Ninja Foodi Recipes Made in January/February

What recipes make it into being written up as a post? Dishes that were good enough to make me want to cook up again and aren't so simplistic as to be a direct copy from the instruction manual, such as making perfectly cooked jasmine rice (seriously, it's just a cup of water and a cup of rice, pressure cooked for 2 minutes with a 10 minute natural release). The end goal of this is more for me than you, dear reader. I hate blogs with ads with a passion. I don't want you to have a lower quality experience of reading a recipe blog chock full of ads. Frankly, blogs that autorun videos and popup ads are a turnoff to me. This is my online cookbook and I don't want to look at ads when I check it for recipe ratios. Also, I have skimmed through a lot of Instant Pot cookbooks. I even checked out a number of analog books from the public library and what is most annoying is that a third of each book contained recipes published by the manufacturer. How original. Anyways. Here's what I made in the Foodi.

Success!

• taro root dessert soup, pressure cooked
• dry, not soaked azuki beans, pressure cooked (taro + azuki beans + tapioca pearls = nice dessert)
• dehydrated wild pacific shrimp
• bbq baked beans
• frozen black sesame tan yuan, pressure cooked
• roasted marinated mushrooms
• reheat already cooked rice
• pork neck bones, for stock
• crispy bacon from raw

!Fail

• King Arthur fruitcake
• whole "baked" Japanese sweet potato
• chocolate pots de creme (overcooked)
• frozen ribeye steak (PC & AF), too raw using NF directions

Ninja Foodi Recipes Made in December

For whatever reason, I started logging what I made in the Foodi. What has turned into a daily breakfast item are soft boiled eggs. After figuring out the right combination of time and which pressure setting, these are extremely easy to make. A lot better than the randomness by stovetop method.

The inaugural dish I tried in the Foodi was crispy fried BBQ chicken wings using raw, frozen chicken wings. Initially, it looked fantastic. However, the chicken wings were perfectly cooked at the pressure cooker stage. The amount of time that the Foodi recommends for crisping it up with the Crisper lid (air fryer) is way too long and the end result. I have divided this list into successes and failures.

Success!

• jasmine rice, pressure cooked
• soft boiled eggs, pressure cooked
• Tamari Garlic Roasted Almonds, air fryer
• Beef stew w/ Yukon potatoes, pressure cooked
• hashbrown patties, air fryer
• herbed lamb shoulder, air fryer
• whole roasted herb chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
• dehydrated apple chips, air fryer/dehydrate setting
• quinoa chocolate cake muffins from box mix
• whole roasted salt and pepper chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
• chicken stock w/ bay leaf, garlic, carrots, and celery from chicken bones
• pork bone broth using pork neck bones
• whole roasted garlic, air fryer
• reheated lasagna, air fryer

!Fail

• Sriracha BBQ chicken - overcooked & bland; remedy: don't use frozen chicken and marinate it first
• cinnamon apple sauce - too watery (don't use Instant Pot's recipe ratio)
• Air Crisp chickpeas - not crispy
• Air Crisp toasted baguette w/ gouda and garlic butter - cooked/dried out baguette, didn't have the golden brown toasted look of toasted bread
• steamed broccoli - so overcooked I could have blended it into a soup

Kitchen notes: Ninja Foodi review

I'd been thinking about getting an air fryer or a food dehydrator all year; but I couldn't quite get myself to commit on price for unit features for a single use appliance. The Ninja Foodi at my local Costco ($189.99 regular, $149.99 holiday sale) was already significantly below the retail price that can be found at Target ($229.99 regular), Amazon (currently $189.99 holiday sale), or my local Kroger-owned grocery store ($299.99 regular, $239.99 holiday sale). Shopping in Oregon saved me $12.60 in retail sales tax; and I picked up the unit a week before Thanksgiving. 

Item number: Ninja Foodi OP305CO

Product review:

The appliance itself is pretty big at 6.5 quarts. It's like having a columnar-shaped, medium sized microwave oven on the counter top. It stands tall enough to not fit inside nor under any of the kitchen cabinets; and the base unit is heavy enough to not want to move it from the kitchen counter. That said, if you can spare the counter space, it'll be a good complementary appliance for liquid-based cooking, "baking", air frying, and dehydrating. I have yet to try the dehydrating or slow cooker functions on the Foodi. And, I have no desire to make yogurt. That said, given the number of appliances that this replaces, it's good for homes or apartments with a small kitchen. Though, it might be a stretch to say that the Ninja Foodi is a multitool for your kitchen if you already have an oven/stove.

The hardest part about using the Foodi? Figuring out how the pressure cook lid fits onto the unit. like which way the lid turns and such. Probably took me a half hour to figure it out after unboxing.

