Ninja Crispi Air Fryer: Chicken pasta bake

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While I might have left uni over six years ago, I still cook like a poor student. Except, nowadays, I’m just poor. Pasta bakes are an easy to make, low cost meal, even made with chicken. 

In our how to shop on a budget article, we cover how to keep meat protein in your diet without breaking the bank. 

Whether you’ve got a Ninja Crispi, a drawer-style air fryer, or a multicooker, you’ll be able to read this test article and leave with the confidence that you’ll be able to use it to make your own budget pasta bake for two.

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How much would a pasta bake for two cost?

• 2x chicken breasts = £1.35 (from Tesco 950g chicken breasts, £6.50)
• Fusilli pasta = 30p (from Tesco 500g fusilli, 65p)
• 1 green pepper = 30p (Aldi wonky peppers, bag of four, £1.29)
• Vegetable stock cube = 10p (Tesco vegetable stock, £1.10)

Price estimates 

• Frozen peas = 10p (Tesco Growers Harvest, 900g for £1.15)
• Cheddar = 20p (grated from a Tesco 700g mature cheddar block, £4.70)

Spice cupboard 

• It was impossible to price up a pinch of this and a quarter of a spoon of that, so I’ve left these off the pricing

After cooking and serving, this was enough for two dinners and a leftover lunch. The whole chicken pasta bake would’ve cost £2.41. If we’d served equal size portions, this meal would be 85p per serving.

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Cooking the chicken

Before cooking the chicken, I prepped it with some basil, parsley, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, and garlic powder. 

Then following Ninja’s instruction booklet, I added them to the small Crispi container, on the crisper plate, selected Air Fry, and given how the Crispi guidelines overcooked chicken mini fillets, I set the timer to the low end of the 22-25 minute guide time. 

After 13 minutes (nine left on the timer), I flipped the chicken. At this point, the chicken was clearly raw in the middle – see the photo below.

Back in they went, my hopes of them being down after 22 minutes were quite low at this point. However, the remaining nine minutes, the Crispi pulled a blinder.

The exterior had some light colouring in places, and the interior was at that lovely point of done – soft, juicy, and won’t poison you.

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The pasta, the veg, and the sauce

The Ninja Crispi isn’t suitable for boiling pasta, so this was done separately on the stove. While the pasta was cooking, the Crispi was lightly frying some wonky green pepper and peas. 

To avoid going shopping and spending more money, this Ninja Crispi pasta bake test was made with what we affectionately call “Cupboard Sauce”. Basically, anything in the cupboard that could possibly be put together to make a sauce would do the job. In this case, a vegetable stock cube, some dried parsley, and garlic. Think: Chicken flavour Super Noodle sauce. 

Once the pasta was al dente I combined it with the chicken – now shredded – and the veg in the large Crispi container (cripser plate removed) and topped it off with some grated cheddar to give it that golden finish.

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Ninja Crispi pasta bake settings

With this pasta bake, the trusty recipe book said to Air Fry for 14 minutes, stirring at 7 minutes. However, as I was after the grated cheese on top, staying on top, I didn’t follow this step. I also added a minute as the recipe said nothing about a crispy top. 

Air Fry mode with 15 minutes on the timer; in the oven, a golden, slightly charred top, would take around 45 minutes, so this 15 minutes marked the ‘check it’ time. 

15 minute check

As you can see, the high points were dark, the cheese melted and it did look done. Depending on your personal preference when it comes to the crispy top on a pasta bake, you might want to put it on for an extra few minutes, but otherwise, at this point, it would be considered done.

Plus four minutes 

I’m Team Dark and Crispy, so I replaced the Crispi lid and added another four minutes of air frying to the timer. This was my partner’s limit on crisp, so would have to do.

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Would I use the Ninja Crispi Air Fryer to make a pasta bake for two again?

Yep. Ingredients used in the quantity above, this budget bake served us both with a decent portion, and there was enough leftover for a small lunch. Maybe next time I’ll plan ahead and make a creamy cajun chicken pasta bake instead.

Once constructed, it took a total of 19 minutes to reach our desired level of crisp, compared to the oven’s 45 minutes (not including the time it would take to preheat).

The only downside was the overall temperature of the food – the top layer was hot, the pasta on the bottom? Not so much. This was the same result when I made a cottage pie in the Crispi, so the variable temperature wasn’t a one off. We had a similar hot top, lukewarm bottom issue when making shepherds pie in the Foodi Max. 

With some more pasta and vegetables, I reckon the large container would be able to hold enough to feed four for dinner. To test that out, I’ll need to find two more dinner guests, so watch this space.

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