Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: Simple high-heat cooking for impressive chargrilled results

If you’re searching online for one of the best grills to add to your kitchen, the Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate is an attractive option worth considering. As a well-known name in the world of countertop appliances, Ninja offers a wide range of air fryers, multi cookers and electric outdoor BBQs in its regularly-expanding range.

The Sizzle is a tabletop indoor electric grill with one hot plate. Unlike Ninja’s large collection of functional health grills, it’s the only grill that doesn’t come with an air frying feature but it does come with two interchangeable plates that allow you to switch between chargrilling and frying with little oil. It can heat up to a scorching 260°C and promises low-smoke results in the process – though this is somewhat dependent on the type of oil you cook with. Below, our in-depth review will focus on its design, performance and practicalities for whole family cooking and more.

Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: What do you get for the money?

The Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate is a mid-range health grill that, at the time of writing, costs £150. It is designed to cook up to six portions at a time and measures a neat 37.5 x 35.5 x 13.7cm (WDH). This is smaller than the bulky, similarly priced eight-portion Tefal Optigrill Elite XL GC760D40 Health Grill (£170) but larger and pricier than your average traditional-style panini and health grill, such as the budget Salter Large Health Grill (£43).

The Sizzle’s hinged design comes with a ridged grill plate that sits on top of the heating element that produces chargrilled results on lean meats and fish. It also features a separate flat plate that works much like a frying pan, so you can flip and stir food as it cooks. These sit neatly on top of the heating element and can be easily taken on and off as required. While there is no separate oil-drip tray, there is a groove at the base of each plate to capture any excess fat from the foods being cooked. The hinged lid can be left open when you’re char-grilling food or left down for when you want to melt toppings, retain the heat and help conceal any smoke. While it doesn’t come with any extras such as a set of tongs or separate oil drip tray, it does have an integrated grease catching lip built into each plate. It also comes with a quick start guide in the box that features lots of recipes to get you started.

Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: What’s good about it?

The first thing I noticed about the Ninja Sizzle is just how compact it is. While it’s slightly larger than your standard panini press, it’s slim and doesn’t feel too obtrusive on the worktop. It could be easily stored in a wide corner cupboard after use too, although it’s the type of appliance you probably won’t mind keeping on display when not in use.

Set up was easy and once I’d taken it out of the box, chosen my preferred plate and plugged it in, it was ready to use. Its 0.7m cord length is a decent size, which makes it well suited to a variety of kitchen layouts. Having used this health grill over the course of a week, I was impressed with just how versatile it is. Food such as grilled fish, chicken, a full English breakfast and steak all cooked well on its hot plates. In the Ninja recipe book, there’s also a great recipe for tofu shawarma sandwiches, but grills all types of vegetables well too, including corn on the cob.

I put the griddle plate to the test cooking steak, chicken and veggies, meanwhile the flat plate showed off its skills with some fried eggs and bacon. I was impressed at how little oil I needed to use, which is always a benefit as it makes meals healthier.

The Sizzle has a control dial that allows you to adjust the temperature settings, to a maximum of 240ºC, and the instructions suggest pre-heating for seven minutes before placing anything on the plate. Doing this is definitely necessary, as it ensured it was suitably hot and allowed for fast, even cooking. I was able to sear a medium-rare steak in about three minutes with beautiful cross-hatch chargrill marks as I turned it during cooking. When I closed the lid I was able to contain some, but not all, of the smoke as the griddle plate gave my food a crispy grilled finish. I was suitably happy with the size of the plates too and would agree that there is enough space to accommodate six small portions.

Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: How easy is it to clean?

After each use, I made sure to wipe down the main unit of the Ninja Sizzle with a damp cloth and buffed it with a dry microfibre cloth. While the plates and splatter lid are easily removable for cleaning, the hinges of the grill got fairly greasy in use and needed more attention to get them looking fresh again.

The plates of the Sizzle are positioned at a slight angle above the heating element, so grease drips down and collects in a lip at the base of the plates. This makes clean-up easier, as you can simply wait for the appliance to cool down and use a kitchen towel to wipe away any hardened grease before washing up the plates by hand. Ninja recommends hand washing the plates to prolong the life of the non-stick coating, while the splatter lid is dishwasher-safe. However, I found it easy to wash all three with warm soapy water and rinse under a warm running tap.

Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: What could be better?

While this appliance is very effective at cooking protein and vegetables, it’s worth noting that it’s only the base plate – and not the lid – that gets hot. Unlike your traditional panini maker, the lid doesn’t touch your food; it’s only there to provide cover and prevent splashes around the worktop. This means that you need to flip food over to make sure both sides are cooked. So if your primary task is to make toasted sandwiches, you might want to invest in something like the Salter Large Health Grill instead.

Ninja also suggests you can make fuller meals, such a stir fry, on the flat plate of this grill, although if making eggs were anything to go by, I’d be tempted to stick to a standard frying pan to ensure less mess. While I found my eggs cooked evenly in a matter of minutes, they slid downwards creating a mess when I initially cracked them on the plate. Having experimented a few times, I realise the trick is to ensure the plate is very hot before you place your food on top.

With this in mind, I think the control panel of the Sizzle could benefit from a timer, so that you know exactly when the plate has reached temperature. The instructions suggest giving it seven minutes to pre-heat but unless you’re timing this on your own watch or Alexa, it’s not always easy to know when the plate is hot enough for cooking.

Another quibble I have is with its smokeless claim. Ninja actively advises against olive oil or butter in favour of coconut, sunflower or rapeseed and this is likely because the former causes more smoke, meaning that the smokeless aspect of the grill isn’t really a design feature as such.

Ninja Sizzle Indoor Grill & Flat Plate review: Should you buy it?

Despite the Ninja Sizzle not being quite as smoke-free as I expected, the perforated detachable splatter lid does a great job at limiting smoke when cooking foods such as vegetables, eggs and pancakes. For meats such as a thick-cut steak, the smoke was harder to contain under the lid, so ventilation was needed. The majority of times I used it, however, I needed very little oil to cook with so this helped with smoke issues too.

Overall, the main draw of this appliance is that you can easily interchange between the griddle plate and flat plate to suit the food you’re cooking. I think it’s best used as a grill for hearty steaks, burgers, chicken and fish dishes. While it’s most effective when cooking food on its griddle plate, it’s still nice to have the option of switching to the flat plate for making American pancakes or frying eggs and bacon for breakfast, even if there is a bit of a learning curve involved.