Ninja Creami Deluxe Review: Make Dreamy Frozen Treats at Home

8.0

Ninja CREAMi Deluxe

$230 at Amazon

$230 at Best Buy

Like

• Makes truly amazing ice cream and other frozen treats
• Wide variety of functions
• Easy to use
• Easy cleanup

Don't like

• Ingredients need to be frozen 24 hours in advance
• Mix-in function isn't perfect
• Must reprocess most leftovers and mix-ins get pulverized
• Pricey

The Ninja Creami is a frozen treat maker that lets you easily whip up homemade ice cream, sorbet, gelato and more. You can add mix-ins like cookies, candy and chocolate chips to expand your flavor selection. CNET's David Watsky called it the best ice cream maker he'd ever tried when he tested it last year -- and now, there's a Ninja Creami Deluxe that makes other treats as well, including Italian ice, slushies, "Creamiccinos," frozen yogurt and frozen drinks. Retail price? About $250.

It's fair to say that I was more than a little bit interested in this appliance. I've been called an ice cream snob, but I'd say aficionado is a more accurate term. I eat ice cream pretty much every day; I've given up many foods in the interest of a healthier lifestyle, but not ice cream. I have a favorite local ice cream parlor, plus I always have a devoted section of my freezer fully stocked with my favorite ice creams. I travel a lot and I can tell you from personal experience what the best ice cream parlor is in any city in the world where I've spent more than a day or two. 

So how does the Creami Deluxe measure up? Though it took some futzing to find the best recipes and to dial in on the perfect textures, I did, in fact, make some pretty incredible ice cream in this little machine, as good as any I've had anywhere (though I do wish it didn't pulverize your mix-ins quite so much). It's not a device that every kitchen needs -- and the Deluxe version is really only worth the extra cash if you have a particular interest in those new settings for frozen drinks -- but if you love ice cream in all flavors and forms, there's definitely a lot to like here.

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First impressions: A compact, easy-to-use design

The Ninja Creami Deluxe is unlike your standard home ice cream maker. Rather than freezing your liquid ice cream base directly in the machine itself, you'll prefreeze your base for 24 hours in the included deluxe pint containers. Once your base is completely frozen, you place the pint into the machine. The processing lid has a blade in it, which drills down into the frozen pint. Press the power on button, then choose Top, Bottom or Full depending on how much you want to make. Turn the dial to your treat of choice and press the button to start. In about 5 minutes, it'll be ready. If it isn't creamy enough, you can tap the Re-spin button to give it another go. If you'd like to add a mix-in, you dig a hole in your ice cream with a spoon, drop in your mix-in of choice, and then run a Mix-in cycle.

The Creami has a small footprint, so it doesn't take up too much space on the counter. It's easy to put together and use. Cleanup is a breeze. Just remove the paddle from the lid and hand wash all the parts, or just stick them in the dishwasher. 

A recipe book with a few dozen recipes comes included, though you can certainly find an infinite number of ice cream recipes to suit your tastes and dietary needs online. Additionally, Ninja's recipe book provides a bunch of ideas for stuff you probably already have in the house that can be easily converted into a frozen treat. 

An important note: Most of the treats don't stay soft when you refreeze the leftovers. If you don't finish the entire pint in one sitting, you'll probably need to reprocess it. If you've added mix-ins, those are going to get pulverized when you process the leftovers. So if you've made a vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips mixed in, the second time around it's going to be more like a chocolate ice cream (or more accurately, vanilla ice cream with chocolate flecks). 

It's also important to note that this is not a blender. You can't throw some ice cubes or frozen fruit into the machine to make a smoothie. Everything you make with the Ninja Creami Deluxe must be prefrozen solid in the provided pint container.

How does the Deluxe compare to the original?

The concept is the same, as is the design and the relatively small footprint on your counter, but the original Ninja Creami has seven functions: Ice Cream, Sorbet, Lite Ice Cream, Smoothie Bowl, Gelato and Milkshake. Meanwhile, the Ninja Creami Deluxe has 11 functions: Ice Cream, Lite Ice Cream, Sorbet, Gelato, Frozen Yogurt, Creamiccino, Frozen Drink, Slushi, Milkshake and Italian Ice. Both machines offer a Mix-in function and a Re-spin cycle.

The Creami Deluxe costs $250 or a bit less depending on sale prices. The original Creami isn't that much less at $230, but it's a little easier to catch at a discount (as of writing this, it's marked down to $180 on Amazon and at Target).

I ate a lot of frozen desserts in the name of science

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. I made and sampled a number of treats, which varied in quality from absolute garbage to swoonworthy top-tier ice cream. Obviously, what you put in is what you get out. The machine is really only responsible for the texture, not the taste.

