Review on 🍗 Ninja AG301 Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill with Air Fry, Roast, Bake & Dehydrate - Black/Silver by John Hickey

Ninja Innovation. Ninjavation if you will. And fair warning - I'm a ninja fan (tm). I use their blender all the time. I use their fryer/pressure cooker/serious foodi convergent device all the time. Ninja has never been less than dependable and versatile, two things I value in my kitchen. BUT. They knew there would be a "but". My big problem with the air fryer was cooking food (steaks, chicken thighs, etc.) that grilled better than air fried. True, I *could* do it and the results were acceptable, but I always figured there must be a better way. And here we are. This Foodi does it. in spades In short, this is a very well designed and engineered indoor grill with the added benefits of the outdoor grilling that I love so much, along with the baking/roasting and dehydrating functions. I'll meet them one by one, but BLEF: This is really amazing. First, let's talk about the main event: indoor BBQ. Ninja is great at it. It's not designed to offer grilling area per square foot, but rather for four burgers, two to three steaks (unless it's my steak, in which case it barely fits one. Yes, I love steaks), or five to six thighs to match size. Mechanically it uses a convection system similar to my other Foodi, but with the grill app it works like crazy. The griddle itself is quite heavy (cast iron I think), which is the conductive part of the grill and therefore requires six to eight minutes of warm-up time before grilling. Post-heating gets the griddle nice and hot, puts food in and cooks food on the grill without charcoal, propane or even going outside. Dried chicken in the winter will be awesome! One of the first dishes I made using this dish (photo attached) is zatar naan with grilled garlic. It took about two minutes after warming up and the result was fantastic. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and hard to keep away from other people in the house (I made this. This is MINE! Make it yourself). But grilling meat, seafood and more is just as smooth. Additionally, this one differs from other indoor grills in that you're grilling with the lid closed, but opening the Foodi to check what's going on doesn't fall too far behind in terms of heat recovery. It reverted to FASTER temperature and cooking time. did not linger. The results for the meat are fantastic, and yes, if you oil the meat (use canola oil to minimize possible smoke) you will end up with grill marks. after grilling, right?) It's easy to make a batch of fries right after. Air Fry works just like my other Foodis with the same results. Lots of space for these things. Making buffalo wings is also natural - it works. I don't know what voodoo ninja uses, but more importantly, I don't care. I'll push a few buttons, he'll do his thing and I'll eat well tonight. Baking and roasting also works very well. The most important thing here is that I always cook meat with a browning basket as I want air to circulate around the meat. If the dimensions don't fit, a small grill for roasting also works here. A little thing that is hardly worth mentioning is that I always brown my roast before I put it in the oven and this step is still necessary with this appliance. On the plus side, my oven is old-fashioned and takes about three hours to heat up, while Foodi is ready in about five minutes. It's big enough for a medium roast, so I'm happy with that. Dehydrating is a (relatively) new feature in the ninja stable, at least for me, and works much better for small batches than my custom dehydrator. A little trick (you can buy small perforated metal trays and line them with plastic grids from a craft store to store food) increases the amount of food you can dehydrate here. One thing I do for my camping meals is boil pasta, dehydrate it, and then pack it in food bags with powdered cheese and milk. A cup of boiling water and I've got mac and cheese upstate. Maintenance requires almost no effort. The internal parts (splash guard, grill plate, frying basket and pot) are dishwasher safe. There is a fat container on the back of the device, which is also easy to clean. The thing is almost perfect. It has a significant footprint BUT if it's used all the time like me then the physical size doesn't matter. If this is a useful device (again, versatile and reliable), then allocating counter space goes without saying. All in all, this Foodi makes the house tremble. It has become an incredibly valuable addition to my kitchen, even becoming an almost essential part of my kitchen equipment for a short time. That's incredible.