Nutri Ninja Blender BL450UK review – Ninja or Bullet?

Getting more fruit and vegetables into your diet can be difficult. Juicers are a good way of packing in extra vitamins and minerals, but you arguably lose all the goodness you get out of any stalks, stems or skin. Your average blender also usually requires you to cook your ingredients first, making it even less convenient. Thankfully, the rise of single-serving blenders like the Nutribullet and Nutri Ninja’s BL450UK on test here combine the best of both devices, giving you drinkable smoothies and soups which are (supposedly) healthier and more hassle-free than their juicer equivalents.

Like the Nutribullet, part of the Nutri Ninja’s appeal is that it blends every single part of your chosen fruits and vegetables, including what you’d normally throw away when using a juicer. This means that each glass should be better for you as a result, as it should contain more fibre and probably more vitamins and minerals too.

It also cuts down on the amount of apparatus you need to clean, too. Instead of throwing away a whole bin of roughage, the only bits you need to clean are the cup, blade and lid. Everything’s dishwasher safe, too (apart from the main motor, obviously), so it’s very easy to keep the Nutri Ninja spic-and-span. Just don’t try microwaving your concoctions in the provided cups, as these are not microwave-safe.

The Ninja is pretty compact for a single-serving blender. Measuring just 370x140x140mm, it will easily fit under most kitchen cabinets, and it’s not particularly tall even when you attach one of its cups. The one metre power cord doesn’t provide a lot of flexibility, but it should be fine for most worktops. It comes with two cups (one 500ml and one 650ml) which can be taken on the go and fit into most standard car cup holders, two resealable lids, and a single extractor blade. There’s also a recipe book if you’re stuck for ideas. Whatever you decide to make, you’ll need to top up each blend with water, as the Nutri Ninja isn’t intended for dry blending. It will crush ice, but only as part of a recipe.  

This particular model of the Nutri Ninja doesn’t come with any buttons, so it’s very easy to use. Once you’ve filled up either the 500ml or 650ml cup with the right ingredients and screwed on the blade lid, all you need to do is place the cup on the base, turn it clockwise to lock it in place and push downwards to start blending.

You’ll need to keep applying pressure to keep its 900W motor running, but it whirrs up almost immediately. There’s a built-in safety mechanism that will automatically shut the motor off if it gets too warm, but considering the speed at which the Ninja works, it’s unlikely you’ll be using it long enough for it to kick in.

My chosen recipe consisted of 50% kale, half a cup of mixed berries and a whole, chopped up banana topped up with water to the cup’s Max line, and it took little more than 30-40 seconds to get a drinkable result. I also blended the same recipe in the Nutribullet for the same amount of time to see how the two would compare.

Both smoothies had a slightly grainy texture and consistency, but the Nutri Ninja wasn’t quite so successful when it came to blending the kale. There wasn’t much in it, but the Nutribullet was definitely smoother overall, as the Ninja smoothie had noticeable chunks of kale, albeit it very small ones, left over. The consistency improved marginally after I’d blended it for a further 10-20 seconds, but not by much.

The Ninja is also considerably louder than the Nutribullet. We could just about shout over the Nutribullet to carry on a conversation, but the Ninja simply makes too much noise. This isn’t much of a problem, though, as you’ll only be using it for a very short period of time.

The Nutri Ninja does several things well. It’s small, easy to use and produces great-tasting smoothies which keep in all the good bits. It’s also £10 cheaper than the Nutribullet, but when the Nutribullet produces smoother blends, has an extra milling blade for oats, nuts and seeds and larger capacity cups, the Ninja feels like a bit of a compromise. It’s a perfectly competent single-serving blender, and is a great way to get more fruit and vegetables into your diet, but the Nutribullet is the better buy.