Let's run through the highs and lows of each recipe I tried:

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Slushi

I made what Ninja calls a Slushi with Crystal Light pink lemonade. It's a quick and easy recipe that tasted just as good as I expected. If you like the drink going in, you'll like the Slushi coming out. It's really all about texture, which is where the Creami shines. The machine effectively turned the lemonade into slush and the results were virtually identical to making the same thing in my Vitamix blender. It was slushy and very soft like Ninja promises.

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Creamiccino

The Creamiccino is Ninja's answer to the Starbucks Frappuccino, and it's fantastic. I tweaked the included recipe a bit, using a flavored creamer rather than half and half plus sugar. The consistency wasn't quite pourable, but I was able to spoon it easily into a glass. I could have sipped the entire glass with a wide straw, but I found myself eating most of it with a spoon and sipping the rest with a regular straw. 

If you're looking to cut out the Starbucks and make your favorite frozen coffee drinks at home instead, I think you'll find that this is a suitable alternative. I did notice that the bottom of the pint remained more frozen than the top after running a full cycle, closer to an ice cream consistency. 

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Italian Ice

I started with Italian Ice made from just syrup and water. I used Torani Sugar-Free Mango Syrup, which I normally use as a sweetener for tea and lemonade. I followed the instructions and ran the Italian Ice cycle. The resulting concoction was crumbly but soft, so it was easy to scoop out of the container. 

The Creami was incredibly loud running this cycle, as it was basically grinding up a big solid brick of ice. I had to leave the room while the machine did its thing. The taste wasn't great, which is likely because I used a sugar-free syrup, which is something I'd normally use only a splash of. It didn't look particularly nice, either. This wasn't an enjoyable texture. Though it wasn't horrible, it wasn't something I wanted to finish, either. Most of it went into the garbage disposal.

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Frozen Chocolate Milk

Ninja suggests you can use chocolate milk to make a lite ice cream. I used Fairlife protein drinks and the Lite Ice Cream cycle to attempt a healthy frozen treat. It turned out quite crumbly, so I did a Re-spin cycle as Ninja suggests. It was still crumbly, though I could see that lower layers looked a bit more like an ice cream texture. The taste was, well, frozen protein drink. Not bad at all, pretty much what I expected it to taste like. 

I decided to remove the leftovers from the pint container and then just thaw out a single scoop at a time, but that was a mistake. The texture became downright bizarre and inedible when I thawed it out. That's on me for not following instructions; you're supposed to keep leftovers in the Ninja container and reprocess them when you're ready to eat it again.

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Frozen Yogurt

Another single-ingredient suggestion that Ninja offers is frozen yogurt. To make it, I emptied three containers of my favorite tropical fruit-flavored Greek yogurt into the deluxe pint container, froze it overnight, and ran the Frozen Yogurt cycle. It was very airy and crumbly, so I ran the Re-spin cycle as Ninja suggests. This didn't do much, so I added some frozen cherries and ran the Mix-in cycle. 

This chopped the cherries up a bit and mixed them in, although not all the way to the bottom. I still didn't get a real frozen yogurt texture, so I let my portion sit and melt for a little bit and then gave it a good stir. This brought it closer to a creamier frozen yogurt consistency, though frankly not as good as just throwing the yogurt and fruit into my Vitamix blender. The taste was quite good, which I expected, given that I like this yogurt. I did finish the whole pint over a couple of days and would definitely make this healthy and delicious treat again.

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Lite Ice Cream

Seeking out other healthier dessert options, I made the Lite Mint Cookies & Cream Ice Cream recipe from the Ninja book. It's actually a vegan recipe, with coconut cream instead of actual cream, oat milk instead of whole milk, and agave plus erythritol sweetener instead of sugar. I followed the recipe carefully, but it was disgusting. I couldn't eat it; I threw out the entire pint. Not only was it way too sweet, but it had an off taste, too. Just gross. The consistency was much softer than soft serve, and unlike any ice cream I've ever tried. Frankly, it was just mush, even though I had frozen it for the requisite 24 hours and my freezer was the correct temperature. Even if the taste wasn't so horrid, the texture was weird and off-putting.  

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Ice Cream (NYT Recipe)

Once I got the "healthy stuff" out of the way, I went for the full-on ice cream. Rather than a Ninja recipe, I decided to start with one I found online. I used the New York Times basic ice cream recipe, which is just heavy cream, whole milk, egg yolks, salt, and sugar. I added a shot of strong espresso and then mixed in some chocolate chips to make a coffee chip flavor. Since this recipe includes egg yolks, it does have to be cooked before freezing. I had plenty of base so I made it two ways: in the Ninja Creami and in my Vitamix blender, having frozen some of the mixture in an ice cube tray before blending. 

