Ninja AG301 Foodi 5 in 1 Indoor Grill with Air Fry

I’m quite pleased with the functionality of this air fryer. It has greatly added me in food preparation since it completes in half the time required by any other cooking/baking method. With the inner container’s Teflon coating, clean up is a breeze. I’m so happy that my daughter showed me the benefits of it by letting me use hers.

Je m’habitue à cuisiner dans mon Ninja Foodi et je l’apprécie de plus en plus. Je ne regrette pas mon achat, au contraire.

tl;dr: Good device. Worth getting in place of a normal air fryer due to its greater flexibility. It is, however, still a convection device. Keep in mind when cooking things.

This is a first impression so far only using it to cook a few things so far, but my experience has been great – if with a few caveats. For full disclosure, I bought this with my own money and while it was about $30 off. I received what appeared by all accounts to be a brand new unit with that new appliance smell, complete with burning off excess plastics on first use.

First things first: this is a fancy convection oven. It’s a convection oven that gets to very high temperatures and has very strong air circulation, but it is – ultimately – a convection oven. Unlike a proper grill, this has a fan that is constantly circulating air which means it will cook things faster. Keep this in mind when using it and make adjustments to prevent overcooking your food. As a general rule, the recommended times that come with the device are to make something Well Done. For this purpose, they’re accurate, but you probably will want to cut a few minutes off of those times for anything less than that.

The device itself is straight forward to use. It has fairly standard oven/air fryer controls, but arranged a little differently. There are different functions that effectively change whether the air circulates in the unit or not, and there are macro temperature controls (low, med, high, max) that can be fine tuned from there. Time is only in intervals of whole minutes, which is slightly inconvenient, but Fine.

When initially starting up and preheating, this thing is fairly loud. It doesn’t stay loud for long, but can probably wake up a light sleeper in a small apartment. Probably not a huge issue, but one to be mindful of when using for the first time.

I’ve cooked london broil and salmon with this using the Grill option (regular circulation) with the recommended temperature settings (High and Max accordingly.) As I mentioned before, be mindful of how much you want to cook something. The recommended settings always err toward Well Done. As an example: in the case of salmon, I cooked it for eight minutes the first time and it was just a touch more cooked than preferred. At seven minutes, it was perfect.

As for the steak, don’t make the same mistake I did the first time and keep opening the grill if you have a standard meat thermometer. All of that hot air is just going to escape and it’ll take some time to get back up to temperature again. In my case, I was too paranoid about the doneness of the steak that I ended up slightly overcooking it (medium-well instead of medium-rare) due to having to bring the unit back to temperature in order for it to cook the center properly. In short: get a quick read thermometer, or just follow the guide line of shaving a minute or two off of recommended cook time based on desired doneness.

As for the results, they still tasted great. The grill surface does get hot enough to make a nice sear into the meat. Like any convection oven, the circulating air keeps the food from drying out and the cuts of meat were left very juicy and tasty.

Cleaning is easy for as long as the ceramic coating lasts. This is the same caveat as literally anything with a Teflon (or similar) coating. If you’re especially paranoid, let everything soak in soap+water before cleaning it off. The brush it comes with does the job, but any sort of dish scrubbing brush (NOT WIRE PADS) should be just as good.

Overall, my first impressions of this appliance are great. It is far easier, quicker, tastier, and more convenient than frying off or sticking something in the oven to broil. My wife and I have replaced the air fryer in our kitchen with this since it serves both purposes. If anything changes, I’ll update this review.

Update: We’ve cooked a larger variety of things including turkey legs, hamburgers, smaller wings and so on. Everything remains great. It’s been very easy to clean as well with no signs of chipping on the finish. I will say I do hand clean everything, but it shouldn’t make much difference in the dishwasher.

Thought it was strange that is had a foreign plug. Put it into an adapter and plugged it in and seconds later it went bang. Should not be sold in the UK.

Absolute rip off. Would never buy another Ninja product. Disgraceful. DO NOT BUY THIS ITEM. Tried all the convertors but blew electrics. Now have to pay the postage to return this awful product. Just disgusted with the product. Queried it with the sellers when I received it but just does not work properly in the UK even with convertors and just blew all the electrics. The convertor recommended does not work and is not the right one despite ensuring I ordered the right one. Wasted two weeks now for nothing. Never buying a Ninja product again because of this. Utter disgrace.

This is definitely a novelty item. I can’t say the food tastes better when I cook it in the ninja, but it tastes different. A little drier. I am still figuring it out. I grated some fresh garlic and mixed it with olive oil with green beans. Definitely tastes different than when I boil my green beans, but it is still fun. The benefits are that it cooks the food FAST. In the time it would take to boil a pot of water for my green beans, they are already done in the ninja! I also cooked asparagus and eggplant on the grill part. They didn’t taste like barbecued grilled veggies. I usually fry my asparagus in olive oil until it is a little toasty. The asparagus got toasty in the air frier, but still tastes drier than when I cook it in the pan. It is a learning process. Again, biggest benefit is that it cooks soooo fast. Clean up is easy- i just put it in the dishwasher once it is cool.