Ninja Crispi Air Fryer: Cheese toastie testing

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Making a cheese toastie under a grill is simple: 

1. Make a cheese sandwich
2. Remove the top slice and grill the cheese until bubbling
3. Put your top slice back then toast
4. Flip and toast the bottom slice
5. Eat

But how different is it making a cheese toastie in the Ninja Crispi Air Fryer? 

~ Our favourite air fryers ~

Process

The process is similar to above, but with less steps:

1. Make your cheese sandwich
2. Set the Crispi to Air Fry for 12 minutes, start 
3. Flip sandwich with eight minutes left on the timer
4. Eat

That’s the Ninja Crispi recipe in a nutshell.  Seemingly simple. Let’s go. 

My test cheese sandwich was made of thickly sliced mature cheddar, with each slice around 0.4cm thick. For bread, I’d used a seeded bloomer loaf from Aldi.

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What did the recipe produce?

Following the cooking instructions, a 12 minute Air Fry wasn’t long enough to melt all the cheese. Disappointingly, around half of my mouthfuls contained fridge-cold cheese. It was a bit jarring considering I was expecting a molten hot interior. 

How was the toasting? The side of the sandwich in contact with the crisper plate the longest was the darkest side. No matter the length of time facing up or touching the crisper plate, each slice had a light circle in the centre and the toasting across the rest of the slice wasn’t even.

The position of the light circle was directly under the Crispi lid fan – and as the sandwich was tight to the edges of the small container – shifting the sandwich to the left or right to darken this section wouldn’t be possible.

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Would I make a toastie cheese in the Ninja Crispi Air Fryer again?

Potentially not. If I were to do it again, I’ll either use grated cheese, rather than sliced, or a longer cooking time. 

It is possible that my cheese slices were too thick compared to those the recipe was designed around, and using grated will mean I can rule this out. If I did it again with slices, I’d definitely put it on for an extra minute or two.

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Cheese toastie attempt two 

Following my first attempt at a cheese toastie, I decided to try again, only this time I grated the cheese instead. 

And good news: the cheese slices used in my first attempt were too thick. The smaller, thinner grated pieces melted evenly and I didn’t encounter any cold spots. Winner winner.

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Cheese toastie attempt three

After my first attempt, I theorised that to avoid unmelted cold spots, thin sliced cheese could also solve the problem. So I tried it. 

For cheese toastie attempt three, the cheese was sliced wafer-thin. Practically see-through in places. The grated cheese in attempt two was thicker, and since that resulted in an even melt, my hopes were high. And luckily, my hopes weren’t met with crushing disappointment. After 12 minutes in the Crispi, my toasted bread was separated by a thick layer of oozy cheddar.

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Ninja Crispi Air Fryer cheese toastie: Verdict

My recommendation for a cheese toastie in a Ninja Crispi? Grate your cheese. While wafter-thin slices produced more ooze, grating the cheese was far quicker.