Ninja Foodi air fryer/oven

My husband bought me one of these as a surprise. I tend to be happy with very basic equipment in my small kitchen, so I’ve never used anything like this, and have never tried an air fryer. Would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, best recipes, etc. Thanks!

I have a basic air fryer. I don’t really use it a lot, but I do make potato hotteock, bread wrapped potato fingers, sweet potato fries and mozzarella sticks (poster here gave me a recipe, YUMMY)!! Along with a few other items that most people bread & deep fry.
As far as experiences, mine broke just out of warranty. I tried to get the company to help me with no luck. So I took it apart and did away with one of the safety switches (hard wired past it), now it works great. (My advice… Fill out the warranty card, some manufacturers let you do it on-line, now)
(For mine) I can’t put any of the parts in the dishwasher and have to hand wash, the basket and food platform. Cleanup is a little bit of a pain, so I (kind of) avoid using it.
I did pick up one of those oil spritzer bottles and use avocado oil to spritz various items I put in it.
If it breaks again, I’ll throw it in the trash and I won’t get another one. At the end of the day, it’s OK… but I’d rather have that countertop space for something else.

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I’ve had one of these for a while, mainly got it as an extra oven for Thanksgiving last year. I’ve been pretty happy with it so far and have used all of the functions. Probably use the dehydrate function more than any of the others, run some apples through my peeler/corer/slicer, place on some parchment paper in the air-fry basket and dehydrate them @ 135°f for 24 hours resulting in crisp apple chips. Only minor downside is that the dehydrate timer only goes up to 12 hours so I have to plan to be around (and awake) at that time to reset the timer.

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I currently have a small Vortex (made by the Instant Pot folk) 2 qt mini. I’m happily surprised at all the things it does very well/better than my convection oven. Tip: the parchment basket liners you can get for air fryers are totally worth it. Just don’t preheat with a parchment liner!

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Thanks. Why are the parchment basket liners useful?

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I’ve been wanting to purchase one . I’m kinda in the fence, maybe yes maybe no . How often am I going to use it . I’m sure it works well like the sous vide. It’s on the shelf for later use . I go through fazes . I should purchase one for future use .

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They’re just mini convection ovens, no real mystery about them. There are a zillion air-fryer specific recipes/recommendations online. Ours is used mainly for frozen stuff, it really makes those frozen Panko coated shrimp we get at Costco crispy and delicious and cooks fries and onion rings so much better than the conventional oven with much less heat and electricity. If you have room for it it’s nice to have.

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Parchment liners make clean up easier. I only use them for certain foods. I just use regular parchment paper that I roll into a small cylinder, flatten, and punch holes in.

I use my air fryer a lot, mainly for frozen foods-- fries, tater tots, onion rings, potstickers, egg rolls, battered/breaded seafood. It does a nice job on hot dogs without natural casings. Natural casing tends to toughen, but the hot dogs still turn out okay. I cooked some smoked sausage in mine a couple of days ago, casing was a little tough, but it was still good. I’ve cooked personal size frozen pizza in mine a few times, too. I have to play with the temperature and timing quite a bit to get those to come out right. Does a fine job reheating pizza from a pizzeria.

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Liners keep the basket clean. The baskets are nonstick, but quickly become noncleanable.

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We got this in the middle of the pandemic.

Very powerful toaster / countertop oven - only downside is the height/clearance inside is a lot lower than other choices (Breville or similar).

Nice feature is the vertical fold-up which can clear counterspace, except we used it all day long so turning it vertically was more of an annoyance so we stopped. But it’s a nice feature for someone who uses it only occasionally.

Which model do you have.

There is parchment paper cut for the tubs. The oil from your food polymerizes , the parchment slows that process.

It may depend on your model, Ninja Foodi has about 12 products.

It’s this one. He got it on sale on QVC.
Ninja Foodi 15-in-1 Smart Dual Heat Air Fry Flip Oven w/ Probe

I have an AF-101. Different appliances.