Ninja Combi Recipe Book Review

Ninja’s Combi All-In-One Oven can steam, air fry, slow cook, and a whole load of other things. You may have already seen videos showing how it works and running through all its features, but this article is all about the results of cooking through the Ninja Combi Recipe Book that comes with it.

It is a brilliant guide that gives you a great starting point with all the different settings, but it is also not perfect. Here you will find out what does and does not work when translated from the recipe book into real life, and how you can avoid running into problems along the way. These recipes are covered in the order they appear in the book, which is not necessarily the order they were cooked in.

Salmon and Rice

First up is salmon and rice. This is one of the more detailed kickstarter recipes, and there are step-by-step pictures in the Ninja Combi Recipe Book showing you exactly how to cook it. The glaze is a mixture of honey and soy sauce, which was really tasty and brought out the colour in the salmon fillets beautifully.

You put the rice in the combi pan on the lower layer with water to cook, and then the baking tray holds the salmon fillets and a parcel of broccoli, which you add halfway through.

It is quite an easy recipe to follow as long as you pay close attention to which rice you use. The recipe specifies easy cook brown rice, and using regular brown rice instead is a mistake you do not want to make.

Regular brown rice simply does not cook in the 15 minutes the recipe allows. You would need to restart the combi on the rice setting, and it ends up taking closer to 40 minutes. That is entirely avoidable, so make sure you pick up the right rice before you start.

Chicken Fajitas, Rice and Beans

On the next page of the Ninja Combi Recipe Book is another detailed kickstarter recipe for chicken fajitas, rice and beans. This is another combi meal that takes around 20 minutes. You cook the beans and rice in the combi pan on the bottom and the chicken and peppers on the top.

There are two complaints worth mentioning here. First, the peppers produce quite a lot of liquid, which spills out into the rest of the baking tray and can make the chicken a little soggy. It would likely work better to cook the peppers in a full foil parcel, similar to how the broccoli was handled in the salmon recipe.

Second, you end up with a lot of rice compared to how much chicken you get. It makes for an economical dish, but it does leave you with plenty of leftover rice and possibly some disappointed family members asking for more chicken.

Tomato, Olive and Meatball Penne

The third combi meal worth covering is tomato, olive and meatball penne. You add tomato sauce to the combi pan along with oil, water, penne and black olives. On the baking tray, you lay out meatballs and garlic bread wrapped in a tin foil parcel. One issue here was that the loaf being used was too tall for the space, so it had to be cooked separately in another appliance.

After 15 minutes you combine the meatballs with the pasta. The results were pretty good overall, but the penne used in testing only required 10 minutes of cooking time, meaning that after 15 minutes in the combi it came out overcooked.

It is unlikely that any brand of penne actually needs a full 15 minutes, so whichever brand you use, you may run into this same problem. If you cook this recipe again, a good workaround is to start the meatballs about three minutes earlier and then add the pasta a little later.

Rosemary Focaccia

For those who enjoy baking, the Ninja Combi Recipe Book includes a recipe for rosemary focaccia. It is fairly simple to put together. You combine flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil, place it in a cake tin, and put it on the combi setting for 40 minutes to prove. Once the dough has risen, the instructions tell you to use your fingers to dimple the dough and then add a mixture of oil, rosemary and salt.

One practical tip here: it is much easier to add the oil mixture to the surface of the dough first and then do the dimpling. If you try to dimple before oiling, the dough sticks to your fingers and pulls back out of the holes you are trying to create.

Once dimpled and oiled, the bread goes back into the combi for 20 minutes on combi crisp with 240ml of water in the combi pan. The results were fine, but this is not really a proper focaccia recipe, and there are honestly better recipes available elsewhere.

Baked Potatoes

You can also cook baked potatoes in the combi using the combi crisp setting with water at the bottom of the combi pan and the potatoes on the crisper plate. The Ninja Combi Recipe Book recommends 50 minutes, but even then, larger potatoes may come out barely cooked enough.

It is also not entirely clear what you gain from cooking baked potatoes this way. A much quicker and arguably better method is to use a microwave first and then finish them off on the air fry setting. The results tend to be much better and the time investment is far lower.

Also Read : Best Air Fryer Accessories for 2026

Pain au Chocolat

There is a recipe for pain au chocolat in the Ninja Combi Recipe Book with a very impressive-looking photo. It is worth pointing out that photos in recipe books are not always pictures of food made using that exact recipe. Sometimes they are generic stock images, and that appears to be the case here.

