We Tested All the Ninja Creami Machines to Find the Best One

Tested by Beth Lipton, Jessica Harlan and Rachel Trujillo

Ninja first took kitchens by storm in 2009 when it introduced a blender meant to rival Vitamix and BlendTec, but at a fraction of the price. Since then, the company has expanded to offer affordable, thoughtfully designed countertop appliances to hit every hot product category, from air fryers to multicookers to soda makers.

The Ninja Creami line, Ninja’s line of countertop ice cream makers, first hit the market in 2021 with the Ninja Creami Breeze that went viral on TikTok, selling out products nationwide. While the company’s first model, the Creami Breeze, has been discontinued, the company still has two ice cream makers in its assortment: the Ninja Creami and the Ninja Creami Deluxe. We’ve tested all three models to see which ones could make ice cream that rivaled that of our favorite scoop shop and found one to be a clear winner for ice cream lovers. Read on for our reviews.

What is the Ninja Creami?

The Ninja Creami ice cream makers promise to make a variety of frozen desserts and drinks. The Ninja Creami has seven preset functions: Ice Cream, Sorbet, Lite Ice Cream, Smoothie Bowl, Gelato, and Milkshake. The Ninja Creami Deluxe has 10 preset functions divided between Scoopable and Drinkable options. Scoopable programs include Ice Cream, Lite Ice Cream, Sorbet, Gelato, Frozen Yogurt, and Creami Italian Ice. The Drinkable Programs include Creamiccino, Frozen Drink, Slushi, and Milkshake. It’s touted as an “11-in-1 Ice Cream and Frozen Treat Maker,” meaning the mix-in function counts as the eleventh setting. It’s worth noting that the Deluxe version lacks the Smoothie Bowl program that the Creami model has. The Ninja Creami Breeze is discontinued.

How Does the Ninja Creami Work?

Most conventional ice cream makers come with a bulky freezer bowl that must be frozen before use. The chilled ice cream base is poured into the freezer bowl, and a paddle churns the mixture until it’s frozen to the desired consistency, which often takes as long as 30 minutes.

The Ninja Creami models work a little differently: The ice cream base is prepared and frozen for 24 hours in one of the two provided containers. (It’s worth noting that while the company calls them “pints,” these containers actually hold 24 ounces each.) When it’s time to make ice cream, the container fits inside of a larger container, which is covered with a lid that holds a metal blending blade called a Creamerizer Paddle.

After the appropriate program is selected, the appliance gets to work. The rapidly spinning blade shaves and mixes the frozen-solid contents, boring its way to the bottom as the ice cream becomes creamy, and then reverses to blend the ice cream mixture as it returns to the top. Chocolate chips, fruit, nuts, and other mix-ins can be added to the churned ice cream by making a well in the center of the finished ice cream with a spoon and using the Mix Ins setting to combine them. You can even make two different flavors by processing the mix-ins in just the top part of the ice cream, scooping it out, and adding a different ingredient to the bottom half.

The Ninja Creami Deluxe has a digital countdown timer and lights that indicate when the bowl isn’t assembled correctly and what program is being selected. A spinning dial is used to select the setting, and the dial is pressed to begin the program.

What Are the Differences Between the Ninja Creami and Ninja Creami Deluxe?

The biggest difference between the Ninja Creami and Ninja Creami Deluxe are the settings. The Ninja Creami contains a Smoothie Bowl setting and the Ninja Creami Deluxe does not. The Ninja Creami Deluxe has frozen drink settings that the Creami lacks. Overall, the Ninja Creami has fewer settings with only seven, and the Creami Deluxe has 11.

How We Tested the Ninja Creami

We acquired a Ninja Creami and evaluated how simple it was to set up (very) and whether there were recipes included (there were). We made 4 items: vanilla ice cream (with egg yolks), a smoothie bowl, and an ice cream from the included recipe booklet. We also noted how simple the parts are to clean.

Smoothie Bowls Were the Standout

Smoothie bowls were the standout of this machine. To say we were impressed with the smoothie bowl feature would be an understatement: The texture was thick and creamy (similar to the gelato and sorbet feature), and the recipe was simple but beyond flavorful. If you’re experiencing homemade smoothies that taste watered down or smoothie bowls with texture more closely resembling a smoothie, this machine is your new must-have.

Our only caveat was that we did have to run the smoothie bowl setting twice to get our desired texture (after one pass it was slightly crumbly). In our opinion, this machine is worth it solely for making smoothie bowls, which we have served for both breakfast and dessert.

After a few rounds of trial and error, we found that the standard ice cream setting wasn’t giving us as good of results as the smoothie bowl setting. While the flavor was there, and the process of mixing the ingredients, freezing overnight and selecting a one-touch setting was equally easy, the resulting texture was a little drier and more crumbly than smooth and creamy, almost resembling Dippin’ Dots. We tested out the mix-in feature with the ice cream and were surprised how well it incorporated the cookies and chocolate evenly throughout the bowl. For a fun activity, it gave results that would pass as dessert but not something that would replace buying ice cream at the store.

How We Tested the Ninja Creami Deluxe

We wanted to see if the Ninja Creami Deluxe worked as well on recipes developed by Ninja for its products, as it did on other ice cream recipes. We chose two different vanilla ice cream recipes to try out with the Ninja Creami Deluxe.

The first recipe, Food Network’s Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream, is a traditional recipe using heavy cream, milk, sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks in a cooked custard. The second recipe we used, from Ninja’s website, was Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips. The recipe is also in the booklet that came in the box, but the recipe in the booklet has different ingredient measurements and seems to be scaled up to make a larger quantity. It includes heavy cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla extract, and a little cream cheese whisked into the mixture, which acts as a binder to reduce the formation of ice crystals.

