It can be tiring to meal prep, so I’ve been trying out Ninja’s 8-mode PossibleCooker at home to see if combining hob-style cooking with the charms of a standard slow cooker can help me to cut down on my weekly cooking time.
This new product is in the same family of the best slow cookers from the brand as the Ninja 8-in-1 PossibleCooker, which we’ve previously reviewed (and has an extremely similar name!) but the functionality between these two products is different, as well as the size.
Both can slow cook, steam, sauté and keep food warm. But while the original can braise, simmer, prove and bake, this newer version is instead equipped with white rice, brown rice, porridge and pasta modes. Here’s how I got on with it.
In a nutshell
This cooker is so capable – it’s the perfect buy if you want to cut down food preparation time for family meals or multiple meals for one.
The settings I’ve used the most are the standard slow cook and the rice cooker, but this cooker comes into its own with the chance to combine different modes too. For one recipe, I seared meat then used slow cook to bring together a sauce and then turned the cooker up high for cooking noodles. Being able to do all of that in one pot is a huge draw.
Another pro is that you can remove the cooking pot from the unit in order to pop it in the oven or serve at the table and it’s dishwasher safe too. I think the overall design of the cooker is pretty pleasing and the digital controls are so straightforward for anyone to use.
My only complaints are that not being able to use metal utensils can be tiresome (like when I wanted to blend up a soup in the pot) and that if you’ve had the pot on low all day then switching it to high will cause it to boil over.
Aside from those niggles, this slow cooker totally lived up to my expectations and I’ve used it no end in the weeks I’ve had it.
Specs
- Capacity: 6 litres
- Modes/ presets: slow cook, sear/sauté, keep warm, white rice, brown rice, porridge, pasta steam
- Weight: 5.5kg
- Size: (H)28 x (W)42 x (D)29cm
- RRP: £119.99
Who tested this slow cooker?
Design and unboxing
Slow cookers aren’t famed for their designs, but I’d say that this PossibleCooker is the best looking one I’ve found so far. I like that the control panel is kept small and that the pot is on full display.
The pot itself is lightweight and the handle of the glass lid slots neatly into the side handles when you need to check on your food.
The controls consist of three buttons: function, temperature and time. You use function to dial through the 8 different presets and the temperature can either be set to ‘High’ or ‘Low’ – there is no middle temperature.
Cooking
I’ve broken this section down by function so you can see how they differ.
Slow cook
First up was the mode you’ll probably be using most: slow cook. I started out with a sweet potato and halloumi soup (with the recipe courtesy of my favourite at-home cooking Instagram account Bored of Lunch – this one is part of an excellent six ingredient slow cooker series and only has two steps to it!).
I chopped the veg and added it to the pot with stock. I then left it on low for six hours.
I returned to perfectly soft veg that I could blitz up with my hand blender. But this is where my first niggle with this cooker comes in, as the pot is not metal utensil safe, as using them could damage the non-stick.
So I decanted into a jug to blend and then popped it back in again to finish the soup off. No big fuss, but it would have been nice to complete it all in one.
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This recipe was so low-effort and went off without a hitch – with about 20 minutes of prep time in total, I felt like I’d cheated my way to an easy dinner that went down a storm.
Next up I tried this honey garlic chicken noodles recipe, another simple six ingredient number which I added more veggies to. As i was a little shorter on time this day I used the slow cook mode for three hours on ‘High’ to bring the sauce together and cook the chicken.
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It worked a treat, meaning all I needed to do was add the noodles in with some stock and wait for them to cook. This took 15 minutes, giving me time to clean the kitchen and get ready to plate up, though noodles do take considerably less time in a pan on the hob. Personally, I was happy with this all-in-one method as I love anything that saves on the washing up.
As the noodles were cooking, I did notice that there was a tendency for the liquid to bubble up on ‘High’, as the heat coming from the unit was too powerful. With only High, Medium and Low modes to choose from, the only solution to stop boiling was to take it off the heat for a minute. I’ve seen other reviewers noting this on the Ninja website, so it looks like there’s room for improvement when it comes to that super high heat.
Sauté
You can use this cooker like a hob if you need to thanks to the high heat setting, which I used to brown meat on several occasions during testing. The first time was when trying this burger bowl recipe from Bored of Lunch where I swapped the instruction to cook in a pan for cooking in the pot.
The pot got up to heat so quickly and nothing stuck when cooking the mince. It was a quick and easy process and it helps that you can stick the pot into the dishwasher after too.
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I also used the sauté mode to sear chicken for the noodle recipe I mentioned earlier under slow cooking and found it spacious enough for a whole pack of chicken thighs to fit comfortably and brown well.
Grains
One of the biggest pros of this PossibleCooker over the earlier version is the emphasis on modes for cooking grains. Two rice modes, a porridge mode and a pasta setting make it a handy gadget for supplementing cooking on the hob.
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Markings on the inside of the pot make it so easy to master white rice. The entire cooking process took under 30 minutes. While doing it on the hob might be faster, popping it into the cooker and getting on with the rest of my dinner was a lot easier.
Cleaning
You can put the lightweight pot into the dishwasher, along with the lid, which saves so much time on washing up. The non-stick surface works really well too, so even if you’re handwashing you shouldn’t run into too much trouble.
How does it compare to similar products?
The most obvious comparison is to the OG Possible Cooker (£149.99 at Ninja). More expensive by £30 and with a larger capacity (8 litres compared to 6), it’s really a matter of which modes you’ll use most if you’re picking between these two. I personally lean more towards this one with a rice function, but my fellow reviewer Helen still called the original version ‘far more useful than most slow cookers’.
At £119.99, this cooker is still far more expensive than you need to spend for a standard slow cooker. If you just want that one mode, then I love the Crockpot Lift and Serve which still has the pot you can carry to your table, but comes in at less than £50 (£44.99 at Amazon).
Should you buy the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker 8-in-1?
If you like the idea of a slow cooker with a rice mode that you can also use as a second hob, this is a fantastic buy. Everything about it is easy to use and the level of power you get is impressive. It’s a little annoying you can’t use metal within the pot, but that’s very minor. I’ve only been using this cooker for a few weeks and it’s already become a staple in my kitchen.
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