Ninja Foodi pressure cooker review: FD401 vs OP401 vs OP302
Ninja makes some of the best electric pressure and multi-cookers out there in the market. Excellent products backed up by happy customers make it a formidable brand in this field.
Because Ninja offers a wide variety of different cookers, it might be hard to choose the right one that fits your needs.
To make things easier for you, I’ve listed and differentiated 3 cookers by Ninja! Find out more about the Ninja Foodi FD401 vs. OP401 vs. OP302 by reading on.
These 3 are the most popular models, and each of them has a unique addition to the essential functions. Each of them is best when they’re put up against situations where they’re most suited for.
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1. Ninja Foodi FD401
The FD401 is one of the most successful products of Ninja. The FD401 comes in many different configurations. For this article, I’ll talk about the 8-quart model.
The FD401 has the usual electric cooker functions baked into it. Not only does it pressure cook food and air crisp with the help of a XL 5 quart cook and crisp basket, but it also broils, sautés, dehydrates, slow cooks, and even bakes! It comes with an 8-quart dehydrator and a skewer stand.
The tender-crisp technology of cooking makes it a unique addition to your kitchen. This time-saving cooking unit has a reversible rack and can be your best buddy when you need to cook in a hurry!
It can cook meat and defrost quickly. It’s hard to believe, but it takes as little as 20 minutes to defrost, as well as cook simultaneously.
2. Ninja Foodi OP401
This model is also available with the tender-crisp technology. It has a crisping lid, which helps make the food crispy.
It’s a perfect cooking device for large families. The basket can hold 7 lbs of food.
The device has an 8-quart pot (which is ceramic coated), pressure, and crisping lids. It comes with a 5-quart ceramic-coated cook rack made of stainless steel, crisp basket, and a recipe book!
The OP401 model is available in different configurations and colors; the 2 unique models are the one with a dehydrator and the other one with a skewer stand.
Check prices and availability here
3. Ninja Foodi OP302
The OP302, like the other 2 models mentioned above, is a highly versatile pressure cooker. The pressure cooking mode can cook food 70 times faster than open pot cooking!
The total capacity of the cooker is around 6.5 quarts. The inside of the pot coated with ceramic is non-stick, and PTFE/PFOA free. The design of both the inside and the outside of the OP302 makes it easy to clean.
The cooker also comes with a 4.5-quart crisp and cook basket; it can easily fit a 5-pound chicken inside.
The OP302 also includes an air fryer and tender-crisp technology. It allows you to make everyone’s favorite French fries with 75 times less oil and helps you cook the juiciest and crispiest chicken!
Comparison
What’s the difference between the Ninja Foodi FD401 and OP401?
The FD401 is the newer version of the OP401. Both of these come at the same price point and have somewhat similar features.
The main difference between them is that the FD401 comes with a different menu navigation system. The FD401 comes with a button knob combo. It makes navigating and selecting the different kinds of modes an effortless task.
What’s the difference between the Ninja Foodi OP401 and OP302?
The OP302 carries all of the features from the OP401 model. It has all the usual cooking modes, as well as the air frying and tender-crisp modes.
The main difference between them is that the OP302 is available in only one variant, which has a capacity of only 6.5 quarts.
The other difference is that this variant includes the dehydrate mode, along with some different modes. The OP302 also comes with the dehydration rack pre-bundled.
Even though the pressure cooker has already been around for several years, it’s still getting huge traction among cooking enthusiasts these days. And now that we’re in the modern age, these cooking devices come with innovative features and great displays.
If you’ve seen those traditional pressure cookers, then you’ve probably noticed that they come with an analog gauge right above, which displays the device’s pressure level.
But this is no longer the case in today’s pressure cookers, which is why they’re back in popularity. The pressure cookers of today are equipped with modern and innovative features.
For instance, the Ninja Foodi Pressure Cooker is very efficient at what it does. Of all the modern pressure cookers I’ve come across, this is the only model that’s certainly raised the bar for pressure cookers!
Main features
Compared to other pressure cookers, the Ninja Foodi is larger. That’s because it can do a lot more tasks. This is what makes it the most popular pressure cooker in the market now.
