Our kitchen has two gas burners, a microwave/oven combination system approaching retirement and not a lot of bench space.
Colin does most of the serious cooking here. He's better at it than I am, he enjoys it after a long day and he likes the kitchen set up a particular way. Adding an appliance to the kitchen isn't just a purchase decision - it's a negotiation.
Which is why I'd wanted an air fryer for years and never bought one. The cooking was never the problem. Storage was.
The Ninja Crispi 4-in-1 Portable Glass Air Fryer solves that by refusing to be a single object. Ninja takes the 1700W heating element out of the usual plastic box and puts it into a removable PowerPod, which simply sits on top of a glass cooking container. Two parts: the bit that heats, and the bit that holds the food. When you're finished, they separate and go wherever they fit.
Three months in, that's the review. It isn't the biggest air fryer, the cheapest, or the most controllable. It's the one that fits around a kitchen instead of asking the kitchen to make room.
Essentials
- 1700W PowerPod - contains the heating coils and the built-in fan that circulate hot air down into the container to cook or crisp food fast.
- 1.4L and 3.8L CleanCrisp glass containers - both included with crisper plates and storage lids. The 3.8L is the one that gets used the most.
- Borosilicate glass - makes the containers thermal shock resistant - shouldn't crack when going between temperature extremes.
- Dishwasher, microwave and freezer safe containers. One of my main reasons for purchasing it and the reason it keeps getting used. Easy to clean in the dishwasher.
- Four modes: Roast, Air Fry, Recrisp, Keep Warm. No temperature dial. This is the compromise, and I'll explain these modes a little more later.
- Four colours: Cyberspace, Stone, Sage Green, Pink. I've got Sage Green model, which is a confident way of saying greeny-grey.
An air fryer that stores in two halves
This is the whole argument for the Ninja Crispi, so it's worth being precise about what's different.
Most air fryers are a single large plastic box, and even the compact ones need a cupboard big enough to swallow the whole thing, or they end up permanently taking up space on the kitchen bench. That single fact has stopped me from buying an air fryer for about the last four years.
Because the PowerPod lifts off, the Ninja Crispi can be stored in two parts. In our kitchen we store it on the same shelf but in a deeper cupboard. The pod at the front and the glass containers at the back. The two glass containers actually nest into each other to save space. Nothing had to be rearranged to accommodate it.
I pull it out when I want it and put it away afterwards. Colin's kitchen stays Colin's kitchen. In a shared small space, that's not a minor convenience, it's the difference between an appliance that gets used and one that quietly becomes resented for making the place look messy.
Using it
The first thing I wanted out of it was roast potatoes.
Our oven can roast potatoes. It just takes about two hours to get them to the crispiness I actually want, by which point I've usually lost interest in the rest of dinner. The Crispi did the same job in around 30 minutes.
It also produced the first thing I've cooked that Colin described as delicious, which I'm choosing to attribute to the appliance.
The 3.8L container is comfortably enough for two people, which surprised me given how compact the system is.
Two pieces of fish and roast vegetables fit in it at once. A more typical weeknight for us is a roast chicken from Coles with the Crispi handling potatoes and vegetables, and it will do around four serves of those, which means dinner for two and lunch the next day.
That matters more than the litre figure suggests. Plenty of compact air fryers are compact because they've given up on cooking an actual meal, and are really only good for reheating chips. The Crispi hasn't.
Cooking performance has been good. The crisper plate doesn't remove the need to rotate the food around midway through cooking. It lifts the food off the base so hot air can circulate underneath, but the exposed top still browns faster than the underside. For potatoes and vegetables I shake or rotate everything about halfway through.
Ninja has at least made that easy. Lift the PowerPod off and it stops running automatically. I rest the pod on its side, pick up the container by its moulded grips, shake, and put the pod back on.
The one trick I've found that isn't in the manual: the crisper plate can be used to part-separate two foods inside the larger container. Fish on one side, roast vegetables on the other. It isn't a divider and it doesn't pretend to be, but it buys a bit more usable space and keeps dinner from turning into one big mess.
The glass containers get extremely hot. I learned my lesson. The grips are moulded into the glass itself and stay cool enough to hold, but the glass itself is not something you want to touch immediately after cooking.
Four modes, and no temperature dial
The Crispi's biggest limitation is its controls.
There's no exact temperature setting. You choose one of the four modes and manage the cooking with time. There's actually a bit of variation between countries as to what these temperatures are. US models seem to be able to emit a bit more heat.
80°C to 200°C, in four steps
- Keep Warm (Low Heat - 80°C)
- Recrisp
- Roast
- Air Fry (High Heat - 200°C).
I actually haven't found this too much of a limitation. I guess it has bothered others - and the next model up - the newer Ninja Crispi Pro - lets you set the temperature directly on a digital dial. I did know this when I purchased the unit - but was put off by the newer model because it's larger in size and doesn't split into two parts for easy storage.
Small details
The glass dish changes three things.
You can see the food. Instead having to pull open a basket to see how things are cooking - you can just look through the side. There's a small pleasure in watching those potatoes crisp up.
Cooking in progress. Opening a conventional air fryer to check on your food releases a bunch of the heat you’ve built up. The glass means you can keep an eye on things without opening it. Shiro has his own system checking what's cooking. Image: Tech That Fits
The containers go in the dishwasher. So do the crisper plates and lids. Everything that touches dinner is machine washable - which was one of my original reasons for purchasing and remains a strong one.
Since the container isn't attached to the appliance - take the pod off, and you're holding onto a glass serving dish. It's used not only to cook in, but it can be carried straight to the table, and once it's cooled - just clip on the storage lid and put the leftovers in the fridge. One container for cooking, serving and storing. That's one wash instead of three, and two fewer objects a small kitchen has to find room for.
The PowerPod can't go in the dishwasher - it's the part with all the electronics. The underside of it does get splattered if you cook something with a bit too much oil on it. I wipe it down between uses, but after a few months that stopped being enough and it now wants a proper deep clean.
Price and availability
The Ninja Crispi has an Australian RRP of $299.99AUD. I paid $178.60 AUD delivered from Amazon Australia during Prime Day, around 40% below RRP.
Available in a few colours, Cyberspace, Stone, Sage Green and Pink.
- Amazon Australia (affiliate link)
- Harvey Norman
- JB Hi-Fi
- Shark / Ninja
Tech That Fits Take
The Ninja Crispi isn't the best air fryer you can buy, and at $299.99 AUD it isn't particularly cheap. But it's one of the easiest air fryers to live with, particularly in a small or shared kitchen where giving up permanent bench space to another appliance is a bigger compromise than it sounds.
The clever part isn't really the cooking, it's the design. Ninja has effectively split the air fryer into two, separating the PowerPod from the glass cooking containers so the whole thing never needs to be stored as one bulky appliance. The glass also means you can cook, serve and store food in the same container.
If you have plenty of bench space, skip it. A conventional air fryer will give you more capacity and temperature control for less money. The Crispi's fixed cooking temperatures, relatively small capacity and $299.99 AUD price are compromises you're making largely for its flexibility and compact storage.
But if storage is the reason you haven't bought an air fryer, the Ninja Crispi makes a compelling case. Three months after buying mine, I haven't had to reorganise the kitchen around it. When I'm finished cooking the containers go back in the cupboard and the PowerPod disappears with them.
The Ninja Crispi isn't an air fryer that earns its place on the bench, it's an air fryer that doesn't need one.
Disclosure: I bought the Ninja Crispi myself. Editorial Policy.
