Ninja Slushi Review: Great Cocktails, Fiddly Frappés

Iced drinks are in demand in summer, and rather than buying ready-made slushies you can now make your own. The Ninja Slushi is built to make that simple. It largely succeeds — as long as you accept the rules it imposes.

The Slushi delivers convincing slushes and frappés, provided the ingredients are cold, sweet and, where relevant, alcoholic in the right proportion. Making the perfect slush turns out to be a small science that needs some experimentation and careful reading.

It is neither a bargain nor a toy. And cleaning is anything but automatic: the built-in cleaning mode cannot remove all the ice residue from the machine, and although a few parts are dishwasher-safe, you will usually have to get hands-on yourself so the machine does not turn into a germ trap.

Once unpacked, the Slushi has to stand in the same place for at least four hours so the coolant settles and the condenser works properly. After that: fill the container with at least 475 ml and at most 1.89 litres of pre-chilled liquid, plug it in, choose a programme and wait.

There are five preset modes — Slush, Frozen Cocktail, Frappé, Milkshake and Frozen Juice. Mixing is controlled by touch and the drink is dispensed through a tap.

A warning for anyone hoping to save calories: Ninja demands sugar, at least 5 grams per 100 millilitres. Light drinks, diet lemonade or unsweetened tea will produce icy sadness at best. Ninja's own suggestion in those cases is to add one or two tablespoons of syrup, sugar or honey per portion.

Alcohol demands precision too. The finished cocktail should sit between 2.8 and 16 per cent alcohol by volume, or you will not get an adult slush at all. Those percentages refer to the total mixture, so it is easy enough to work out the ratio once you add spirits — reach for a calculator if mental arithmetic is not your strength, or simply follow the recipe book.

Three recipes went through it: ready-made iced coffee from the chiller turned into a frappé using the matching mode, 100 per cent strawberry juice became a classic slush, and a vodka and lemonade mixture was turned into a frozen cocktail.

At just under 15 sone the Slushi is quite loud compared with other slush machines. At least you do not have to endure the noise for long, since programmes mostly take between 20 minutes and an hour.

The classic strawberry-juice slush finished after 23 minutes — and the machine could happily have taken longer, because the consistency comes out a little too liquid at first. Manual adjustment improves it: a few extra minutes gives the juice slush a distinctly more pleasant texture.

With the frappé, that adjustment unfortunately does not help. After 36 minutes you get a very liquid drink with several ice crystals in it that noticeably spoil the experience. Changing the temperature setting does not produce a lasting improvement either, because the machine automatically reverts to the preset standard temperature after a few minutes.

The frozen cocktail comes out distinctly better. After around 63 minutes it produces a largely even consistency which, while still a little on the liquid side, is a convincing result overall.

Cleaning is supposed to run automatically thanks to the cleaning programme. Anyone intending to use the machine more than once should plan to do it themselves. To free the machine completely of ice and sugar residue you either clean everything with a sponge under the tap or use the dishwasher.

Apart from the motor base and the cooling element attached to it, all parts are dishwasher-safe. Skip the dishwasher's drying function, though, because the heat can warp the plastic parts.

Ninja says the Slushi keeps drinks cold for up to twelve hours. In practice the consistency became noticeably more liquid after around 15 minutes, so slush drinks should be served and drunk promptly — brain freeze included.

Where the machine does score is documentation. The instruction manual is very thorough and the recipe book is well done, with plenty of preparation ideas plus useful guidance for your own creations, explaining which ingredients and mixing ratios actually decide the result. Anyone who engages with it gets pulled quickly into a slush universe bursting with possibilities — much like the Ninja Creami, whose use likewise feels part science, part lifestyle.

The Ninja Slushi is a stylish kitchen appliance with a genuine fun factor — as long as you are willing to accept sugar, waiting time and a degree of experimentation. Cleaning in particular takes patience and elbow grease.

It is not a cheap pleasure either, but it can make heavy slushy drinkers and cocktail enthusiasts very happy indeed.

It was £299.00 on Amazon UK when we checked on 2 August 2026; a Stone Gold colourway was £299.99, and the larger SLUSHi XL is a different machine. Check the price on Amazon UK or search on Amazon US