I'm not cooking roast dinners anymore, the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 is doing it for me

The Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker combines air frying, steaming, proving, grilling, baking, searing, slow cooking, and more, into one neat appliance. It's one of Ninja's hottest releases, so, of course, I had to give it a fry.

Just when I thought Ninja had exhausted all the innovations and opportunities in the air fryer market, they went and launched the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker. It is, easily, one of the best Ninja air fryers on the market, if not one of the best air fryers full stop.

I put this through its paces for weeks. I made countless cakes, loads of loaves of bread, and I even cooked a whole roast dinner in under an hour too. There's a lot going on with the Ninja Combi and its relatively bulky, but it earned a secure spot on my counter.

Specifications

Unboxing and first impressions

You can't escape from the fact that the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker is indeed, more of a countertop oven than an air fryer. This means that it's big (similar dimensions to a microwave) and relatively heavy. When I was unboxing it, I actually took it out of all the packaging on the floor. I'm small and my counter is high, so it made sense.

I was pleased to find that Ninja has come on in leaps and bounds with their packaging. Almost everything was recyclable, except for a few stickers. Even the packaging was sustainable even around the accessories. You get a roasting tray, grill grate, and air fryer insert, neatly stored away.

Once I'd shifted this from my floor and up onto the counter, the Ninja looked impressive. It's still pretty demanding space-wise, but it's smart. The curved edges and stainless steel finishes feel premium. It might be more utilitarian than you'd like for a cosy cottage, but it does a sleek style really well. The Combi was off to a frying start (sorry).

Who would it suit?

Thanks to its sheer versatility, I can see the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker working in a range of homes, especially big and busy ones. The 12.5 litre capacity is easily enough for a family of six: I cooked a whole roast chicken with vegetables in under an hour; I baked bread; I steamed fruit; I made cakes, I could do everything my family needed for a whole month and I didn't once feel limited by the capacity of the Ninja.

With that in mind, the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker makes an attractive alternative to a full-sized oven. You could save on utilities, because the Ninja heats a much smaller space much quicker, and you could save on time for the same reason too. 

Whilst adventurous cooks in large homes will lavish in the prospect of 12 settings in one appliance, there are definitely people who wouldn't. If you just want an appliance that works as an air fryer or a slow cooker, you can save on space and money by opting for a dedicated appliance. You'll probably get some better, more specific features too (such as dual drawers in an air fryer)

If you didn't notice from all my moaning before, this is big. And quite heavy. That means you wouldn't want to move this off the counter, so it's stuck in place. Whilst that wasn't a problem in my family home or in our test kitchen, I know I definitely won't be buying one for my London flat. It would demand almost the whole counter.

What is it like to use?

One thing Ninja does really well is looking after you over the whole user experience. They give you instructions (though you don't need them) and a recipe-style book, which has cooking charts and delicious ideas in. It's great if you want to lean into what the brand recommends. Its a touch that I don't think anyone else does nearly as well as Ninja.

The one thing you'll want to take note of is the smart switch on top. If you put it in the left position, you're working with the 'combi cooking' modes (combi meals, combi crisp, combi bake, rice/pasta, steam, prove) and on the right you get all the air frying and oven work (grill, air fry, bake, reheat, slow cook, sear/saute). It makes sense, but I could see people puzzling over the menu.

Over the month that I was testing this, I made my way through all twelve functions, multiple times. Lots of the 'combi' settings you won't have seen before, since these are thought up by Ninja. Luckily, Ninja teaches you how to build meals using them. Before long, I found myself opting to use them instead of the more common functions you'd get on your normal oven.

I'll talk you through a range of the most useful functions. I'm not sure I know anyone who would use all twelve every week, but you will probably appreciate a good handful of them.

Test 1: Rice bowl (combi meal)

As I've mentioned, Ninja teaches you how to use their special combi meals settings, with recommended recipes. Essentially, this steams and air fries your food, so you'll use two levels to make a meal. 