If you follow the recipe, the first thing you will notice is that the pain au chocolat turn out completely different dimensions to those in the photo. They look more like sausage rolls. They do fluff up over the 32 minutes they spend in the combi, because steam baking in this oven is genuinely excellent, but they also stick to the non-stick crisper plate, leaving you with a complete mess that looks nothing like the photo. Clearly, this recipe was not properly tested before it made it into the book.

For comparison, frozen pain au chocolat were tried on combi bake using baking paper to solve the sticking problem. While they normally cook in an air fryer in about six minutes or in a preheated conventional oven in eight minutes, steam cooking them takes around 20 minutes followed by six minutes of cooking.

The results, however, are fantastic. They fluff up beautifully and come out roughly twice the size they normally would. If you have the time, this is the preferred approach going forward.

Apple Cake and Chocolate Cheesecake

The apple cake is one of the standout successes in the Ninja Combi Recipe Book, so much so that it has already been cooked twice. The recipe calls for two apples, though using four small ones from the garden works just as well. You add water to the combi pan, place the cake tin on the crisper plate on top, and cook on combi bake. The result is really light, moist and fluffy. It is lovely served warm with clotted cream or enjoyed cold with a cup of tea.

Another baking success is the chocolate cheesecake, cooked on combi bake with water in the base of the combi pan. The cheesecake base is made from chocolate digestives and butter, and then cream cheese is whisked with sugar and vanilla essence before eggs and chocolate melted with cream are added. It takes 25 minutes to bake, including the steaming time, and it is absolutely worth repeating.

Crispy Parmesan Broccoli

Something worth cooking multiple times is the crispy parmesan broccoli, which is done on the air fryer setting. You mix parmesan, olive oil, garlic powder and balsamic vinegar together with the broccoli. One thing to be aware of is that when balsamic vinegar is included in the mixture, the broccoli tends to burn more quickly, so keep a close eye on it during cooking.

Mac and Cheese

This is perhaps the most important warning in the entire Ninja Combi Recipe Book review. The mac and cheese recipe is missing one key ingredient. The recipe instructs you to combine three types of cheese with milk, water, salt and pasta. After 20 minutes, what you are left with is a horrible mess of watery, congealed fat and pasta. The reason is simple: there is no flour in the mixture to bind everything together.

To salvage it, approximately 75 grams of flour can be slowly mixed into the pan, then topped with breadcrumbs and put back in the oven on the grill setting. It becomes edible, but it is not worth repeating. A better approach is to find a reliable mac and cheese recipe, make the sauce properly, and then put the finished dish in the combi pan on the bake setting just as you would in a conventional oven.

Roast Chicken

It is also worth mentioning that roast chicken in this oven delivers excellent results. Some of the larger two-kilogram chickens can be a tight squeeze, so it is worth either spatchcocking the chicken or simply breaking the breastbone to make it lie flatter.

Ninja recommends a chicken between two and two and a half kilograms, cooked on the crisper plate with water underneath in the combi pan for 35 to 40 minutes. That is less than half the time it would take in a conventional oven, and the results are genuinely impressive.

Slow Cooked Bolognese

The last dish covered is slow cooked bolognese, which the Ninja Combi Recipe Book lists as taking four hours and 15 minutes in total, with 15 minutes for prep and four hours on the slow cook setting. The reality is that the prep takes considerably longer than advertised. From getting the ingredients out to switching to the slow cook mode, it was closer to a full hour.

The process involves preheating the pan, cooking the vegetable mix on the hob setting for six minutes, adding tomato paste for a minute, then browning the mince, which the recipe suggests takes five minutes but actually took closer to ten. Then the wine goes in for three minutes, followed by tinned tomatoes and milk.

The milk is included to balance the acidity of the tomatoes, though a teaspoon of sugar would achieve the same result with a less runny sauce. Adding a beef stock cube is also recommended to boost the flavour. After four hours, the result is a solid bolognese, and next time around, two stock cubes and no milk would make it even better.

Final Thoughts on the Ninja Combi Recipe Book

The Ninja Combi Recipe Book is a helpful starting point and gives you a good introduction to the range of things this oven can do. However, it is not without its flaws. Some recipes have missing ingredients, others have not clearly been tested, and a few simply do not deliver results that match the photos. The most important thing to remember is that when a recipe does not work out, it is not always your fault. Sometimes the book itself is the problem.

If you are new to the Ninja’s Combi All-In-One, use the recipe book as a guide but stay willing to adapt, adjust and experiment as you go. The oven itself is genuinely capable of producing outstanding results when the recipes are sound or when you bring your own knowledge to the table.

Read More: Ninja Combi All-in-One Multicooker & Air Fryer Review