Making food in the Foodi requires attention to detail and timing. Most pressure cooked or air fryer recipes need you to be attentive to timing for natural or quick release, and also to flip or stir the foods if air frying. It's not a single-use, set it and forget it appliance.

Time saved:

You are not going to save any time on ingredient prep. If you don't count that as part of how long it takes to make a recipe, you are deluding yourself into thinking that this appliance (and others like it, e.g., Instant Pot) will help you cook meals faster. 

It saves some time but not much; and it depends on what you are cooking. When you are making soft boiled eggs, it takes 7 minutes plus whatever time the unit needs to warm up and/or come up to low pressure. So the eggs that might take 10 minutes by stove method, might actually take 15 minutes in the pressure cooker. But you get perfectly cooked eggs in the Foodi and the eggs don't break or explode from the radical change in temperature from the fridge to boiling water like it does sometimes in a pot on the stove. Also, pay attention because even after the timer stops, the eggs will continue cooking as the unit cools down. Yes, you can burn eggs (in shell) if you leave the eggs in the Foodi and forget to quick release.

Beef stew by stove top has a cooking time of about an hour. In the Foodi, it still took an hour. 

Clean up:

The primary cooking bowl and air fryer basket are both nonstick surfaces and are easy to clean off with a soft rag and warm soapy water... if you wash immediately after removing food that has just been cooked. Clean the stainless steel racks that come with the Foodi if any food gets burnt or stuck on. Like most things in life, don't wait so long that cleaning becomes an actual chore.

Diversity of recipes:

Not so much. You would think there'd be more with Instant Pot debuting in 2010. Though, we have to thank the creative genius behind Instant Pot marketing for how popular these appliances are today. No longer are pressure cookers associated with the Boston Marathon or domestic terrorism. Now you can create delicious food in half the time with a pressure cooker. 

Just simple American recipes are out there, in cookbooks, on recipe blogs, and from manufacturer's websites.You can almost use Instant Pot and Ninja Foodi pressure cooker recipes interchangeably. You'll want to refer back to the food temp/cooking charts from Ninja. Apple sauce in an Instant Pot calls for more water than apple sauce in a Ninja Foodi. Also, most air fryer recipes will work with the Ninja Foodi Air Crisp settings. If using the crisping basket, this more volume than a standalone air fryer basket.

The Ninja Foodi is not a replacement for any food dish requiring the burnt/charred look for toast, baguettes, creme brulée, steak, or anything grilled via fire. Yes, it can do a frozen steak by pressure cooking and air frying; and it'll be cooked to medium-raw; but it won't have that just-got-off-the-grill look with the air fryer.

The more water-based your dish is, the more you're going to appreciate the cooking features of the Foodi.

Ninja Foodi: Sriracha BBQ Chicken Wings (from raw frozen!)

This was the first item I made in the Ninja Foodi using both the pressure and air fryer features. In retrospect, it tastes as though I should have marinated the frozen chicken wings first, as they were bland and tasteless without the BBQ sauce that I added later in the air crisping step of this recipe. The crazy part is cooking frozen meat to perfectly cooked in the Ninja Foodi.

The cooking times on this recipe needs additional testing. After the pressure cooking phase, the wings were done. Any air frying would have added additional heat and time, making these somewhat dried out but "looking" the part of being broiled or fried. Total cooking time is too long if you want the outcome to be tender but crispy chicken wings.

TheFoodening Blog - Ninja Foodi Sriracha BBQ Chicken Wings

Recipe adapted from the basic Ninja Foodi cookbook that came with the unit.

Recipe: Fail

This is a fail because total cooking time is 40+ minutes -- the same amount of time that an oven-based recipe uses to get chicken to a minimum 165 F.

The original recipe calls for frozen chicken breasts which much denser than chicken wings. The cook time could have been halved for each step: PC and AF. And, the chicken, while frozen and raw, could have been marinated at least a half hour before cooking. The "fixed" directions, time, and temps are noted below.

Ingredients

2 lb raw chicken wings
1-2 c BBQ sauce (I used Trader Joe's Sriracha BBQ sauce)
1 c water
additional sriracha sauce, optional for more spicy

Add 1 c of bbq sauce and chicken wings to a resealable plastic bag or food storage container. Let the wings marinate for 30 minutes or longer in the fridge. In my first attempt, I did not marinate before cooking and applied the sauce at the Air Crisper step.

Pressure Cooker Directions

Place fry basket in pot. Add water to pot and chicken to fry basket. Select "Pressure" and "Hi". Set timer for 10 minutes. Start.

10 minutes natural release, then quick release.

Remove pressure cooking lid.

Air Crisper Directions

Select "Broil", Temp to 400 F, and Time for 10-15 minutes.

Toss or use a silicone pastry brush to apply more BBQ sauce to the wings.

Check at 5 minute intervals to see how crispy the wings are getting. Serve with additional BBQ sauce.