick start guide plus a recipe book with cooking charts offer lots of tips on time and temperature selections for common foods. Note that there are very few suggestions for the roast and bake functions, so they will require some trial and error.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill and Air Fryer: Performance
- Plenty of room to spread food when air frying
- Grill bar markings are curved, not straight
- Food cooks and browns evenly
Using this air fryer is slightly different than using a standard air fryer with a slide out basket. Instead, the basket of vegetables here falls into the device; food is accessed by lifting the top lid. The setup isn't any better or worse than other fryers, but it's a bit more difficult to shake your food as it cooks, since you'll have to lift the basket of hot vegetables to do so.
To test the air fry feature, we made a batch of frozen thick fries. We set the temperature to 360oF/180oC, allowing the pot to preheat with the vegetable basket inside. It only took three minutes. Once hot, the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer prompted us to add the food and automatically started the countdown when the lid was closed. There's no reminder to shake or flip the food during air frying, but we did check it halfway through, lifting the basket with oven mitts to shake the fries. After 20 minutes, the resulting fries were crisp, golden, and perfectly cooked. Not only did they taste great, but they cooked faster than the 28 minutes it would have taken in an oven.
Next, we air-fried some chicken wings and were impressed that there was enough room in the basket to hold seven wings side by side; you could easily fit more if you stack them on top of each other. Before air frying, we coat the wings with ½ tablespoon of oil and preheat the air fryer to 400oF/200oC. We flipped the wings after 10 minutes and 15 minutes later they were cooked through with beautifully browned crispy skin and moist, tender meat.
For our third test, we evaluated the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer's ability to cook raw, hand-cut French fries. Following the advice in the table for air frying, we soaked the raw fries in cold water for 30 minutes and then dried them completely. We coat them with 1 tablespoon of oil and preheat the fryer to 400oF/200oC. The cooking table advises 23-26 minutes, and we gave them a shake at 10 and 15 minutes of cooking. We removed them after 18 minutes as they were cooked through and nicely browned. The interior was soft and the crispy, golden appearance of the exterior of the fry was fairly even.
The ability to grill is a core feature of this air fryer, so we tested it by grilling two beef patties. We followed the grid graph suggestion and set it to high for 6 minutes. The grill takes longer to preheat (about 8 minutes) and you need to make sure the grill plate is on the inside so it is hot when you add food. Once preheated, add the burgers and then flip them after 3 minutes of cooking. We were impressed with the minimal amount of smoke and cooking odors emitted from the Ninja. The burgers were well done with charred lines on the outside, but the shape of the bars on the grill plate meant that the marks on the burgers were curved rather than the traditional straight marks you'd expect.
Cleaning the pot and basket is easy thanks to the non-stick coating, or you can put it in the dishwasher. The grill plate is a bit trickier to wash by hand, but it's made easier by using the brush provided by Ninja.
The air fryer did not exceed 55 dB on our sound meter; the grill was a bit louder, but still only hit 58dB, not too loud at all.
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First revision: May 2022