I cooked all my weeknight dinners in Ninja's new microwave-air fryer hybrid to see if it’s worth the worktop space – I was impressed by these features

It’s fair to say that when it comes to the best air fryers, Ninja dominates all the lists. I’ve reviewed, and been impressed by, several of Ninja’s air fryers. But the brand is new to the microwave scene.

Combination style microwaves have always been a bit hit and miss, they can be infuriatingly complicated to use, or simply a bit rubbish. Often they end up just being used as a microwave, with all other functions being abandoned or ignored.

Ninja has a great reputation for innovation, and for creating appliances that combine multiple functions in one, so can they finally crack the nut and bring us a microwave with combination functions that are actually worth having?

Who reviewed the Ninja Crispi Microwave Air Fryer?

Helen McCue

Helen is Ideal Home's expert kitchen appliances tester, with a wealth of experience that spans a Home Economics degree and a stint at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Over the last three years, she has tested dozens of products for Ideal Home from her home in Buckinghamshire, including a long list of air fryers, blenders, bean-to-cup coffee machines, vacuums and sleep essentials. Helen is our go-to kitchen expert and tests out every kitchen appliance with a range of delicious recipes.

Helen used this microwave in her own kitchen for ten days, trying out as many settings as possible. Her kitchen has a built-in microwave, otherwise she would definitely keep using this Ninja model. She was impressed with its versatility, including the not-so-gimmicky air fryer functionality.

In a nutshell

The Ninja Crispi Microwave manages to offer lots of functionality without being complicated or confusing. It can air fry, microwave, grill, and more, and I could access all the functions and settings without constantly having to check the manual.

There are five different air frying settings, and these rely on using a glass basket that you slide into the top part of the microwave. It’s hefty, and won’t be suitable for everyone. But it is at least dishwasher safe and free of non-stick coatings and forever chemicals.

The Ninja Crispi also includes all the settings you’d expect from a standard microwave and performs as expected, thoroughly heating everything from porridge to soup. But it’s when combined with the air fryer in the fusioncrisp function, that this multifunctional cooking appliance really shines.

I successfully used the fusioncrisp function to cook a whole roast chicken, lasagne, and baked potatoes. And in case you’re wondering, the standalone air fryer functions are just as good as other Ninja air fryers. In short, Ninja strikes again, with another outstanding appliance.

Unboxing and first impressions

The box that was delivered to my front door was big and heavy, if you need to move it any distance, it’s really a two person lift. And so it follows that when I managed to get it out of the box and onto the worktop, I wasn’t surprised that it’s a big microwave. But I think that’s to be expected given that it offers so many functions.

It’s a flatbed microwave so there’s no turntable to worry about. Instead, you get a 5.2 litre glass basket (Ninja call it a basket, but it’s essentially a big deep glass dish). Plus there’s a crisper plate insert that goes inside it. These are the only accessories and are for the air fry and fusioncrisp functions only.

The glass basket slots into rails near the top of the microwave, it can sit on the base, but for most uses, the advice is to slot it into this higher position near to the air fry heating element and fan.

I was surprised by the weight of the glass basket, so I popped it on my kitchen scales and it weighed in at 2.5kg. So when it’s full of a family sized lasagne or a roast chicken, it’s going to be a bit of an arm workout lifting it in and out of the microwave.

The fusioncrisp function is the one that Ninja makes a big deal about in the quick start guide, most of the recipes are based around using this function. Essentially it’s a two stage cooking function that combines microwave cooking with air frying.

It’s selected with the fusioncrisp button and then you adjust the microwave cook time and the air fry cook time, you can’t adjust the power levels or temperatures when using this function. Thankfully they provide cooking charts with loads of suggested cook times for various foods, so it’s not all total guesswork.

There are five air fryer functions to choose from. Air fry can be adjusted from 150- 240C, whereas Max Crisp is fixed at 240C. Both air bake and air roast allow temperatures between 120 - 210C. The air grill can be set at 200C, 230C, or 240C.

The microwave power levels can be adjusted from 10% to 100% in intervals of 10%. There are also eight microwave presets. These require you to put in the weight of the specific food and then the cook time is predetermined based on the weight.

There’s a light button so that you can turn on the interior light as and when required, though the dark coloured door doesn’t make for the clearest viewing window. The door opens by pressing the big button at the base of the control panel, and there’s a childlock function that can be engaged if that’s a concern.

