Best Ninja Pressure Cooker Air Fryer Combos: Which of 4 Models Wins?

The OL701 is the Ninja we would buy again, because one attached SmartLid handles pressure cooking, steam-frying, and air frying with a slider and no lid swapping. The probe tracks doneness in every mode, and our whole roast chickens came out well. Air frying browned steamed potato wedges deeply, but ribs cooked unevenly and rice turned sticky.

Cleanup shows both the best and the worst of the machine. The nonstick pots rinse fast, and caked-on rice comes off in seconds, but the heating element and fan cannot be removed from the lid, so we run the Steam function for 30 minutes to loosen residue before wiping it.

Steam Crisp mode is loud, on the order of a hair dryer, and at about 25 lb and nearly 15 in tall the unit is a two-hand lift that will not fit under many cabinets with the lid open. The fan is the weak point, since some units stop working shortly after a year.

Where the OL701 trades capacity for a probe, the FD401 gives up the probe for room, since its 8-qt pot and 5-qt basket hold up to a 7-lb chicken. For a family dinner we pressure cook a rack of ribs until they turn fall-off-the-bone tender, then switch to the crisping lid for Brussels sprouts, and the same combination suits chicken. Rice runs moist and sticky rather than fluffy, and air fry results are on par with dedicated air fryers.

The cleanup is where it loses points. The attached crisping lid gets greasy when food spatters and needs awkward scrubbing, the heating element cannot be removed and cakes with grease, and the basket's legs and crevices trap food. Dehydrate mode is very loud. The first failures tend to involve the fan, the power plug, or the nonstick coating separating from the bottom of the pot.

The FD302 steps down from the 8-qt models to the balanced pick for smaller households, because its 6.5-qt pot and 4.6-qt Cook & Crisp Plate fit a 5-lb chicken or a 6-lb roast without taking over the counter. It is 11-in-1, adding sous vide to the usual pressure, air fry, and slow cook modes.

In our kitchen the nonstick pot and crisper plate clean up easily, but cooking times run longer than the recipe card suggests, so we plan dinner earlier. We rank it third because our findings on it are thinner than on the models above.

If the FD302 is the middle pick, the OS301 is the cheapest way in, at roughly $160 at retail, and it still does the core job well. Chicken pressure cooks in 15 to 20 minutes and ribs in about 25 minutes, and both come out juicy and fall-off-the-bone tender, with room for a 5-lb chicken or a 6-lb roast.

The hinged crisping lid stays attached and out of the way while we pressure cook, but the two-lid switch has a learning curve, and at 27 lb the unit is bulky to shuffle in and out of a cabinet. The basket is tight for a family of four.