In front of the cooker, there’s an excellent display that’s easy for anyone to understand. Featuring a touch panel, this display allows you to set the cooker at a certain time. This is also where you’ll adjust the pressure from low to high.
The display will also let you choose the type of cooking that you want, whether it’s pressure cooking, slow cooking, steaming, air crisping, broiling, searing or sautéing, dehydrating, etc.
At the back of the Ninja Foodi, you’ll find several vents and drip cups. What’s great about the drip cup is that you can easily pull it out for cleaning.
Another thing that makes the Ninja Foodi different from the other pressure cookers is its 2-lid system. The lid that’s attached to the cooking device is actually the lid for the air fryer or air crisper. This lid is equipped with a built-in fan that circulates the air fast in order to cook crispy food without the need to deep-fry it.
When buying the Ninja Foodi pressure cooker, you’ll also get an air crisper basket made of metal, which is very useful for when you need to cook French fries or similar things. There are slots at the bottom of the basket that circulate the air and allow the oil to drip right through the main cooking pot that’s underneath it.
If you want to use it as a pressure cooker, you must use a pressure lid and leave the air-crisp lid in an open position.
For those who are already knowledgeable about using the pressure cooker, then you should be familiar with the vent valve that’s right above the cooker. There’s also a large handle that makes it easy to remove or secure the lid.
Advantages of the Ninja Foodi pressure cooker
So let’s understand how the Ninja Foodi Pressure works when cooking a 6-pound chicken.
I can say that I’m truly impressed with the way this cooking device works. In only about 30 minutes, I already have a perfectly cooked chicken! This is really fast compared to other cookers that cook 20-lb meat for 20 minutes.
I also find it very easy to use. I simply poured 1 cup of water into the pot and then put in the chicken. After that, I added some spices, then covered it with the pressured lid, turned the device on, and set it for 30 minutes.
The pressure cooker’s display shows a cursor that animatedly rotates around the display until the pressure reaches a certain level. Then the timer starts counting downwards until it’s over.
Upon opening the cooker, I was presented with a perfectly cooked chicken that tasted absolutely amazing! What’s more, the bottom of the pot had several cups of chicken broth, which I can use later on to cook the leftover meat.
I also tried using the air crisp lid for cooking some leftover fish and fries. Usually, when you heat leftover fried foods, you’ll end up with a soggy or rubbery result, which is truly a mess.
But the Ninja Food Pressure Cooker had surprisingly revived the fried foods into something that’s exactly the same as when they were first cooked! What’s more, doing it is pretty easy.
Clean-up
Another thing that I find impressive in the Ninja Foodi pressure cooker is that it can be cleaned quickly and easily. I love cooking, but I absolutely hate cleaning up afterward, which is why I am so pleased with how easy it is to clean the Ninja Foodi.
You simply have to place the inner cooking pot into the dishwasher.
The lid must be hand-washed, which I don’t mind since it rarely gets dirty. That’s because the pressure prevents the food from splattering onto the lid.
Pro & cons
Pros
- A versatile cooker that can be used as a pressure cooker, air fryer, etc.
- Easy to use
- It makes fast cooking easy
Cons
- The air pressure lid could take up space during storage
Ninja Foodi pressure cookers are the best
I’ve long been using pressure cookers for prepping meals, but out of all the pressure cookers I’ve used, I find the Ninja Foodi pressure cooker to be really impressive.
It saved me a lot of time since it cooks faster than the other pressure cookers. Plus, the food turned out really tasty, and the cooker did a great job of infusing flavor into the food.
If you have a big family to feed and need that extra capacity, then the most favorable cooker would be the Ninja Foodi FD401, the reason being its user-friendly and efficient navigation system. If you have a small or medium family to feed or if the dehydration feature is one of your main priorities, then you should go for the OP302. Lastly, the OP302 is also the best choice if you want all of the features of the Ninja Foodi FD401 and OP401 at a lower price.
Also read: Instant Pot DUO60 review, the perfect stainless steel pressure cooker
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Bitemybun's family recipes with complete meal planner and recipe guide.
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Joost Nusselder, the founder of Bite My Bun is a content marketer, dad and loves trying out new food with Japanese food at the heart of his passion, and together with his team he's been creating in-depth blog articles since 2016 to help loyal readers with recipes and cooking tips.
