Ninja AG301 Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill Review

The Ninja Foodi 5 in 1 Grill, or simply the Ninja AG301, is an excellent indoor grill from Ninja Foodi Collections. This appliance is perfect for those times when you don’t want to have to deal with an outdoor barbecue, but still want to grill something.

Ninja AG301 is the Original Ninja Foodi Indoor Grills. And this classic option offers a great deal with its different cooking functions and the lowest price among Ninja Grills.

The Ninja AG301 features a compact and classy design and it’s well optimized for indoor grilling all year long for its smokeless cooking feature.

But the most impressive thing about this indoor grill is its 5 different cooking functions. You can easily grill, air crisp, roast, bake and dehydrate food items in it.

Although it offers almost the same versatility as its other Ninja grill siblings like Ninja FG551 and Ninja IG651, it doesn’t offer any smart features like a meat thermometer.

Having a smart thermometer will surely come in handy during a grill party. However, this is not a dealbreaker as Ninja AG301’s price is less than the other two Ninja indoor grills.

You will be immediately impressed with its ability to grill food quickly and easily leaving it super chewy, flavorful, and full with great grill marks on it.

But if you want to learn more about the Ninja Foodi AG301 5-in-1 Indoor Grill, let’s find out what is so great about this grill and what’s not!

Things We Love About Ninja Fg551

Offers an affordable price than the other two Ninja grills
Contemporary touchscreen controls
5-in-1 appliance
Even cooking results
Works great with frozen foods
Can reach up to 510ºF (265ºC)
Smokeless indoor grill

It can cook 4 steaks simultaneously
Temperature control and indicator
Comes with a recipe book
Offers programmable timer
Non-stick ceramic coating accessories
Cool to touch handles
Dishwasher safe accessories
1-year warranty

Things To Consider About Ninja BN801

It’s a premium quality indoor grill so comparatively high priced than its competitions
Unit is bulky so you will need a dedicated countertop space or storage
Indirect heating system
Grill marks are quite different than the traditional stripes mark

Features of Ninja AG301 Indoor Grill

Ninja AG301 indoor grill performs better than you’d expect. When it comes to grilling, Ninja AG301 sears steaks, chicken, fish, or veggies and provides beautiful char grill marks to its perfection.

Because Ninja AG301 is able to cook food evenly, with its cyclonic grilling technology. This technology uses 500°F cyclonic air to perfectly cook or chargrill your food to your desired doneness for delicious, and flavorful results.

But that’s not all, other than grilling your favorite food, Ninja AG301 also features roast, bake, dehydrate, and air fry functions. It means this multipurpose appliance can replace several small appliances like a toaster, dehydrator, or air fryer.

Also, if you use this appliance, you can forget about the defrosting part before cooking. Because this nifty appliance can transform foods from frozen to perfectly char-grilled in just under 25 minutes.

And as for capacity, Ninja AG301 is able to roast a whole chicken in its cooking pot, or if you want, you can use its 10×10-inch grill grate for cooking small portions of meat too.

In addition, the most important thing about this indoor grill is its smokeless design. While cooking it offers totally smokeless operation so that you can use this appliance without going off your fire alarm now and then.

Altogether, the simple fact that Ninja AG301 is a versatile kitchen appliance, offering the ability to grill, roast, air fry, bake or dehydrate makes it a great appliance in our opinion.

Is Ninja AG301 Easy to Use?

As for an indoor grill, the Ninja AG301 Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill is quite easy to use. All you need to do is, preheat the grill for 8 minutes, in that time prep your food according to the recipe, after pre-heating place the food into the grill and then close the hood. After that just select the required cooking function, time, and temperature and the rest will be done by the appliance itself.

However, for some recipes like lamb chop, steaks, or marinated chicken breasts, you need to flip the food in the middle of the cooking. For your convenience Ninja AG301 comes with a manual describing which food you need to flip.

And for ease of use Ninja AG301 offers some of the most convenient features to make your cooking journey as easy as possible.

For starters, Ninja AG301 features an easy-to-use control panel with 5 different preset cooking functions, time and temperature settings, 4 heat modes as well as a digital timer. All of these are pretty straightforward so there will be no confusion understanding or using them.

As it is mainly known for being an indoor grill, the grill function is placed aside from the other 4 cooking functions. The grill controls are on the left-hand side with 4 heat modes. These heat modes differ with the program you’re using. But you can also adjust the temperature and cooking times for all of these cooking modes separately.

However, to cook the food really fast, the heat is extremely powerful in this indoor grill. So don’t forget to check up on the food otherwise you will end up with a burned or overdone meal. Also, you can start with the lowest recommended cooking time. Besides, you can check for doneness with a food thermometer to avoid overcooking.

Here’s more, assembling this appliance is super easy too. The housing comes fully assembled so all you need to do is just interchange between the accessories when needed.

