Ninja Possible Cooker Pro

[mgaretz]

I just got one of these at Costco.  It's the Pro model and included a bonus steam rack.  They had them for $89.95 while Amazon has them from $130 up without the rack (which sells for $21).  I have never been happy with the slow cooker mode on my InstantPot so I decided to give one a try.

 

 

It has an 8.5 qt capacity with a lightweight (aluminum?) insert that has a nice non-stick coating.  Ninja seems to have upped their non-stick game.  The pot is oven safe to 500F but can't be used on the stovetop.  The appliance has 8 functions: slow cook (hi and low), sear/sauté, steam, keep warm, sous vide, braise, bake and proof.  I have only used the slow cook mode on low, braise appears to be virtually identical to slow cook on hi, sear gets hot pretty quick and lets you know when it's ready to add food.  I wouldn't trust the sous vide but I don't need to as I have other appliances for that.  Probably never bake or proof in it either but might use the steam.  Comes with a nylon spoon that fits into a hole in the glass lid's handle, acting as a spoon rest.  Looks good in the picture buy once you use the spoon you wouldn't return it to the handle unless you rinsed an dried it first (unless you wanted to drip on the lid).

 

In short, the slow cooker functions virtually the same as a crock pot, which is good and to me the lightweight pot is much better than the heavy crock.  Much easier to wash and the non-stick worked well.  Plus I used the sauté function to quickly heat the cooking liquid to thicken it with a cornstarch slurry.  It heated quickly.  As a test, I made a couple of pork loin chops (thick) with onion soup mix, water, carrots and potatoes.  Cooked on low for 8 hours and it came out good.

 

 

Now lets talk about the dubious claim on the box that it replaces 14 cooking utensils.  Here's a picture of the label:

 

 

I am sure you can tell from the list that the marketing department really had to stretch on this one.  My favorite is that it replaces an integrated spoon.  

 

All-in-all I am happy with it and I just wish it had multi-phase cooking modes where you could start a slow cook on high for a couple of hours then switch to low.

 

[Maison Rustique]

Thanks for posting this. A few years ago, my ancient slow cooker died. I absolutely loved it---it was huge, had a stoneware insert and worked great. Naturally, they didn't make them anymore. I found another with a stoneware insert and it was even bigger, so I went for it. Well, at that time I still had a husband who ate and was hosting lots of holiday dinners. Now, I've got this behemoth that is very difficult to store and I never use it. I just might pitch it and pick up one of  these if my Costco has them. I plan to go today or tomorrow so will check. I want to get measurements for it and check the one I've got. to make sure it is enough smaller that I'll be happy with it.

[Smithy]

@mgaretz, I too appreciate seeing a writeup on this, and look forward to seeing what else you do with it. I looked at these some time back and thought they looked like a possible replacement for our large crockpot with the removable insert. The drawback I could see was the size: 8.5 quart looked too big for us. Now that I'm a singleton, like @Maison Rustique, I know it would be too big. (The current crockpot with removable insert is 6 quarts.) Did you happen to see whether they made smaller versions of this? I don't see it on their website.

[ElsieD]

Costco Canada sells them for $170.

[mgaretz]

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

Did you happen to see whether they made smaller versions of this? I don't see it on their website.

I don’t think they do.