In the recipe book Ninja has a suggestion for rice, fish, and vegetables; pasta and falafels; and mixed bowls. Essentially, you mix and match proteins and carbs. Given that I had just made a cowboy bean bowl in another similar air fryer/countertop oven, I took my chance to do a direct comparison.

I steamed rice, beans and vegetables in one tray and air fried some marinated mushrooms on my top tray. In total, the meal took 17 minutes to pull together. All I had to do was load my ingredients in and press a button. The Combi did all of the rest. My rice was tender and well cooked, the mushrooms were moist, warm, and surprisingly crispy. It was the perfect, easy meal.

The only thing I did notice was that this doesn't have an extractor fan and steam was billowing out of the back. I didn't want this to damage my paintwork, so I turned the extractor fan on my oven on and I needed to keep it on. It's worth noting if you'll use a lot of the combi or steam settings, because this tried to minimise steam reside inside, by pumping it out into your kitchen.

Test 2: stewed apple (steam)

Being able to steam fruit and vegetables without needing to watch over the hob is a godsend (I've burnt more apples than I care to confess to), so I used this a lot over the course of my baking. I eat a lot of stewed apples, so that was my first test for the Combi. You can't be too aggressive with these, otherwise they disintegrate, so I kept a close eye on my apples. 

Using the steaming function is actually really simple, you add water to the deep tray, sit your air fryer insert on top, and then scatter whatever you’re steaming, in my case apples, over the top. My apples were soft, steamed, and falling apart in three minutes, which is speedy compared to the hob. The Ninja also cleverly extracts all the steam from the oven on a suction mode, so that you’re not left with dripping walls.

After the success of the apple, I steamed carrots, broccoli, and parsnips, all with the same impressive results. These took longer and you’ll want to keep an eye on each food to make sure it doesn’t over steam, but it was a great turn out.

Test 3: proofing bread (prove)

I make bread a lot, so I wanted to see how this could handle my daily loaf as well as trickier fruit loaves and enriched doughs. The first part of bread making that this could help with was proving. Finding a warm spot for bread to rise in my house is unreliable at the best of times. In the winter, it’s impossible, so the Ninja Combi promises an ideal solution.

I made an enriched fruit dough to really see test how well the Ninja Combi could work. I kept an eye on the dough in its first prove (it was one big ball of dough) and after just 30 minutes (at least half, if not one third of my normal time) the fruit dough had doubled in side. I knocked the bread back, rolled it into buns, and had the same success. They doubled in size in twenty minutes. The proof is, of course, in the baking, so I popped them in the Ninja Combi to see whether the rise had paid off (spoiler alert, it had), but you can read more about the baking in the next section.

Test 4: baking buns (combi bake)

I’ve tried making buns using both the bake function and the combi bake. Whilst the bake function worked exactly the same time as my normal oven, I felt that the outside of my bread was a bit crispier than normal. You can see in the picture below that there's a pretty hefty crust on those buns and, whilst that’s lovely for a farmhouse loaf, I like my fruit buns to be soft and squishy. The answer for how to achieve that result was in combi steam.

The buns took five minutes longer to cook in combi-steam and I had to add a tray of water, but essentially, I got much better results. The steam meant that they were soft, fluffy, and wonderfully baked. 

This wasn’t the case for everything that I made - my apple cake was much better in the plain baking section - but if you’re cooking bread that you want to be soft, or meat that you want to keep tender, this is a really useful function.

Test 5: apple cake (bake)

Talking of apple cakes, here we are. I'm a keen baker, so I was really looking forward to testing this out across a range of dishes, from granola to pasta bakes and fish pies. The recipe that really stood out to me in Ninja's recipe book was the apple cake.