True to form for a Ninja appliance, the control panel and user interface are very straightforward and intuitive to use. I found I quickly got to grips with all the settings without having to keep referring back to the manual.

There’s also plenty of inspiration in the form of recipes and cooking charts provided in the quick start guide, so unlike some older style combination microwaves I’ve reviewed over the years, getting started with it doesn’t feel daunting or complicated.

What is it like to use?

FusionCrisp

I usually microwave then air fry baked potatoes, so the combination fusioncrisp function did the same thing without having to move them between two separate appliances. I could only find suggested cooking times for standard potatoes, so used these as a starting point for the two sweet potatoes I was cooking.

The Ninja recipe said to microwave for 14 minutes, but I opted for 10 minutes and kept the suggested 10 minutes of air frying. I’d normally air fry my potatoes for 20 minutes, so this time felt short, but I put them in and crossed my fingers.

It doesn’t microwave and air fry simultaneously, it completes the microwave part first, then the air fryer kicks in. Plus it beeps at the crossover point, in case you want to add anything or stir your food.

When the timer went off, the potatoes were nicely softened but not as well crisped as I wanted, so I ended up air frying them for a further 10 minutes. It was a good result, it’ll just take a few goes to nail the timings.

With instructions on how to cook a whole chicken using the fusioncrisp function, I decided to give it a try. The timings listed for a 1.5kg chicken are 30 minutes of microwaving followed by 45 minutes of air frying. And while this is faster than the 1 hour 40 minutes it would otherwise take in the oven, I’m not sure about microwaving a whole chicken for half an hour.

You can’t slide the glass basket onto the upper rails when there’s a whole chicken in it, so this is one of the few times they recommend just sitting it on the base of the microwave. I adjusted the times on the fusioncrisp setting and then left it well alone during cooking.

When the timer went off, the chicken was beautifully cooked, juices were running clear and the skin was a crisp, even golden brown. The meat had a great texture, it was soft and succulent, it was an all round good roast chicken. My only complaint was a bit of drying on the tops of the legs.

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My final big test for the fusioncrisp function was a veggie lasagne. There’s a lasagne recipe in the inspiration guide, but I chose to use my own tried and trusted recipe, I based the cook times on those listed for Ninja’s lasagne recipe.

You have to make the lasagne in the glass basket, which does mean you can’t do any other air frying until you’ve eaten it all or decanted it and washed the basket up. Aside from that, the recipe cook times are for 20 minutes microwaving and eight minutes air frying, using the fusioncrisp function.

Yet again, I was dubious about the long microwave time, but that seems to be the theme with these fusioncrisp recipes. When the timer went off, I decided to air fry it for an additional five minutes, just to make the top more crisp and golden.

The lasagne was cooked through, which is pretty impressive given the raw lasagne sheets. And it’s a great shortcut in comparison to oven baking, plus I enjoyed the fact that the top still developed those chewy cheesy bits around the edges.

It worked and it was tasty, a good option for a speedy weeknight dinner. But for me, it lacked the depth of flavour that you get from a lasagne that’s been bubbling in the oven for ages, so I wouldn’t make the switch to this method permanently.

Air fryer

Obviously chips go hand in hand with air fryers and it wouldn’t be an air fryer review without making them. I cut potatoes up into fresh chips and soaked them in cold water for 30 minutes before drying and coating in oil.

I set them to air fry at 200C and gave them a stir every seven minutes. They ended up taking 24 minutes. The result was good, fluffy potato, and golden and crisp on the outside, just as good as I’d expect in my usual air fryer.

For roasted tenderstem broccoli and asparagus, I popped the lightly oiled veg into the basket and started the air fry setting at 200C. It took just eight minutes and the vegetables were beautifully softened with some browning and crisping.

I’m currently obsessed with healthier snacks and so used the air fry function a couple of times to make crispy roasted chickpeas and crispy roasted edamame beans. Both times they roasted on the standard air fry setting at 200C for just 10 minutes.

The Max Crisp setting is designed specifically for frozen foods that might benefit from extra crunch. I was in two minds about whether to use it for frozen breaded fish as I didn’t want to overcook the fish, and the cooking temperature is fixed at 240C.

Thankfully, the fish cooked beautifully with an excellent crunchy crumb and moist and tender fish inside. What’s more, the two pieces of frozen fish cooked in an impressively speedy 14 minutes.

