Ninja Creami Review

During my pregnancy, I became obsessed with acai bowls (especially the ones from Costco!). I could eat 2 a day. This slowly turned into an ice cream obsession, and i ended up stocking up my freezer with Yasso bars.

But lately, I’ve been having trouble finding Yasso ice cream and I didn’t really like the other lighter options available. When I heard that Ninja was coming out with the Ninja Creami, I knew I had to get it! I really wanted to figure out a way to create my own lighter ice cream.

My Ninja Creami arrived and I’ve been having a lot of fun trying it out. In this blog post, I’ll share with you my experience with the Ninja Creami and if it’s worth buying.

What is the Ninja Creami?

First off.- what exactly is the Ninja Creami? The Ninja Creami is a machine by Ninja that lets you make different frozen treats, like ice cream, sorbet, smoothie bowls, gelato and milkshakes. Ninja makes it very clear this is not a blender but instead is a machine that turns frozen foods into ice cream treats using “creamify” technology.

OK, cool – but does it actually work?

Inside the Box

Our Ninja Creami arrived and we were so excited to open the box! Inside, we found:

The Creami Machine

2 Pints

The Creami Machine was a little taller than I thought it’d be, but it does fit nicely on the counter. It’s about the same size as our Nespresso machine, just slightly taller.

In addition to the machine, it also comes with a recipe booklet and a quick start guide. The quick start guide is a little misleading since the first thing I learned about the machine is that the ice cream mix needs to sit in the freezer for at least 24 hours.

How to Use the Ninja Creami

After looking through the booklet I decided to try 2 recipes – the pineapple sorbet and a vanilla ice cream.

To use the creami, you fill the pints with whatever ice cream or sorbet mixture you’ll be using and then freeze for 24 hours.

Once the mix is frozen and you’re ready to make ice cream, simply take the lid off the top of the pint, pop the pint into the blender and lock in place. Select the mode and the machine will take care of the rest.

After about 3-4 minutes the Creami will turn off and you’ll have fresh ice cream! If you’re adding in any mixins like candy or frozen fruit, this is where you can add them in and then press the mix-in button to mix it into the ice cream.

Ninja Creami Review

First I started with pineapple sorbet and the instructions were easy enough – fill the pint to the max line with canned pineapple – in juice, not water – this is extremely important because ice would be too hard on the Creami blades and could cause it to break.

I filled the pint with canned chunks of pineapple and juice to the max fill line (about 3/4 of a 20oz can), popped on the cover and set it in the freezer overnight.

The next day, the pineapple was perfectly frozen and I popped it into the blender, spun it on “sorbet” and out came perfectly blended sorbet. The sorbet ended up reaching the top of the pint so it’s a good thing I did follow the max fill line because otherwise it more than likely wouldn’t have worked. The sorbet came out creamy and delicious! Success!

The next ice cream we tried was regular vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have everything on hand that the recipe called for, so I substituted based on the suggested substitutes in the book, swapping out milk for almond milk and the cream for oat creamer.

After freezing it overnight, I popped it into the Creami and spun it on ice cream. When I opened it it came out kind of crumbly – almost like Dippin’ Dots, but flakier. According to the recipe book I could respin it to try to make the texture improve and after doing that it did improve it somewhat, but it still wasn’t like regular ice cream I’d buy in the store. It was almost more icy (similar to Halo Top and those other light ice creams). I added in some Reese’s Pieces and ran through the mix- in and while it didn’t come out looking like traditional ice cream, it did taste pretty good!

I’m still trying out different ingredients (and will share the finished recipes on here!), but have definitely learned there is a learning curve with using this machine and which setting to run the machine on.

I’ve also learned pretty quickly that it’s best to fill the ice cream pints a little under the max fill line. When I’ve filled to the fill line it still seems to be a little too much after it’s frozen, which results in the Creami having a harder time making ice cream out of it.

Pros

Recipes are extremely customizable. The recipe book it comes with has a ton of different recipes, as well as how to customize to fit almost everyone’s diet (vegan, gluten-free, etc.).

Ice cream comes out delicious! Once you find a recipe that works, the ice cream is really good.

You can control sugars and what goes into ice cream.

Cons

While there are many pros to the machine, there are some downsides.

The machine is loud…VERY loud. This is a big pet peeve of mine because I like to have ice cream after dinner/at night, and with two small kids they’re usually in bed. The Ninja Creami is way too loud to run at night with them sleeping.

Ice cream doesn’t keep it’s form after refreezing. I’ve noticed most of the pints I’ve made need to be respun after they’re refrozen to make them creamy again. This is especially annoying because the machine is so loud so again, if I want to have ice-cream at night and need to respin I’m unable to because of the noise.

Takes some practice making your own recipes. I’ve found it takes practice figuring out the right settings for homemade ice cream flavors, but once you do figure it out it’s delicious.

You need to be patient. This isn’t an instant ice cream machine since the mixtures need to sit in your freezer for 24 hours before going into the machine. However, this seems to be the case with most ice cream makers so nothing new here.

Ninja Creami Recipes

I’ve started to have fun and make my own Creami Recipes! I’ll continue to update this section as I create more.

Ninja Creami Chocolate Protein Ice Cream

Final Thoughts

This machine is awesome for making healthy ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt with little effort. It takes some trial and error to find which recipes you like, but once you do it’s really nice being able to make your own ice cream at home with little mess.

Where to Buy the Creami

The Ninja Creami can be bought at all major retailers, like Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart.

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