With the Vitamix, I got a soft serve consistency which melted quickly. The Ninja Creami ice cream was a bit firmer, but still not what I'd consider a regular hard scoop ice cream consistency. I'd say it was somewhere in between soft serve and hard scoop ice cream. I did a mix-in cycle with the chocolate chips, but they didn't get evenly distributed throughout the pint. The uneaten portion went back into the freezer and it did re-freeze into a solid block, so I had to run another cycle in order to eat it the next day. The chocolate chips got completely pulverized, so it was no longer coffee chocolate chip. Instead, it was more like a mocha ice cream -- still delish, but a different flavor. This will happen with any mix-in when you process leftovers, as stated in the Ninja instruction and recipe booklet. The second time around, the texture was more solid, definitely a hard scoop ice cream. This was outstanding, on par with any premium ice cream I've had.

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Ice Cream (Ninja Recipe)

Next, I used the Ninja Creami ice cream recipe from the booklet, which is intended to be used as a base to create a variety of flavors. It's an excellent base; you whisk together cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, heavy cream, and whole milk. Since there are no eggs and no cooking involved, it's much quicker and easier to put together than the NYT recipe. I added dark chocolate chips as a mix-in. The result was absolutely delicious. 

After running the regular Ice Cream cycle, it was still a bit crumbly, but after I ran a Mix-in cycle with the chocolate chips, it was actually the perfect eating consistency. I'd call the consistency a soft hard scoop, if that makes sense. I don't think the Mix-in cycle works that great; the chips were mostly clumped together in one section of the pint, even though I used mini chips like Ninja suggests. I ended up sprinkling more chips on top, in the areas where they were sparse. After respinning it the second day, the chips became mere flecks as expected (still delicious) and the consistency was more of a regular hard scoop. 

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Ninja Creami Deluxe Gelato

As someone who has lived in Italy and traveled there multiple times, I've eaten a lot of real Italian gelato. So naturally, I had to try Ninja's take on gelato. 

The word "gelato" just means ice cream in Italian, but what we call gelato here has no eggs and it has more milk than cream, as opposed to American ice cream which has a higher proportion of cream and sometimes includes eggs. But the Ninja recipe includes six egg yolks and more cream than milk, which actually makes it a very rich ice cream or a frozen custard, not gelato at all. This is actually pretty common for homemade gelato recipes, as the eggs act as an emulsifier to give the ice cream that soft, gelato-like texture. Whether it's truly gelato or it's frozen custard doesn't matter that much to me, what matters is taste and texture. 

Oddly enough, Ninja's gelato recipe is nearly identical to the NYT ice cream recipe I tried, and was also delicious. I made a vanilla base, ran the Gelato cycle, and added mini Oreos as a mix-in to create a delicious cookies and cream flavor. My only critique is that the mix-in cycle mixes the cookies in a little bit too much. I'd have preferred larger Oreo pieces; next time I'd put some of them on top instead of mixing them all in. But that's down to personal preference. The consistency was fantastic, it's what I'd call regular hard scoop ice cream: soft enough to scoop easily but not so soft that it melts too quickly. There was really nothing gelato-like about this recipe, so it's a bit of a misnomer. I did put the leftovers back in the freezer but pulled the pint out a couple of hours later to polish it off. In that time, the gelato maintained its scoopable texture. 

Is the Ninja Creami Deluxe worth it?

As much as I've enjoyed the premium ice cream and some of the other treats I made, I can't say that it's something everyone needs. Does it make excellent ice cream and other treats? Yes, it most certainly does. Is it easier or better than traditional ice cream makers? It is quick and easy to use, cleanup is a breeze, and it makes frozen beverages in addition to ice cream, so maybe so. You can also make frozen treats in a good blender, but blended ice cream is more of a soft serve, not scoopable like the Creami's. And in the end, I loved the ice cream I made -- it was on par with my favorite ice cream parlor in the world, and that's extremely high praise given how many I've been to. 

However, I do want to emphasize one main caveat. While the ice cream itself is amazing, I wasn't impressed with the mix-in situation. For me, the chunks in ice cream are just as important as the ice cream itself. Just adding chocolate chips to ice cream is never as good as chocolate chip ice cream. The added chocolate chips got too hard, and they didn't melt in the mouth properly, even though I used my favorite Ghiaradelli's chips. On top of that, the Ninja's Mix-in cycle didn't distribute the chunks evenly throughout the pint. If you don't eat the entire pint in one sitting, you'll have to re-process leftovers. When you do that, your mix-ins are pulverized, which changes the flavor of your ice cream. 

The original Ninja Creami makes a smaller variety of treats but it typically costs a lot less, so you only need the Deluxe upgrade if you wish to make Italian ice, frozen yogurt, slushies, and creamiccinos. Everything else the Deluxe can make, the original can make, too. While it only takes about five minutes turn the base of your choice into a frozen dessert, you do have to make and freeze your recipe a day ahead of time, so keep that in mind. There was definitely some trial and error to find the best recipes and some tweaking to get the best texture; but it didn't take long to figure out how to get consistently amazing results. Overall, the Ninja Creami Deluxe is an excellent purchase for anyone who wants to make delicious homemade ice cream and other frozen treats, whether just for fun or for dietary considerations.