One minute review
Ninja is the kitchen appliance brand that seems to be getting stronger. Not only is it known for making some of the best multi-cookers and airfryers out there, but it’s constantly innovating and producing countless multi-function devices, such as the blenders that double as food processors.
The Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer is known as the Ninja Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill in the US or the Ninja Foodi Airgrill in Australia. Like many other airfryers, it offers other cooking functions in addition to frying. These include baking, roasting and dehydrating, but it’s the grill function that sets it apart from the rest. You can grill food with it, but thanks to a smoke control system you can also 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 cooking pot, vegetable basket and griddle, all of which are non-stick and dishwasher safe; but not everything can be stored in the device at the same time. Measured in gallons or litres, the airfry basket is not huge. However, it feels generous thanks to its wide and shallow design, meaning food can be spread out for better results.
During the test, we were impressed with the air frying and grilling results, but there’s no denying that this is a sturdy piece of equipment that takes up a lot of counter space – especially when compared to slightly less bulky competitors, such as some of the best hot air fryers we’ve seen. As such, it is not ideal for smaller kitchens. It’s worth it, though, if you’re taking full advantage of the grill function; otherwise, you might as well go for one of Ninja’s standard air fryers.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Airfryer price and availability
- MSRP: £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 US or the Ninja Foodi Airgrill in Australia. You can buy it directly from Ninja and the price is comparable to Ninja’s other large capacity air fryers. With this model, however, you also get the opportunity to grill indoors, but also to bake, dry and roast.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Airfryer: design
- Intuitive control panel
- Automatic preheating
- Dishwasher Safe Parts
This Ninja grill and air fryer was sturdier than we expected and measures 11 x 14 x 17 in / 26 x 35.6 x 45 cm (HxWxD). In addition, the hinged lid configuration means that it takes a fair amount of space in the back to allow it to open fully. Not being able to push it to the back of the counter only helps make the unit feel bigger than it is. You can, of course, push it back when not in use, but it still requires quite a bit of counter space.
The main cooking pot has a capacity of 5.7 litres, and when you are deep-frying you will need to insert the crisper basket, reducing the capacity to 4 litres/3.8 litres. For grilling there is a heavy griddle that sits in the main cooking pan. Everything is dishwasher-friendly, but if you don’t have such a device, don’t worry, as a stiff brush is also included to clean the grill plate by hand. If you want to store the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer in a cupboard, you need space not only for the appliance itself, but also for the grill plate or the vegetable basket, as both items cannot be stored inside. the device at the same time.
The control panel is easily accessible on the front of the device and easy to use. You can choose from four heat settings for grilling. The air fryer can be set to temperatures between 300-450oF / 150-240oC; for frying, 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 cooking times. Thanks to the display in combination with the clear arrow keys to adjust the time and temperature, there is no complicated installation. The Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer even preheats automatically and lets you know when it’s hot enough to add your food. However, it doesn’t remind you to shake or stir while frying.
A quick start guide and recipe book with cooking tables provide plenty of guidance on selecting time and temperature for common foods. Keep in mind, though, that there are very few suggestions for the roast and bake functions, so these will take some trial and error.
Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Airfryer: Achievements
- Plenty of space to spread out food while air frying
- Grill bars are curved, not straight
- Food is evenly cooked and browned
Using this airfryer is slightly different than a standard airfryer with an extendable basket. Instead, the vegetable basket falls into the device here; you can access food by lifting the top cover. The setup isn’t better or worse than other airfryers, but it’s a little trickier to shake food halfway through cooking because you have to lift the hot crisper basket to do so.
To test the airfry function, we cooked a batch of deep-frozen thick-cut chips. We have set the temperature to 360oF / 180oC to allow the cooker to preheat with the crisper basket inside. This only took three minutes. Once warm, the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer asked us to add the food and automatically started the countdown timer when closing the lid. There is no reminder to shake or turn food while frying, but we checked it half way through by taking out the basket of oven gloves to shake the chips. After 20 minutes the resulting chips were crispy, golden brown and cooked perfectly. Not only did they taste great, they also cooked faster than the 28 minutes they would have taken in an oven.
We then air fried 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 in them if you stacked them on top of each other. For air frying, we coated the wings with ½ tbsp oil and preheated the air fryer to 400oF / 200oC. We flipped the wings after 10 minutes and 15 minutes later they were cooked through with a beautiful golden brown crispy skin and moist tender flesh.
For our third test, we assessed the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer’s ability to cook raw hand-cut fries. Following the advice in the airfry card, we soaked the raw chips in cold water for 30 minutes and then dried them thoroughly. We greased them with 1 tbsp oil and preheated the air fryer to 400oF / 200oC. The cooking chart recommends 23-26 minutes, and we gave them a shake after cooking for 10 and 15 minutes. We removed them after 18 minutes as they were cooked through and golden brown. The inside was fluffy and the crisping and browning on the outside of the baked goods was fairly even.
The ability to grill is a core feature of this airfryer, so we tried it out by grilling two beef burgers. We followed the suggestion in the grill card and set it on high for 6 minutes. The grill preheats more slowly – it takes about 8 minutes – and you need to make sure the griddle is in so it’s hot when the food is added. Once preheated, we added the burgers and flipped them after cooking for 3 minutes. We were impressed with the minimal amount of smoke and cooking smells emitted from the Ninja. The burgers were nicely cooked with charred lines on the outside, but due to the shape of the bars on the griddle, the markings on the burgers were curved as opposed to the traditional straight markings 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 griddle is a bit trickier to wash by hand, but it’s made easier by using the brush provided by Ninja.
The airfryer didn’t go louder than 55dB on our sound meter; the grill was a little noisier, but still only reached 58dB – which isn’t too loud at all.
Should I Buy the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Read more about how we test
First assessment: May 2022
