Review: Ninja Crispi Portable Glass Air Fryer

Look, I technically didn’t need to be out here air-frying french fries in the snow. But I wanted to know that it was possible—that someday, in case of dire emergency, I could crisp up some Buffalo wings outside in a blizzard.

I had been guardedly optimistic about the portable Ninja Crispi air fryer when it was announced. The device is a radical departure from other basket or oven-style air fryers: Its heater and fan are just a detachable lid placed atop a separate cooking dish of borosilicate glass. It’s nifty idea, but would the glass offer enough insulation to keep temp while cooking?

And so here I was on my frozen back patio, setting down a Crispi onto a thin dusting of ice as an extreme test. Besides: I had heard, from my mountain-loving editor, tales of soggy wings at base camp as other air fryers failed to heat up enough near the ski slopes. Some people apparently lead lives like this.

And yet no worry was needed. Even sitting in subfreezing Philly weather, the Crispi lived up to its name. The air fryer’s internal temperature crested 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The fries were golden-crisp, and so were the nuggets. There was much jubilation.

This experiment, finally, was the clincher: I love this little thing.

The Ninja Crispi, released last fall, turns out to be one of the most useful compact cooking devices I’ve seen in some time. It is henceforth invited to any and all potlucks and grid-connected campsites. And if I ever regularly go back to an office, it will become my office air fryer. I also expect it to be a regular sight in college dorm rooms and tiny New York apartments.

A New Concept in Air Frying

So what makes it interesting? The Crispi is a wacky outlier in the world of air fryers, one of few true innovations since the first wave of basket fryers changed the American countertop landscape a decade back.

As other recent air fryers have gone large, adding dual baskets or rotisserie spits, the Crispi went very small. Small tends to be where air fryers work best. The 1,500-watt Crispi weighs a mere 3 pounds or so and looks a bit like a Pilgrim hat with an 8-inch brim. The bottom of the “hat” is the air fryer’s fan and heating element. The top is the control panel. The device will fit in some, but not all, purses.

To cook food, the Crispi must be placed atop the 6-cup or 4-quart borosilicate glass air frying “baskets” that come with the device—which are really more like casserole dishes, with finger-safe handles and Tupperware-style lids. There’s an adapter to allow the Crispi to fit the larger 4-quart size. The coatings on the crisping plates, as with many Ninja products, are PFAS-free ceramic.

Plug the Crispi in, turn it to one of four air frying settings, and hit Go. That’s it. When the food’s done, doff the air fryer. Now the basket is a table-ready serving dish, complete with handles and a base. Put the airtight lid on top, and the dish is now your fridge or travel container. Luckily, both are remarkably easy to clean—easier than most nonstick metal baskets, in fact.

This makes the Crispi an ingenious exercise in economy—a zero-counter-space solution that has caused one UK writer to hail it as an air fryer for the housing crisis. Another writer thought the device was maybe perfect for Zoomers, whatever this means.

Either way, the Crispi struck a nerve. Even with a $160 price tag, hefty in the air fryer world, the Crispi has sold out multiple production runs since the device was released in September 2024.

A Fuzzy Thermostat

Now, let’s be clear. There are trade-offs. Strictly judged by cooking performance, the Crispi is far from the best air fryer you can buy for the price. The fryer has just four somewhat squishy settings: Recrisp, Bake, Air Fry, and Max Crisp. The latter two blast air at high speeds, the first two at a whisper.

A sticker on the Crispi promises somewhat-dodgy temperature ranges for each setting, from 375 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. In practice, even these fudged temperatures can’t fully be trusted.

For one thing, you’ll get different cooking temps and airflow depending on whether you use the large or small dish. On either, the Crispi tends to run at least 10 degrees colder than advertised, a thermostat issue that has dogged other Ninja devices I've tested. To get above 400 degrees Fahrenheit, whether indoors or on a frigid winter patio, choose the 425-degree Max Crisp setting. The Air Fry setting will get you closer to 390.

Luckily, the vast majority of air fryer recipes I encounter seem to exist in this temperature range. And the Crispi gets whip-fast air circulation, likely helped along by its wee cooking chamber.
So whatever its fuzzy thermostat, the Crispi is excellent for traditional air fryer foods such as wings, nuggets, french fries, bacon, and Brussels sprouts. Things that want to be crisped will be crisped, and apparently cold weather doesn’t faze it much.

But the Crispi’s shallow cooking basket can exaggerate an air fryer’s natural flaws as well as its virtues. The fryer setting on the Crispi tends to obliterate vegetables like broccoli or zucchini. The gale-force hot winds will singe a sliced gourd well before it’s cooked and will hollow its center of sugars. Broccoli straight-up withers. Most vegetables will want to be cooked longer on the Bake setting or in another device.

Hot for Office Worker

But the Crispi remains a magic trick for dorm or hotel room cookery. For those with small apartments and a love of hot wings, this thing stashes away like a champ when it’s not needed, leaving room for a more versatile toaster or combi oven on your main counter. (Though it does have a lot of parts to keep track of: dish, dish, lid, lid, cooking plate, cooking plate, large-dish adapter, air fryer.)

But the Crispi’s real talent, and the reason I find it so useful, is playing to the reasons you’d want it to be portable in the first place. Specifically, the Recrisp setting makes the device a tiny savior at reheating meals for a potluck or office lunch. The beauty is in the versatility of that glass casserole-style dish and its airtight lid suitable for storage.

Keep a Crispi at work and you can simply ferry the cooking basket back and forth as a casserole dish, to liven up home or restaurant leftovers far more appetizingly than any sad work microwave. Wetter ingredients such as pilaf or mac and cheese can go directly onto the glass bottom. Crispy ingredients and meats file atop the nonstick cooking plate.

I’ve used the Crispi to revivify noodles ranging from rotini to chow fun—which take on a pleasant Maillard edge upon reheat. With a splash of water added, day-old rice can likewise live another day. Especially, the Crispi is perfect for yesterday’s pizza. A day-old slice, livened up six minutes on Recrisp, can taste better and crisper than a takeout pizza that’s spent 15 minutes in a hot box on the way home.

Though the air fryer settings can blast with a bit of volume, the Recrisp setting cooks at a surprisingly quiet hum that’s suitable for an office cubicle. The volume registered on my phone app at around 45 decibels, the apparent intensity of “libraries” and “bird songs.”

When the meal’s done, the dish can go back home to wash and be filled back up with the next day’s meal. Used this way, the Crispi might be the best portable leftover solution I know. This same portability lends the device well to campsites or potlucks where you plan to reheat food later to serve.

Besides, you never know when you’ll need crispy wings in a snowstorm, especially if you’ve got a good portable power station handy. The Super Bowl comes every year, and there are a lot of cold parking lots out there.