Air grill was my go-to setting for cheese on toast. It worked perfectly, melting the cheese in minutes, without having to preheat it first.

I make homemade granola every week and cook it on the bake setting of my Ninja Combi. As baked things go, this felt less risky than attempting a cake or other baked goods. I popped my granola in the glass basket and selected 175C, then came back to it after 10 minutes to give it a stir.

Apart from being quite difficult to stir thoroughly without fully removing the basket, the granola was very well toasted on the top. I turned the temperature down to 165C and had to stir it every five minutes because the top layer kept browning and toasting really fast. I took it out after 25 minutes.

My main take away from cooking the granola is that this air bake function feels quite fierce. And a delicate cake would be a gamble. Hopefully Ninja will publish some recipes for this setting, as there’s currently nothing to go on in the inspiration guide. Incidentally, there is a chocolate fudge cake recipe, but it’s for the fusioncrisp function.

Microwave

To defrost a bowl of frozen edamame beans I took advantage of the defrost preset. I dutifully weighed them and selected 200g, then when I pressed start, I was surprised that it started counting down from 17 minutes. I stopped it after eight minutes and they were nicely defrosted, so I’d say no matter what you’re defrosting, definitely check it regularly as it might be ready before the timer goes off.

The porridge preset cooked my 300g of oats and milk for four minutes, which, after a good stir and a little bit of standing time, turned out to be pretty accurate. I was just thankful that there was no boiling over and associated clean up of spilt milk.

Arguably, you don’t need a preset to reheat a mug of cold tea, but I used it nevertheless and my mug of cold tea was piping hot in under two minutes. For a bowl of soup I used the soup preset and it was perfectly heated in under three and a half minutes.

The soften butter preset is particularly handy and took my 200g block of butter from fridge cold, to spreadable in just over a minute. Most of it was the ideal spreadable texture though there was a small pool of oil from some butter that got overly melted. Nevertheless it was a better result than my usual guesswork when trying to soften butter in the microwave.

During the time I had it in my kitchen, I used it for plenty of other incidental tasks like reheating and defrosting and it always worked as expected. Personally I gravitate towards adjusting the power level and choosing my own cook times, rather than making use of presets, but either works well.

What's it like to clean?

Because there’s not a turntable, it’s easy to wipe over the base of the microwave and keep it clean. Cleaning all the splattered oil from roasting a chicken, took a few minutes, but with a spritz of kitchen spray and a good cloth, it wasn’t hard work.

There’s also a 20 minute clean cycle that you can run periodically when it requires a deeper clean, you just have to add water to the glass basket and then give it all a good wipe at the end of the cycle.

The accessories are dishwasher safe, though due to the size of the glass basket, sometimes the available space in my dishwasher meant that I ended up cleaning it by hand. You have to wait quite a while for it to cool down, and it's definitely heavy and cumbersome. Some burnt on roast chicken residue required a good soak and scrub, but otherwise, it wasn’t tricky to clean.

I noticed the door-open button marked with fingerprints, as do the parts of the door that I naturally touched when closing it, as well as the areas around buttons on the control panel. So I found myself giving it all a quick wipe or buff with a microfibre cloth quite frequently.

How does it compare to similar models?

The size of the glass basket does limit the air frying capacity of the Crispi Microwave, so larger households might want to consider a big capacity air fryer instead. The Ninja Foodi Flexdrawer air fryer offers 10.4 litres of air fryer capacity and is designed with the flexibility to split that capacity into two independent cooking zones.

If you want a multi-functional air fryer, but don’t necessarily need it to be a microwave, you should definitely consider either the Ninja Speedi or the Ninja Combi, both of which combine several cooking modes that make them far more functional that a standard air fryer.

Should you buy the Ninja Crispi Microwave?

In some ways it’s hard to conclude that such a big microwave is actually a space saving appliance. But truly, if you currently have an air fryer as well as a microwave on your worktop, then this will absolutely free up some space.

The microwave works well, there’s not a great deal to say about it, the standout is the air fry function and using the two together. The air fryer surprised me and was much better than I expected. In some ways it outperformed my current Ninja air fryer, in fact, it could at times be a bit fiercer than expected. So it may take some adjustment.

The heavy, cumbersome glass basket will be a deal breaker for those that don’t have the strength to keep lifting it in and out of position. But the big upside is that this glassware is free of worrying forever chemicals. On the whole though, the takeaway is that if you’re in the market for a combination microwave, this is a great buy.