Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK review: Food prep, simplified

The Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor is a powerful, well-designed kitchen appliance that offers versatility without being overwhelming. While many food prep gadgets get bogged down in trying to be as many things as possible, the Ninja sticks to a few key areas: chopping, slicing, blending and kneading.

It does almost all of these without fault and it’s this well-thought-out feature set that makes the Ninja deserving of a well-earned spot on your worktop.

Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK review: What do you get for the money?

The Ninja 3-in-1 might be streamlined but it still comes with plenty of extras. Along with the base, which contains the powerful 1,200W motor, you get three different containers in the box, including a 1.8l food processor bowl with a four-point blade, a 2.1l large capacity blending jug with a six-point blade and a 700ml single-serve blending cup with a classic blade.

There’s also a dual-sided chopping disc for slicing and grating, a dough blade for kneading, a spout lid and a comprehensive recipe booklet. With the exception of the motor base, everything is dishwasher-safe and all of this will set you back £200 – a reasonable price for a premium food processor.

The base of the food processor is quite large. It measures 190 x 230 x 200mm (WDH) and reaches up to 480mm tall when using the large blending jug. Despite this, it still looks rather sleek, with a black plastic and steel casing, digital countdown timer and flush, soft-touch buttons at the front. The food processor bowl and the two blending jugs are made from hard-wearing plastic, while the blades and chopping disc are made from a combination of steel and plastic.

All in all, it’s a magnificent beast. It looks the part and there are enough features and functions to justify the price. If you’d like your money to stretch a little further, though, the Kenwood MultiPro Compact+ will set you back £140 and comes with more accessories such as a whisk and mini spice grinder.

Alternatively, if money is no barrier and you just want the biggest, beefiest processor you can get, you might want to consider the £350 Sage Kitchen Whizz Pro, which has a beefy 2,000W motor, a variable slicing disk and looks simply stunning.

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Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK review: What’s good about it?

For everyday tasks, though, even the big ones, the Ninja 3-in-1 is ideal in almost every way. In all but one test, the main food processor made quick work of absolutely everything I threw its way, blitzing whole vegetables down to nothing in a matter of seconds.

The manual high, medium and low speed settings will cope with all types of vegetables, from courgettes to squash. I never felt as though the machine was struggling and, on most occasions, it took only a few seconds to achieve the desired consistency. Manual mode is great if you’re trying to achieve a particular size of dice and want to keep an eye on your ingredients at all times.

Meanwhile, the automated chop setting, which runs for 16 seconds at a time, was particularly good at producing a fine, uniform dice on vegetables such as pepper, carrot and red cabbage. This is particularly impressive as uniformity is something a lot of food processors struggle with. Similarly, the slicing and grating disk produced mostly uniform slices with most vegetables, although very occasionally there were some bits that got stuck above the blade.

The automatic blend and max blend functions run for 60 and 70 seconds respectively, in which time, they produced the smoothest results I’ve ever seen from any food processor’s blending attachment. Repeat tests also showed that, when using the individual blending cup, you don’t need the full amount of time to achieve a completely smooth finish, so you could turn it off sooner. When using the high-capacity jug I occasionally needed to run the blend for a bit of extra time to ensure fully smooth results but this was a rare occurrence.

Ice also isn’t a problem for the Ninja. Both the personal blending cup and 2.1l blending jug had no trouble blitzing through ice for frozen drinks, although the personal cup should only be used with half a tray at a time for the best results. It’s also worth noting the food processor bowl isn’t suitable for blending ice, as it could cause the lid to disengage.

Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK review: What could be improved?

Unfortunately, no multipurpose appliance is ever perfect and I did find the Ninja struggled with kneading dough. Despite having a dough blade, it’s more suited to dough recipes that only require a short mixing time, such as flatbread, rather than bread or pizza dough. This is because it’s not built to knead thick dough for a prolonged period of time. I tried the chapati recipe in the booklet provided using the automatic Mix setting, which only lasts 30 seconds, but was still concerned the thing was going to take off at any moment as it was shaking quite a bit. If baking is your thing, you’ll need a stand mixer as well.

There’s one other thing you can’t get away from with this appliance and that is it’s incredibly loud. All that motor power, unfortunately, comes at a cost and, using a sound meter, I recorded noise levels of around 88dB on the highest blend setting from 1 metre away. There’s not much you can do about this besides wearing earplugs, so it’s something to bear in mind if you’re sensitive to noise.

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Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor BN800UK review: Should I buy it?

Yes, it’s noisy and it’s a shame that heavier dough isn’t well suited to the machine but this is still a seriously impressive piece of kit. The automatic functions and additional blades make quick work of almost any task and the manual settings give you the freedom to chop for longer.

Moreover, the blending jugs and blade insert for slicing and grating are simple but effective additions and do their job exactly as they should, with great results. If your kitchen goal is to make chopping and blending as quick and fuss-free as possible, there’s nothing better.