Do You Need a Microwave If You Have a Ninja Foodi?

With the Ninja Foodi equipped to do so many cooking tasks, you may wonder – do you need a microwave if you have a Ninja Foodi? It’s a fair question and one we have also found ourselves asking ourselves. In our house we have a Ninja Foodi 9-in-1 multicooker but have not had a microwave for a number of years.

We were contemplating getting a microwave but since we got the Nina Foodi 9-in-1 we see less and less of a need for a microwave.

Strictly speaking the Ninja Foodi and a microwave do very different jobs. But the Ninja Foodi covers a lot of the areas you’d want a microwave to cover that you could get away without a microwave.

Do You Need a Microwave If You Have a Ninja Foodi?

From our own experience at home, we believe you do not necessarily need a microwave if you have a Ninja Foodi. You can easily get away with surviving without a microwave if you have Ninja Foodi.

The Ninja Foodi has several settings that work quite well for warming up food:

• Air Fryer – Great for reheating foods like baked or roasted potatoes; fries; bread etc. What’s also great about reheating food in the air fryer is that it doesn’t leave them soggy like you sometimes get with microwaves.

• Bake/Roast – Works well for reheating things like chicken wings; roasted lamb;

• Grill – Useful for reheating foods such as pizza

• Steam – Handy if you want to reheat foods whilst keeping them very moist for example cooked rice that’s now a bit dry.

What Are The Disadvantages of Using a Ninja Foodi Instead of a Micowave?

As we’ve seen you can certainly get away with not having a microwave if you have a Ninja Foodi. However, what are some of the main disadvantages of not having a microwave and only using a Ninja Foodi?

Speed

One of the main drawbacks of only using a Ninja Foodi versus a microwave is speed. Heating up your food would be a lot quicker in a microwave than it takes in the Ninja Foodi. Ultimately the Ninja Foodi is designed to cook your food efficiently but evenly which can take time though still much faster than an oven in many instances.

However, often times it would still be much faster to set your microwave to 60 seconds and quickly heat up a plate of leftover pasta than it would be to put it in the Ninja Foodi and find a suitable setting.

Liquids

One area where you are likely to need a microwave over and above a Ninja Foodi is if you need to heat up a lot of liquids. Though strictly speaking you could heat up something like soup on the ‘bake/roast’ option, it would not work as well as doing so in a microwave.

Also if you need to use a microwave to heat up milk for your tea or milk bottles for your baby or toddler then a Ninja Foodi alone would certainly not cut it.

Which Is Cheaper To Run – Ninja Foodi or Microwave?

The cost of running the Ninja Foodi Multi-Cooker versus that of a microwave needs to be factored in when considering whether you need a separate microwave.

The Ninja Foodi is rated at 1460Watts (W) meaning with 30 minutes of use it would cost roughly £0.25 per day or £7.50 per month assuming 30 minutes a day of use (at a cost of £0.34 per kWh of electricity).

Microwaves on the other hand are typically rated at between 800 – 1000 watts. If we used a 900-watt microwave for 30 minutes a day it would cost £0.15 per day or £4.50 per month (at a cost of £0.34 per kWh of electricity).

Generally speaking it is far cheaper to run a microwave to reheat your food than it is to use your Ninja Foodi given the number of Watts the multi-cooker requires.

Conclusion: Do You Need a Microwave If You Have a Ninja Foodi?

So, do you need a microwave if you have a Ninja Foodi? In our own experience, we see that you do not necessarily need a microwave if you have a Ninja Foodi. We have a Ninja Foodi but do not have a microwave and we get on fine.

If you need to predominantly reheat leftovers then the Ninja Foodi has a range of cooking modes you can make use of.

However, if you need to heat up lots of liquids and baby milk then you’ll certainly want to make use of a microwave instead of a Ninja Foodi. In addition, it is far more expensive to run your Ninja Food than it is to use your microwave.