Smoothie bowls continue to be having a moment and the Smoothie Bowl program was one of the big selling points for Ninja’s first two ice cream maker models. While the Deluxe doesn’t have a Smoothie Bowl setting — and doesn’t offer smoothie bowl recipes compatible with this model — we wanted to see if one of the Ninja smoothie bowl recipes would work using the Ninja Creami Deluxe. We used the Strawberry Banana Protein Smoothie Bowl recipe, which has instructions for use with both the Breeze and the basic Creami model, but not the Deluxe model.

With all three recipes, we evaluated how easy and convenient the recipe was to prepare, and evaluated the finished texture, mouthfeel, and flavor.

We also reviewed the instruction manual and other materials to see how easy it was to use the model in general, and evaluated whether the machine and all its parts are easy to clean.

Recipes Turned Out as Promised (With a Caveat)

We tested both ice cream recipes by freezing the bases for a full 24 hours as directed and then processed using the ice cream setting, which takes two minutes.

Both ice creams turned delicious, but there was definitely a favorite. Food Network’s cooked-custard vanilla ice cream churned up super-thick and creamy right off the bat. It was easy to scoop, had no ice crystals, and had a similar lush mouthfeel to premium ice cream brands. It also didn’t melt quickly and was still fairly scoopable when it was re-frozen and checked a day later.

The Ninja recipe, which was quick and easy to mix up and required no cooking and cooling, had a pebbly, crumbly appearance when it was scooped with a spoon, though it did coalesce into a smooth, creamy scoop. The pebbly texture is a common enough result that Ninja has included a Re-Spin function on the touchpad. (The manual explains that the crumbly consistency is often the result of a very cold base). This function will churn the ice cream again for a few moments, and sure enough, it made the Ninja recipe smooth and creamy. The recipe had a lighter, thinner texture than the Food Network recipe and wasn’t quite as flavorful. Despite the inclusion of the cream cheese, it also had a bit of iciness. However, this recipe was so much less involved and laborious and is certainly appealing for beginner home cooks.

We tried the Mix Ins function, following the directions to add chocolate chips to the Ninja ice cream recipe by making a well in the middle of the mixture. The process was a little fussy, but it worked: The chips were distributed evenly throughout the mixture.

For the smoothie bowl recipe, we opted for the Lite Ice Cream program, which is suitable for mixtures that don’t have a high fat content and seemed to be the closest program to the Smoothie Bowl program on the original Creami machines. Following the recipe instructions, we filled the pint container to the max fill line with the fresh fruit, milk, and other ingredients. On the Lite Ice Cream setting, the motor sounded like it was straining, and there was a slight burning smell, but the machine powered through and began processing the frozen mixture. It took two cycles of the four-minute program for the machine to process the ingredients completely, and even then, some unblended fruit could be seen near the top. It took one more cycle, using the setting to process just the top of the blending jar, to blend the smoothie bowl base completely, but it was worth the extra time: The mixture had a luscious texture: smooth, thick, and creamy, although it started melting quickly.

Overall, we think the Ninja Creami Deluxe is a versatile appliance for anyone who loves frozen treats. In addition to the variations on ice cream and sorbets, the machine can make frozen drinks, ranging from slushies to Frappuccino dupes to frozen alcoholic drinks like margaritas. The process is like a hybrid between a blender and an ice cream maker: The base ingredients are frozen for 24 hours in one of the pint containers, then a liquid is added to the container and processed using one of the drinkable settings.

A milkshake is the only recipe that can be made without freezing ingredients 24 hours in advance. Using prepared ice cream and milk, the Milkshake setting will blend the ingredients together with results that mimic the milkshake blenders at an old-fashioned soda shop, though we didn’t test this.

What the Ninja Creami Machines Could Do Better

There are a few things that kept us from completely loving the Ninja Creami machines.

First of all, it’s a little daunting and confusing to use right out of the box. There are three separate documents with instructions: a glossy quick start guide, a recipe booklet with tips, and a black-and-white paper pamphlet that at first glance seems like just safety instructions, but actually contains valuable information about features, usage, and care.

This is definitely not a product you can unbox and use right away, especially since every recipe except a milkshake requires a 24-hour wait for the ingredients to freeze. With a few uses, the Ninja Creami Deluxe gets easier to use confidently, and buying a few extra pints makes it possible to always have an ice cream base ready to make.

Finally, this thing is bulky! At nearly 7 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and nearly 17 inches tall, the Ninja Creami Deluxe slimmer but deeper than a traditional ice cream maker like Cuisinart’s, and much taller. This makes it too big to store in a cabinet or a pantry, so it’ll have to live on the counter, where it will just barely fit under most upper cabinets.

What's the Best Ninja Creami?

Big fans of frozen treats will truly appreciate the versatility of the Ninja Creami Deluxe. As a hybrid between a blender and an ice cream churn, this product can make so many delicious ice creams, frozen cocktails, fruity sorbets, custom milkshakes and concrete-style treats. It’s great for families with kids or folks who love to come up with the most creative flavor combinations. Families and folks with dietary restrictions might also love this product with some trial and error to come up with the best frozen treats to meet their needs whether that’s dairy-free, celiac or other specific allergies.

If you're a serious fan of smoothie bowls. you might find the Ninja Creami to be a useful kitchen tool, however, we don't recommend it for ice cream treats.

With dishwasher-safe parts and short processing programs, the Ninja Creami Deluxe is a great way to have homemade ice cream treats on-hand with a little advanced planning.

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