Ninja has just launched a portable air fryer. Yes, you read that right. The huge appliance that you struggle to style out on your counter has been redesigned into an appliance that's small enough to pack into your work bag. It's called the Ninja Crispi 4-in-1 Air Fryer and it's going to change the way we eat.
Ninja is a household name by now. Theirs are some of the best air fryers on the market, offering flexibility, versatility, and space efficiency across each different model. Some of Ninja's most popular air fryers are the Speedi, the Flexi, the Combi, and the Maxi. And now on their list of specialiti(es) is the Crispi.
The compact Ninja Crispi 4-in-1 Portable Glass Air Fryer sits on what is effectively two different sizes of glass dishes. You clip the lid onto your single portion tupperware (1.4L) or family-sized container (3.8L) and select through four of the different functions. Compact homes, efficient chefs, and busy people looking to make healthier food choices, eat your hearts out. The Crispi is going to be a kitchen essential in no time.
Everything you need to know about the Ninja Crispi
It's likely that you've already caught a whiff of the news that Ninja has made a portable air fryer, because the Crispi has already launched in the US. This gives us a massive advantage: we can read everything that they've said before we decide to take the plunge for ourselves.
“We listened to consumers’ frustrations when it comes to cooking and leftovers to reimagine what’s possible with an air fryer,” said Purvin Shah, EVP of Global Product Development at SharkNinja. “With the Ninja CRISPi, everyone from busy parents and professionals to college students and meal preppers can easily snap, crisp, serve, store and re-crisp delicious meals and snacks with one portable appliance, saving time, cutting down on clean-up and decreasing food waste.”
To save you the hassle, I've already dedicated a whole day to doing a deep dive into what the Ninja Crispi 4-in-1 Portable Glass Air Fryer has to offer. The pleasure was all mine. It's an impressive piece of kit. If you want the TL;DR, here's the general consensus: the Ninja Crispi is perfect for reheating leftovers and it's the best space-saving air fryer you could buy. Everyone who has tested it loves the size, ease of use, and versatility on offer. People have tested the claims that you can cook a 1.2kg chicken and I've seen plenty of reviews where the chefs managed to feed families of six from this.
The drawbacks are price (it's expensive for a small air fryer), performance (you don't quite get the same circulation as Ninja's more industrial-looking air fryers), and compatibility with glass containers (it has to be the Ninja ones otherwise you risk some exploding glass, which nobody wants in their kitchen).
How does the Ninja Crispi work?
"How does the Ninja Crispi work?" is one of the first questions that I puzzled over. In fact, how does a portable air fryer even work? It's such a radical departure from the baskets, ovens, and drawers that we're all used to, you'll want to listen closely. However, in true Ninja style, this redesign is done so seamlessly that you won't even need to read the instruction manual to work out how to use it.
Ninja will send you two different borosilicate glass containers. These will be like your baskets, offering enough space for one serving of food or enough to feed a family of six. The idea is that you can take these with you, or use them to prep two elements of a dish.
These baskets are more akin to your casserole dishes or glass tupperware. You'll get heat-safe lids (which double up as heat mats) to sit on top of them and then you sit the Crispi lid on top. There are permanently fixed heat-safe feet that claim to be safe on granite, laminate, quartz, butcher blocks, marble, and more. As if that wasn't enough, the coating on the crisping plates is PFAS-free ceramic. No toxic air fryers here, thank you.
Once you've fixed on the lid, you'll have four settings to choose between: Recrisp, Bake, Air Fry, and Max Crisp. The first two are what I would call "low and slow" whilst the other two err on the side of "fast and furious", if we're describing them in duos. I've seen some reviews say that the temperature ranges can be out by a few degrees, generally erring on the colder side, but it still serves up the goods.
In total, you'll get two different-sized dishes (1.4L and 3.8L) and their respective lids; cooking plates that fit inside each dish; an adapter to fit the air fryer onto the large dish and the air fryer (also known as the PowerPod). These all stack into each other, so it's easy to pack the Ninja Crispi into a cupboard. When you're using just the small box, you're in luck. I'm told that this could fit into a generously sized handbag. It's been leak-tested and approved. Though, I'm not sure I'm ready to chuck mine into any special bags any time soon.
The beauty of the glass dishes are that you can check on your food whilst cooking. It's not new to the air fryer market, but this is the best glass air fryer that I've ever tested. I wouldn't recommend either of the other glass air fryers that I've tested.
When and where can you buy the Ninja Crispi?
Your next big question will be, "how do I get my air frying mitts on one of these?". You've got a little while to wait. Whilst these are available over in the US, they're not going to be available to buy over here until 5th March. They'll be £179.99, available at Ninja and at Amazon.
Other compact air fryers worth considering
If you like the sound of the Ninja Crispi, but you're not ready to take the portable plunge, there are some other space-saving options too. Here are three that I've tested and loved:
You won't be surprised to see that Ninja has had a crack at space-saving before. This clever design offers 9.5 litres of capacity, which is enough to feed a whole household, but it goes high up rather than wide.
This underrated air fryer is one of the best that I've tested for versatility. You pull out the central piece to get a whole oven, or you can split it in half and use four different sections for all your different dishes.
If you're not fussed about a compact air fryer, this is the best model on the market. You get 6 different cooking modes and a whopping 9.5-litres of capacity, so there'll never be a hungry mouth or a confused chef in the house.
I'm currently waiting on my pre-order of a Ninja Crispi so that I can give you my experience first-hand. As soon as I have a review, you'll know about it. From the research I've done on American users, this is a game-changer.
