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Appliance maker Shark Ninja made an early bid for most hyped product of the year when it launched the Ninja slushie machine in January with a wait list of 50,000 people, before quickly selling out.
With its promise of “no prep slushies” at home, we put it through its paces, making a frozen juice slushie and an iced coffee frappe. Plus happy hour tipples of frozen rose aka frose, and a frozen Aperol spritz cocktail.
Ninja Slushi maker review
GOOD FOR: keen entertainers with bench space to spare. Investing in a Ninja Slushi will add a touch of fun to a dinner party, a barbecue or even a family movie night.
What we liked
- From juice slushies to iced coffee frappes, it’s versatile. There’s no ice or blender required. Keep it simple and pour in whatever juice or soft drink you have in the fridge. Or go custom and turn your favourite cocktail into an iced affair.
- It’s easy to assemble and use. We love the one touch presets.
- If you’re getting prepped for a party with a signature cocktail the Ninja Slushi can keep your drink icy for hours.
- The smart technology tells you when your mixture doesn’t have enough sugar or the alcohol content is too high, which can impact freezing.
What you need to know
- The machine is quite heavy. It has to sit on the bench top for 2 hours prior to use for safety reasons, so this is a factor to consider for those with limited bench space.
- Drinks can take from 15 minutes to an hour to chill and churn.
- The capacity ranges from two drinks to eight. You can’t make a single serve, unless it’s a double!
- There is no timer, you have to watch the frost dial to keep an eye on progress.
What’s so special about Ninja’s slushie machine?
Slushies have always been the domain of 7Eleven’s and movie theatres, or snow cones at the show. With the Ninja Slushi, frozen drinks can be part of every family movie night or Friday afternoon cocktail hour at home. Turn fruit juice, milkshakes or soft drink into an icy beverage. Get your coffee warm weather ready. Or add a different dimension to your favourite cocktail.
Ninja Slushi: Materials and size
The Ninja slushie maker comes in four main parts, the base unit (this is heavy), the churner (they call it an “auger”) that mixes the ingredients, the vessel that holds the ingredients and a two part drip tray.
The Ninja Slushi has a 475 ml minimum liquid capacity and a 1890 ml maximum capacity. This basically equates to a capacity of two drinks to eight. So enough for a family movie night, summer barbecue, drinks with the neighbours or a weekend dinner party. Possibly not enough capacity for a house party, unless you’re OK with refilling and re-churning on a regular basis. Ingredients can be added to the machine while it is in use to keep things topped up, but you’d need to run another preset cycle.
How to use the Ninja slushie maker
The first thing you need to know is the base unit has to sit for two hours before use to allow the refrigerant to settle. This is a consideration if your kitchen has limited bench space and you are storing the slushie maker elsewhere.
Once the machine is assembled, settled and ready to go, simply pour in the ingredients, select the relevant preset and off it goes. The auger spins around and around, moving the liquid over the evaporator cylinder, chilling it to an icy state. This process isn’t overly loud, really no louder than a dishwasher. The machine beeps when the drink reaches the appropriate temperature and continues to chill it until dispensing. The manual says it can chill the finished drink for up to 12 hours, but we did not test this.
The machine has five presets, with each having a base temperature from which to start from. These are:
- Slush
- Frozen cocktail
- Frappe
- Milkshake
- Frozen juice
If you want the drink thicker and colder, use the top arrow on the snowflake control panel on the right to increase the chill factor. Do the opposite for a smoother end result.
When making a drink with a high alcohol content, or a low sugar content (eg. diet soft drink), specific rules must be followed so the drinks will freeze. For example, at least 5g sugar per 100ml. Or for alcoholic drinks made using the frozen cocktail preset, any wine/beer/spirits added can only contain between 2.8 percent and 16 per cent alcohol. The instruction manual covers off how to address both a low sugar or high alcohol situation.
Results from our test
Using the Ninja Slushi recipe book as our guide, we tested three of the presets: Frozen Cocktail, Frappe and Frozen Juice. All were easy to make and chilled the liquids for different lengths of time.
Texture was the biggest variable with the end result. The coffee frappe was quite thick using just the base preset alone, and plopped out rather than pouring out, more on that below. The Aperol spritz was icier in texture than the frose, which melted quite quickly.
We made the tropical fruit slushi, which tasted like a Frosty Fruit in icy drink form and would definitely add a special touch to a movie play date for the kids or score parents big brownie points as an after school surprise on a hot summer’s day.
The coffee frappe, was a total grown up treat, sweet and icy but with a coffee kick. Did we mention it includes double cream?!
Following the recipes to the letter, we had no warning beeps for the Frose or the frozen Aperol spritz cocktail.
All were easy to make, icy (to varying degrees), delicious to drink and a lot of fun!
The Rinse feature is handy for giving the unit a first clean and removing any icy remnants from the Evaporator and the bottom of the unit. We did find the machine was harder to clean after some drinks more than others. The Coffee Frappe mixture, for instance, was quite thick and plopped out, rather than poured. As a result we were unable to dispense all of the drink, so when we ran the handy rinse cycle, this basically sloshed milky water around. We ended up running the rinse function a few times for this one, before hand washing everything (many of the components are dishwasher safe). Just a note that the water comes out fast when using the handle to empty this rinse cycle.
It’s also worth noting that the frozen Aperol spritz and Frose started melting quite quickly, so consider chilling the serving glasses before dispensing.
Is the Ninja Slushi worth it?
This home appliance is a load of fun. It’d bring a touch of magic to a kids birthday party or movie night with a frozen fruit juice or milkshake. And it would take a dinner party or drinks with the neighbours to a new level. No matter your age, a frozen drink is the kind of thing that just makes people smile.
It is tall and heavy though, so bench space is a factor, as is the price. The Ninja Slushi retails for $499.99. But we loved how easy it is to use, that no blending was required and the range of different drinks that can be transformed by this machine. It’s the kind of appliance that’s going to get a good workout in the home of people who love to entertain, especially over a hot Australian summer.
Where can I buy the Ninja Slushi Professional Frozen Drink Maker?