I followed the recipe, added my ingredients, and slotted the tin into the Combi on the bake function. After 40 minutes, the cake looked like the image above. I know fruit cakes take longer to cook, so it didn't surprise me that this had a substantial amount of time in the Combi, but it's worth noting that this is no quicker than the apple cake takes in my standard oven. It was moist, with a nice, secure rise. Some apple cakes can get quite heavy and stodgy, but this was just right. I think the combi-bake would have definitely made the cake far too dense, so the bake function worked a treat.

Test 6: cauliflower cheese (grill)

I was testing the Ninja Combi is exactly when my family wanted a roast dinner, which meant I could cover a lot of essential dishes. My cauliflower cheese used a lot of the different functions: I steamed my cauliflower using the steam function, baked it with the cheese sauce for 15 minutes, and then wanted to finish it off with the grill.

There wasn't really any time difference to using a normal grill, except that I didn't need to wait for any pre-heating (hooray). The nice and crispy speckled top you can see above took just six minutes. I watched the element to see whether it got red and it didn't, so I wasn't sure if it even worked, until I saw the results. 

The cauliflower cheese was perfect. The crispy top added some nice texture to my soft, hot cauliflower cheese mix underneath. It was all warmed wonderfully and nothing was overcooked. 

The success of the grill made it my go-to for cheese on toast too. This took just eight minutes, without the need for any pre-heating again. And, what I really loved was that the grill gets even results across the toast. You just can't beat it.

Test 7: air fryer foods

Ninja are known for their impressive air fryers, so I was excited to see how this would cook frozen fish fingers and chips, Mediterranean vegetables, and bacon. What you'll notice straight away is that there's just one level, not two, and that you're air frying with just one zone. This does mean that you don't quite get the immense capacity that you might expect if you had an air fryer as big as the Combi, but you do get some good height if you want to make an air fryer cake or a roast chicken.

I'll save you the suspense, this is an excellent air fryer. True to its reputation, the Ninja Combi is quick (there's no pre-heating needed), consistent, and versatile. My frozen fish fingers and chips were ready in just seventeen minutes, they were piping hot in the middle, and crispy on the outside. You can see that the chips stayed a nice golden brown over the whole batch too, which isn't a given for all air fryers.

My vegetables only took 13 minutes before I could see some golden bubbles on the peppers and some darkening on the onion. And the bacon was a similar success: crispy, juicy, and delicious in 12 minutes. Just how I like it.

Test 8: Roast chicken (combi crisp)

The combi crisp setting is a lot like having a roast setting, it crisps up your food, but with some steam to stop it from drying out. Over all the different dishes that I ran through the combi crisp function, my crusty farmhouse loaf and roast dinner were the greatest successes.

As I mentioned, I was cooking a roast dinner on one of the days that I tested the Combi and thought I'd see how well it can cook a family-sized roast chicken. The answer is, really well. I added some water to the base of the pan, inserted the air fryer tray on top, and then set my roast chicken with some vegetables around it.

By the time 45 minutes was up, the skin on the chicken was speckled and crispy; the chicken inside was juicy and tender and; my roast potatoes were golden brown too. It's the easiest roast dinner I've ever cooked, by a mile and so I did it on repeat for the whole month that I was testing. 

The only word of caution that I'd offer, is that my bread took a lot of adjustments when using the combi crisp. I persevered because I could see that it would be worth it, but I had some flat loaves that could've done with more heat and less time, as well as some blackened loaves that weren't cooked through. If you're not confident with your bakes, it's worth following Ninja's guidelines for a little longer.

Test 9: reheating leftovers

The reheat function is simple, but effective. I used it to reheat my sweet potato wedges as well as my roast dinner the day after. It only takes ten minutes, again, with no preheat, to get piping hot food that's not too tough or overcooked on the outside. It's a gentle, but incredibly useful function.

