Ninja Combi 14-in-1 review: The last kitchen appliance you'll ever need?

What type of cook are you?

I’m not a creative cook. I cook pretty well, but I need a recipe in front of me to do the job. This year, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to plan out our dinners for each week, knowing what I’ll cook, what I require and how best to prepare for it.

The Ninja Combi is maybe geared more towards creative cooks. It’s an appliance that rewards creativity in the culinary arts. It can make cooking a meal for four incredibly simple and fast, so long as you understand exactly what you’re trying to do.

So on those occasions when I had a recipe in front of me that guided me step by step to making a Combi meal, I loved it. It tasted great, things were cooked well, and the experience was quick and (fairly) painless.

But if I tried to step out of my comfort zone, the Combi’s creation was less rewarding.

Let’s be honest – that’s a “me” problem. But if you’re anything like me, then it may end up being a “you” problem too.

What is the Ninja Combi offering?

Ninja is honestly one of my favourite brands at the moment because they create solid products that solve problems.

From the Slushi to the Woodfire Grill to the Swirl by Creami (which I haven’t had the chance to review just yet), the company isn’t afraid to test out new ideas when it comes to home appliances.

The Combi is a 14-in-1 appliance. Fourteen. In. One.

That’s a lot of functions, though they aren’t all created equally. Here’s what the Combi can do:

• Combi Meals (which is essentially steaming and grilling at the same time)
• Combi Crisp (which is similar, but cooks with steam and heat to create crispy, yet succulent proteins and vegetables)
• Combi Bake (which is like baking, but with steam, so things come out moist)
• Rice/Pasta
• Steam
• Prove
• Grill
• Air Fry
• Bake
• Reheat
• Slow Cook
• Sear/Sauté
• Pizza
• Toast

Those 14 different settings are split into two groups with a large switch on the top of the unit. To the left is the Combi Cook group, which controls the first seven options, and to the right is Air Fry, which controls the remaining options.

The front control panel is built into the Combi’s door handle, which swings open on a left-hand hinge. There are nine buttons, but it’s all straightforward to control.

On the top left are up and down buttons that mostly control temperature. On the top right, up and down buttons typically control the cooking duration, though it does change for settings like Toast.

At the bottom, there are up and down buttons to navigate through the different cooking modes, with a panel listing out the variation options and a light that shows which is selected.

At the very bottom, you have a power button, a light button that switches on the internal light, and the start button.

Inside, there are two cooking levels. At the bottom is space for the Combi Pan – a baking tray designed to fit into the Combi precisely. A crisper plate sits inside the Combi Pan, though depending on the cooking mode, you might take it out.

Above that, there is a Bake Tray, which slides in as a shelf and lets you cook a bit closer to the top grill. All three removable parts are dishwasher safe, which is a nice touch.

Actually cooking uses a combination of a bottom hot plate heating the Combi Pan, and a top grill, which sits below a fan that helps circulate the air.

What does the Ninja Combi do well?

The core selling point of the Combi is that it can be used to cook an entire meal in a single appliance. The Combi Meals setting will effectively cook a three-part meal of grains, vegetables and protein all at once using a combination of steam and grill heat.

And when you get everything in there just right, it works a treat. One of the first meals I cooked was Salmon with pea and lemon risotto. You jump the risotto ingredients in the Combi pan, chuck the salmon fillets and asparagus on the bake tray and cook for 12–15 minutes at 175ºC.

It was, frankly, delicious and incredibly easy. As were the chicken fajitas with rice and beans, and Greek falafel with creamy spinach orzo.

The thing about all these meals, though, is that they are within the supplied “Inspiration Guide”.

The Combi Crisp function worked a treat when creating loaded baked potatoes, and I cooked some delicious cinnamon scrolls on the Combi Bake setting. I steamed some frozen dumplings in there after my bamboo steamer fell apart, and it was much better.

I tried air frying chips and even made toast. It all just worked.

What could the Ninja Combi improve?

I have two key suggestions for Ninja to improve the Combi.

The first relates to the style of cook I am. As I mentioned at the start of this review, I need a recipe to cook effectively, and the supplied Inspiration guide just didn’t give me enough variety.

There are 20 recipes within the inspiration guide (plus five general recipe ideas). Ninja has a “Test Kitchen” website with recipes for all its appliances, and it offers 62 recipes for the Combi – including the 25 in the inspiration guide.

I wanted more. Not just for the Combi meals setting, but for it all. I wanted guidance on how long to cook lamb chops with couscous and at what temperature.

There is a table of cook times for different proteins in the Inspiration guide, but I always struggled with the inspiration side of that.

Or alternatively, I’d love to be able to add a recipe and have an app tell me how to cook that in the Combi. That would be the ideal solution.

The other challenge I have with this appliance is cleaning.

Not the inserts. Those all go in the dishwasher and are easy to manage.

But for better or worse, the Combi is an oven, and ovens can be a real pain to clean. After cooking a meal with quinoa, which bubbled over the Combi Pan, there was a sediment stuck around the edge of the hotplate that wasn’t easy to get off, particularly at the back, where it’s awkward to reach.

More challenging than that was after cooking taco bowls, and the spatter from the meat on the bake tray ended up behind the grill element on the top of the Combi. Trying to get a cloth in between the element to clean the mess was effectively impossible.

Obviously, I’m no engineer. But if there was a way to make it easier to clean the inside of this appliance, then Ninja would make a great appliance almost perfect.

Verdict

The 14-in-1 Combi is a multipurpose kitchen appliance that does everything your regular oven can do, plus a lot more. You could arguably use it to replace your oven, microwave, slow cooker, rice cooker, air fryer and toaster, if you wanted to.

For home cooks who know how to cook without a recipe to guide their every move, it’s a fantastic addition to your kitchen that will make cooking meals easier.

For those who, like me, need the recipe to cook a decent meal, the Combi is still a great appliance, but it won’t be as quick or convenient as you might expect.

And just beware that it’s not the easiest appliance to clean.

Specs

Tips and tricks

• The Combi uses steam for half of its cooking modes, so ventilation is pretty important. The instructions suggest you don’t place it under any cupboards for that reason.
• Because the Combi combines steam cooking and air-frying in a single appliance, it can cook proteins straight from frozen, so you don’t even need to defrost them. The steam acts as a fast defrost, before it cooks the protein to the correct temperature. The Inspiration guide offers times for cooking frozen protein.
• While cleaning is a pain to do, Ninja does recommend using the steam function to help give the inside a deep clean. Fill the Combi Pan with three cups of water and pop it on the steam setting for 10 minutes. Once it’s done and has cooled sufficiently, wipe the insides with a damp cloth.

One more thing

I’ve been cooking with the Ninja Combi for about a month, but I do feel this is the type of product that will get better the more I use it and the more comfortable I get with it.

It requires getting used to, especially when you’re using the Combi cook function. There’s nuance for the different grains and different proteins that I haven’t found the right balance for yet. I cooked lamb chops with pearl couscous, and the couscous was slightly overdone while the lamb was perfect.

I’m not sure what I should do to fix the balance in that example, which, I think, is a challenge many recipe-based cooks will face.

But that’s a problem that time and experience should overcome. So it’s not really something I can say is a weakness of the product, can I? It’s more of an opportunity for me to grow as a cook.

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