Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Oven reviewed

Sometimes, a gadget is so well executed that you wonder how you ever lived without it. This was the case with the Ninja Woodfire Outdoor Oven, which is now a regular part of my cooking repertoire.

The oven feels solidly built and is crafted from stainless and enamelled steel. It has a distinctive terracotta-coloured hood, the front fascia housing a digital display with dials for selecting specific cooking presets. The door on the oven feels solid and gives a satisfying “thunk” when closed.

In addition to the oven, you also get a heavy-duty roasting tray, an alloy pizza peel, a small bag of wood pellets (more on these later), several booklets, and that all-important pizza stone.

The Woodfire Outdoor is roomy at 410(H) x 570(W) x 510(D), meaning it has enough height and depth to roast a chook or large dinner. Its width also enables it to accommodate a large 12-inch pizza. These dimensions also mean that it’s easily packed up and moved to free up space after use. While its name suggests that it burns wood to cook, the oven is electric and doesn’t use gas, charcoal or wood for heat, making it safe for apartment balconies. An extension cord that can reach the nearest power outlet is, however, a must.

On the side of the oven is a small door that houses a wood pellet tray. When cooking, filling this with wood pellets and activating the woodfire button on the control panel adds a wonderful smoky flavour to your food. It also generates plenty of smoke, so using the oven outside and away from open windows/doors is a must, unless you fancy everything in your home smelling like you’ve had a house fire. While Ninja generously supplies a small sample bag of pellets, any food-safe wood pellets bought from most BBQ shops can be used.

The control panel sports a large, bright, and easy-to-read digital display. The oven also helpfully beeps at each cooking stage, such as igniting the wood pellets, pre-heating, telling you to insert food, and even reminding you to remove the food. In short, everything felt so idiot proof that even I got it right. Dials on either side of the digital control panel give you access to eight cooking settings that adjust the pre-heating/cooking times and temperatures accordingly.

The left-hand side dial lets you choose from Pizza, Max Roast, Gourmet Roast, Top Heat, Bake, Smoker, Dehydrate and Warm settings. The dial on the right-hand side allows you to customise the finish of your pizza from a choice of Artisan (for a lot of tasty crust charring), a Thin setting (for faster cooking), a Pan setting (for thicker Chicago deep dish style pizza) and a New York Style (where you’ve got oodles of toppings on a thin crust). Last but not least, there’s also a Calzone setting, and you can choose a Custom setting as well. The only design issue that didn’t win me over was the lack of a window on the oven door. Being able to eyeball the cooking process would have been extremely useful.

As they say, “the proof is in the pudding” (erm, pizza), and getting good results proved effortless. Pre-heating takes about 12-15 minutes, depending on which oven mode you’re using, but the actual pizza cooking takes just 2-3 minutes.

My first test of the oven was a homemade focaccia bread. Using the custom mode, I cooked it at 220°c for 20 minutes. The results? A super light, crusty and tasty bread. Rosemary from our garden added a hint of herbaceousness while lightly sprinkled flaked salt gave the odd flavour burst that complemented the bread’s chewy, crusty/yeasty goodness. Similarly, subsequent pizzas equalled, and dare I say it, rivalled many pizzas I’ve paid to eat in restaurants. That said, spending a decent amount of time learning the myriad of tricks and techniques surrounding the whole pizza-making process made a huge difference.

The other useful trick involved letting the machine preheat while igniting the pellets instead of igniting them after I’d started cooking. Doing this gave everything a delicate smoky taste rather than the overpowering smokiness that dominated all other flavours. That said, it was almost impossible to get a bad result by following the instructions on the control panel display.

My first pizza cooked in the Artisan mode had a base and crust that were perfectly puffed and charred. There was plenty of bubbling mozzarella, and the pizza base was crisp yet chewy. Bliss!

Once the cooking process has been completed, the ashes left in the wood pellet box need to be emptied, and this is done when everything has cooled down. When the oven had cooled, I found wiping it down with a damp cloth to be the best cleaning method. As expected, the inside of the oven was soon discoloured thanks to frequent pellet smoking. The pizza stone needs to be wiped clean, but according to the manual, it should never be washed.

You’ll need a stable surface to place the oven on, so a small tabletop is a must (you can alternatively buy the optional stand sold by Ninja). Unfortunately, an oven cover is not included. This isn’t a deal breaker, as the oven is easily packed and stored when not in use, but it would be handy.

So, is the Ninja Woodfire Oven a winner? Thanks to its super-easy-to-use presets, wide temperature range and portability, it’s a super convenient and versatile choice for anyone wanting to level up their pizza game. Sealing the deal is the oven’s super reasonable 800 bucks sticker price, which is a fraction of the cost of a traditional brick woodfired pizza oven. If you get your dough and pizza sauce-making techniques right, you’ll get stellar results every time.

https://ninjakitchen.co.nz/products/ninja-woodfire-outdoor-oven