Cleaning

You'd think that all those tests would have proven to be nightmarish for me to clean, but let me tell you, it was one of the easiest counter appliances I've used to keep clean. All of the accessories (trays, inserts, and tins) from NInja are non-stick and dishwasher-safe. Any crusty crumbs or nasty burns seemingly side off before you stick them in the dishwasher. And, if they don't, Ninja provides a guide for how to use the steam function to service your whole air fryer with a deep clean. It's really smart.

There were a few bakes where the actual walls of the Combi were a little dirty, but this wasn't too bad. I could wipe down all the insides, as well as the viewing window, really easily. The only other aspect to keep an eye on is the stainless steel exterior. I noticed this showing a few finger marks over each cooking session, so kept a microfibre cloth nearby for quick cleans and wipe-downs.

How does it compare?

Around the same time that I tested the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker, I also tested the Breville Halo Flexi Air Fryer. The two models follow essentially the same principles: they're countertop ovens that happen to air fry (and more) and I loved them both. They're still two of my favourite models to this day, but which is better?

Whilst these two look the same and both cover versatile air frying really well, the decision between the two is actually really easy. If you just want an air fryer, the Breville Halo Flexi is better. It comes with two drawers and dual controls, so you can cook two separate foods at the same time. The air fryer is spacious, packed with useful pre-sets, and it comes with air frying baskets, trays, and roasting trays too. In short, is every air fryer enthusiast's dream.

That's not to say that the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker isn't an equally competitive model on the air fryer market. The presets are also useful, the results are also delicious, and it is also easy to use. The big difference is that you can't divide the Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker into sections. Instead, it's one huge space, which makes the air frying a little slower and more limiting if you want to cook two different foods at once. 

The Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker is also bigger and (very marginally) more expensive. For some people though, it's worth another £20. Where the Breville Halo Flexi falls short is versatility. It's a great air fryer and countertop oven, but if you need to prove, steam, slow cook, and saute in it, you're going to struggle. The Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multicooker, on the other hand, is endlessly useful. I didn't touch my oven for the whole time that I was testing this (a whole month) and I didn't miss my oven either. 

Should you buy it?

If you live in a smaller home and you don't want to use your full-sized oven often, the Ninja Combi is a brilliant alternative. It's versatile, speedy, and easy to use. 

In the context of Ninja's air fryers, this is capacious but basic. It doesn't have dual zone controls and it's not as technically perfect as others, but if you take that in the context of everything else that this can do, it's easily the most versatile air fryer out there. 

Given the 45-minute roast dinner that I made (on repeat) in the Combi, it's earned its place as a firm favourite of mine. I'm reluctant to go back to my normal oven. I think it'll be a downgrade from the competent Ninja Combi. 

How we test

At woman&home, we put a lot of thought into how we test air fryers and countertop ovens. Our team of experts are always researching the latest and greatest releases on the market. As soon as we see one that we think you'll like, we call it in to test.

Our tests are designed to emulate real-life use, so we cover the kind of tasks that are in your weekly routine. For some models, we have to work on a case-by-case basis, and the Ninja Combi is one of them.

I put it through all of our normal air fryer tests: cooking bacon, a roast chicken, chips and fish fingers, and grilled Mediterranean vegetables. These tests cover a good range of textures, requirements and capacities, so they're the ones that every air fryer gets put through. However, after we finished these, we knew the Ninja Combi had a lot more to offer. That's why I worked through every single setting, to try to find out which ones are genuinely useful and appealing for the average home chef. I was initially guided by Ninja's own recipes, but quickly began to experiment for myself.

One month later, I've worked through every function, multiple times and given you feedback on where I thought the Combi was a success and where it tripped a little too. It's also important that we give you more information on whether we think a product is good value, a competitive option on the market, nice to look at, and easy to clean. There are a whole host of factors that we take into account before we answer the big question: should you buy it?

When we give our verdict, we try to be as fair as possible. We put your trust in us above everything, which is why we'll never stretch the truth to get you to make an investment. It's you that has to live with the product and we think it's important that there aren't any nasty surprises waiting for you.