Bullet blenders like the Nutri Ninja personal and countertop blender offer the same standards and functionality as a traditional countertop model, they’re just highly portable and more convenient to use. Instead of struggling with a large pitcher, these bullet blenders rely on smaller, individual-sized blending cups, which allow you to quickly create a nutrient-loaded smoothie and head out for the day. Of course, this model’s functionality doesn’t end with a blended drink. This model is powerful enough to pulse, grind, and chop a variety of recipes for dressings, soups, sauces, and dips.
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Overview and Features of Best Nutri Ninja Blender
Most people are familiar with the Nutri Ninja brand. These blenders have a reputation for power, ease of use, and versatility. They’re also known for their ability to completely pulverize even the toughest fruits and veggies. However, they can be used for a lot more than making blended drinks. In fact, you can make milkshakes, nut butters, frosting, sauce, salad dressing and more.
This model offers a powerful performance and a surprising capacity despite its compact size. It’s perfect for dorm life or smaller kitchens where counter space is tight. Considering the price, this model is more affordable than competing bullet blenders, but how does it perform?
Design
If you’ve never made your own smoothies, then you need a model that offers a simple design, one that’s easy to use and features intuitive controls.
This model couldn’t be easier to use. It features a blade attachment that screws off and on the included blender cups, just like a lid. There are no buttons or switches involved. You’ll be impressed and surprised at how easy it is to attach the blending cups to the base in order to activate the motor once the pressure is applied at the top of the blending cup.
Power of this Blender
Featuring a twelve hundred watt motor, this blender can easily process, chop, grind, blend, and liquefy ingredients. It’s one of the best blenders for green smoothies, but it can also make pudding, salsa, hummus, and protein shakes.
However, it tends to perform the best when you add liquids, so I wouldn’t recommend this model for chopping up veggies, since it cannot evenly cut all the pieces.
To blend up ingredients, you’ll press on the top of the blending cup using short intervals. This blender can easily process food in ten seconds or less. Because this is a single-speed model, you can expect different ingredients to take a different amount of time to blend, which is why thicker recipes that don’t use much liquid, such as pudding or hummus, can take a bit longer to blend.
You can crush a cup of ice into a snow-like consistency in twelve seconds, even without adding any liquid. That’s how powerful this model is.
Chopping, Blending, and Juicing
While this model is powerful, it doesn’t provide the smoothest blends. If the machine is blending for longer than twenty seconds and struggling to reach a smooth consistency, you’ll notice that it simply can’t chop the ingredients any further, instead, it will just continue to stir them. This is probably why many of the recipes designed for this model are more textured compared to some competing bullet blenders.
However, this will work well for salsas but can make it difficult for smoothies that contain nuts or certain types of fibrous fruits. This blender can also be used for juicing your favorite leafy greens. To learn more about the benefits of juicing, click here to read my article on does juicing remove fiber?
Blending Cups
The blending quality can be impacted based on how full you fill a blending a cup. If you overfill a cup it can make the entire blending process more time-consuming. Additionally, if you don’t have the proper solid foods to liquid ratio, then you’re going to end up with a thicker puree that can clog the blades. If you do end up filling one of the blending cups up to the brim with fruits and veggies, you’ll need to remove the cup between pulses in order to shake the ingredients around since they tend to stay stuck to the top of the cup. This will also happen when you make certain recipes such as nut butters or hummus.
Overall, this model does a great job of processing leafy greens, softer fruits, and frozen veggies and berries. Keep in mind, this model isn’t able to handle berry seeds very well, so raspberries and strawberries will leave crunchy pieces of seeds in your smoothie. Fortunately, powders such as whey protein and flaxseed can easily be added without leaving any residue behind.
Durability
The size of the blender allows it to easily fit under even low hung kitchen cabinets with a lot of room to spare. The model’s silver and black color scheme will blend right into your existing kitchen décor. The base of the blender is bulky and heavy, however, it’s still considered highly portable compared to a traditional countertop blender.
Extras
This model comes with the popular Pro Extractor blade attachment, an eighteen-ounce blending cup, a twenty-four-ounce blending cup, two lids, and a recipe book. The blending cups and lids are large and durable. You’ll find grooves on the inner rims of the lids, so you can drink easily directly from the blending cups. Their wide mouth design will also make adding ingredients and pouring liquids a mess-free experience. If you want to purchase extra blending cups you can buy them separately, directly from the manufacturer’s website.
Care and Maintenance
The wide mouth design of the blending cups makes it easy to rinse them out and wash them by hand using a soapy sponge. You can also rinse off the blade attachment by hand. However, it should be washed immediately after use to prevent any food from drying on it. If you’re blending food that has a strong odor, such as onions or garlic, I recommend tossing the blending cups in the dishwasher, otherwise, you’ll notice that the containers hold onto the odor. If you decide to toss the cups and blade in the dishwasher, make sure you place them on the top rack.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Best Nutri Ninja Blender
Pros
- Two blending cups
- Easy to clean and maintain
- Twelve hundred watts of power
- Dishwasher safe
- Beginner-friendly
- Perfect for making smoothies
Cons
- Can struggle to finely chop ingredients
- Overfilling a cup can affect blending quality
Best Nutri Ninja Pro Blender Versus the NutriBullet
The NutriBullet really can’t stand up to the Ninja, for many reasons. It lacks half the power, but it does come with many of the same features and capabilities. Both come with individual blending cups and have the ability to produce the best green smoothies around, but the Nutri Ninja easily overpowers the competition, thanks to its twelve hundred watt motor and simple design. Overall, if budget is your main concern, then you may want to opt for the NutriBullet, since it’s going for a fraction of the price. If power and versatility are at the top of your list, then you can’t go wrong with a model that offers twice the power rating as the competition.
Conclusion and Rating
Our Rating:
The Nutri Ninja can blend the perfect smoothie, can whip up hummus, salsa, and make pudding. You can use the included recipe book to experiment and learn more about what this blender can really do. Its individual blending cups allow you to make a smoothie first thing in the morning and bring it with you to the office, using the included lids for travel.
This is an affordable, easy to use and maintain blender with a single-speed operation. If you’re looking for a model that’s versatile and durable, then you’ll love what the Nutri Ninja has to offer. I gave this model a rating of four and a half out of five stars.