II have onne of these, and I love it ! My daughter gave it to me as a gift a couple of years ago, and we use it all of the time. The Ninja looks like a small electric roasting pan, like they make for roasting turkeys, except smaller. It has hot enough settings that you can actually brown thechicken,roast, or whatever you are cooking, and then turn down the heat and let it cook. It also has crockpot settings, and a timer. So if you want toput in amealtoslow cook andset it for 6 hours (or whatever) then you can do that. Pretty much, it does everything that an electric roaster does, and everything that a crockpot doesas well. The instructions say that you can also bake in the Ninja, as in bake a cake; but I have never tried doing that. I love to put in a chicken and dressing, and just let it slow cook. I also do stews, soups, beans, and just about anything else you like to make in one container. I definitely would recommend one of the Ninja Systems as a great and inexpensive way to make your meals.
It sounds like a crockpot and toaster-oven in one? How large is this device? I use my crockpot and toaster oven pretty frequently and don't have any real desire to replace either of them, but I wonder if this ninja cooking system would be able to do something things the other two couldn't. It seems like it might be able to cook things in fewer steps if you can have it roast first and automatically go to crockpot mode.
It is not actually like a toaster oven, because you can toast things in the toaster oven. It has an outside casing where the heat comes from,and then an insert pan that you place your food in. There is not a lot of work to cleaning the insert either because it is all of that non-stick kind of coating. The size is about a little over a foot long, and about half that wide. It just perfectly fits a whole chicken to roast, but is not large enough for a turkey. Here is a link to the webpage with more information and pictures so you can see what it looks like and read about how it works, and what all you can do with it. Log In
Ah, it's not quite what I was imagining from the "roaster" portion. I was under the impression it was like one of those mini rotisseries that has a glass door on the front. The site seems to suggest that it uses steam as well - I wonder how this affects the moisture content of any baking you might do in it. I wish you could test-drive these kinds of appliances like you would when buying a car. It'd be nice to know how well it works before committing to one.
I do not do a lot of baking; so I have never tried baking a cake in the Ninja. However, even if it turned out not to be as good as your oven for baking a cake; I still would not care. The Ninja does an awesome job of thethings that I have used it for, and I use it several times a week, maybe more. It will do anything that a crockpot will do, and has a timer on it (which many crockpots do not have), so if you want to set something to cook for a certain length of time and then shut off; the Ninja will do that. You can set it as low or as high as you want it to be, because the settings are infinite, and not just low and high, like most crockpots have. Then, it is also a roaster, and I love making a roast of some kind of meat, and especially to roast a chicken and put thedressing in around the chicken. Add a can of cranberries, and I am a happy camper with my dinner ! It has a hot cooking setting as well as the lower crockpot setting, and it makes the most delicious fried chicken in the whole world ! I brown the chicken first, and then jusst turn the heat down to low, put the lid on and let it cook. The chicken will come out tender and juicy, and ready to take to the table and serve.
Thank you for sharing this, and I am glad to hear you really enjoy it. I was actually considering getting one of these myself as well because I live in an apartment and often times really don't like heating up a whole oven for hours to roast something because it heats my whole apartment up too much in the process. One of the things I dislike about traditional crock pots is that they pretty much only do one thing so after slow cooking something, if you need to brown it or reduce the liquid in it, you have to transfer it to another pot or pan on your stove or in your oven. This sounds a lot more useful if it can get up to higher temperatures when needed to brown stuff or simmer down a sauce until it thickens. I am curious though, how the metal pan holds up. Is it durable and sturdy? That was my one big reservation about getting this device, that I would have to replace it in a year or two because the pan inside got too scratched up. That would be one advantage a traditional crock pot has - those stoneware ceramic pots will last indefinitely.