Moreover, Ninja AG301’s accessories are dishwasher safe so there is no hassle for cleaning. However, as the accessories are ceramic coated it’s good to clean them manually. Because manual cleaning helps to keep the ceramic coating intact for a long period of time.

Speaking of accessories, let’s talk about Ninja AG301’s different types of cookware that help you to make delicious recipes for your friends and fam

Accessories of Ninja AG301 Indoor Grill

The Ninja AG301 comes with 3 different accessories, a cooking pot, crisper basket, and grill grate.

The grill grate comes with a 10″ x 10″ cooking surface and is perfect for grilling all kinds of meat, fish, or veggies. It leaves a nice char-grill mark on them. Note that, it doesn’t provide traditional grill marks like the strips, but the unique grill marks look as good as the regular ones.

After that, the 4 quarts crisper basket helps you to make guilt-free fried food with the help of air fry function.

Lastly, you also get a 6-quart cooking pot with this indoor grill. The cooking pot is quite multifunctional. You can use it as a cooking pot to roast, bake or dehydrate food items.

Besides, you can use it as a drip tray while air frying or grilling by placing it under the crisper basket or the grill grate. This way no food residue will reach the bottom of the appliance.

However, unlike its other siblings Ninja IG651 and Ninja FG551, Ninja Foodi AG301 does not come with any smart thermometer to check the doneness of the food. So you need to keep an eye on your food while cooking.

Apart from all these accessories you also get a chef-created 15-recipe book and a cleaning brush.

All the accessories are dishwasher safe and come with a PTFE/PFOA-free nonstick ceramic coating for easy cleanup.

FAQ About Ninja AG301 Indoor Grill

What Can I Make With Ninja AG301 Indoor Grill?

Ninja AG301 is a simple grill that has a lot to offer from juicy stakes to dehydrated fruits. But instead of giving you a long list of food items, let’s take a look at Ninja AG301’s different cooking functions and what they can make for you.

Grill

This appliance is mainly known as an indoor grill and the reason is when it comes to grilling Ninja AG301 offers top-notch performance. This function offers you fast and easy meals for your entire family.

You can make lots of delicious grilled recipes like grilled steaks, lamb chops, juicy chicken breasts, pork chops, burger patties, kebab, salmon as well as grilled veggies to perfection.

Air fry

After the grill function, the air fry is the most useful and handy cooking function of this indoor grill. You can make healthy fried food with 75% less oil than deep-fried foods.

Also, air-fried food is not only healthy but is cheaper than deep-fried food as you can skip using a high amount of cooking oil.

Using the air fry function you can make crispy chicken wings and nuggets, tater tots or cauliflower tots, chicken tenders, pakora or samosa, beef or chicken wellington, and more.

Bake and Roast

Although you probably have a countertop oven for all the baking and tasks this compact appliance can make you a quick chicken roast or a small batch of cookies with minimal effort possible.

But don’t limit yourself just with a few recipes. You can make roasted veggies, like roasted potatoes, delicious cupcakes, or even a nice loaf of bread. All of the recipes will come together nicely and you will have less cleaning to do.

Dehydrate

This is another highly useful function of this oven. This Ninja AG301 dehydrator is great for making dried fruits and beef jerky. Although the capacity for dehydrating is not so great. You can only make a small batch of recipes.

How to Clean Ninja Foodi AG301 Indoor Grill Properly?

Most of the indoor grill is very easy to clean with removable and dishwasher-safe accessories. The same goes for the Ninja Foodi AG301 Indoor Grill.

All of its accessories are removable and dishwasher safe so you can clean it without any difficulty. However, as most of the accessories are nonstick ceramic coated it’s a good choice to clean them manually. It will help you to keep the coating intact for a longer period of time.

And if you follow some tricks, manual cleanings won’t be a hassle at all.

First, you can line the cooking pot with foil paper. The foil will catch all the residue and grease so there will less food residue to clean on the cooking pot.

After that, when you are done cooking take out all the accessories used and soak them in the sink for a couple of hours or overnight. It will soften the food residue thus accessories will be easier to clean. Then scrub them with a soft soapy sponge and rinse with running water.

And as for the housing, simply wipe it with a damp cloth then use a dry smooth cloth to remove any moisture.

Is Ninja AG301 Indoor Grill Worth Buying?

If you’re looking for an all-year-round grilling experience, you should totally consider the Ninja Foodi AG301 5-IN-1 Indoor Grill. It is simple, versatile, and makes quick and delicious meals for your whole family. Moreover, it will replace several small kitchen appliances, especially an air fryer. So all things considered, Ninja Foodi AG301 5-IN-1 Indoor Grill is definitely worth your money.

However, if you want the latest indoor grill from Ninja, go check out the Ninja Foodi FG551 Smart Indoor Grill.