Ninja Kitchen Gadgets Tested: SLUSHi, Foodi Three-in-One Toaster and Sizzle Pro XL

Introduction

Ninja has been branching out into kitchen equipment that, on the surface, looks genuinely cutting edge. To find out whether these machines are actually worth the hype or just great marketing, we put three of them through their paces in a real kitchen, cooking and mixing with them properly rather than just unboxing them. Here is how the Ninja SLUSHi, the Ninja Foodi Three-in-One Toaster and the Ninja Sizzle Pro XL performed, what they cost, and who each one makes sense for.

Ninja SLUSHi: Frozen Drinks Without the Ice

The Ninja SLUSHi is a domestic tabletop slushy maker, and its promise is simple: no ice needed, no sharp blades, no blending. You pour, slush and enjoy with the press of a button. Ninja claims it runs whisper quiet thanks to its Whisper Chill technology, and that frozen drinks are ready in as little as 30 minutes, though in practice the range is 15 to 60 minutes depending on your ingredients.

There are five presets: slush, frozen cocktail, frappe, milkshake and frozen juice. The slush assist feature is particularly useful, helping determine whether more ingredients such as sugar are needed, which matters because a great slushy is all about the ratio of ingredients, fats and sugars.

In testing, a frozen blood orange margarita took about 30 minutes with five minutes of prep. Timing depends heavily on how many servings you are making and how cold your ingredients go in. The machine turned out to be genuinely quiet for a compressor unit, and slim enough to slide neatly into a work surface. The resulting drinks were smooth and exactly what you want from a slushy, holding their form without becoming icy and crunchy.

The real appeal is how playful you can be with it: different fruit juices, iced teas, your own cordials and personalised cocktails all work. It is essentially idiot-proof. The one limitation is that you cannot adjust the machine itself, so if you are serious about experimenting you will need to perfect your recipes instead.

Rinse cleaning is straightforward too: warm water to the max line, rinse and spin a few times, and it dispenses quickly. At 259.99 pounds, it is a significant investment, but that cost reflects the no-ice compressor technology, which is the expensive part of any freezer-based machine. It scored an outstanding 9.3 out of 10 overall.

Ninja Foodi Three-in-One Toaster: Toaster, Grill and Panini Press

The Ninja Foodi Three-in-One Toaster markets seven cooking functions: toast, bagel, defrost, grill, panini, bake and reheat. In reality it boils down to three roles: a vertical toaster, a horizontal grill, and a panini press, with a hinge that flips between orientations.

It offers seven shade levels ranging from roughly 90 seconds to just over two minutes, with a dedicated bagel and crumpet setting that toasts one side more than the other. The digital interface with a countdown clock is a genuine highlight. Toast quality was even and nicely soft and airy in the middle rather than dried out, and the defrost setting produced bread that was steamy and soft inside while toasting on the outside.

Not everything is perfect. The timer popped the toast up two seconds early on one run, and because the crumb tray is not removable, turning the machine on its side sends crumbs where you might not want them. You have to bring the bin to the tray rather than the other way around, which is a bit odd.

The included two-part accessories add real versatility. A grill tray handles cheese on toast, croissants, pastries and a slice of pizza, and a clip-in panini press adds an extra heated element for cooking from both sides. Everything is dishwasher safe, which matters once cheese, sauces and juices get involved.

Panini Press Performance

The panini function works but is not fast, with recommended times of 10 to 18 minutes, which suggests relatively modest heat. You also cannot be particularly generous with your fillings, and the press is a bit fiddly to get even. Once cooked, though, the results were lovely and oozy inside with deliciously crisp outsides, delivering exactly the textures a panini press should.

The main limitation is capacity: two slices of toast or one panini at a time. Priced at 129 pounds, it feels reasonably priced for a well-known brand, and it earned a combined score of 7 out of 10. It is a great two-slice toaster with a genuinely useful grill and panini mode, held back mainly by cleaning fiddliness and capacity.

Ninja Sizzle Pro XL: A Big Indoor Plancha

The Ninja Sizzle Pro XL is, in chef’s terms, a griddle or plancha, and it is definitely XL. It comes with interchangeable flat and griddle inserts, a ventilated lid that disperses smoke to reduce splatters, easy-clean ceramic plates, a detachable lid, and a grease catch tray that makes it a genuinely healthy way to grill. Ninja claims it fits up to 10 burgers, chicken or salmon fillets.

You get custom temperature control, custom timing with an alert, and low, medium and high grill presets. Preheating takes seven to nine minutes for best results, which allows the ceramic to settle into an even cooking temperature across the whole surface, including the corners.

Cooking on a plancha is a different approach to a frying pan: it is a volume game. You can cook a dozen burgers at once, toss sliced onions, do flatbreads, and handle fish easily with an offset spatula. In testing, pancakes came out beautifully even, eggs slid around effortlessly thanks to the extremely non-stick surface, and bacon cooked evenly front to back.

The trade-offs are worth knowing. The surface is so non-stick that metal tools and hard scraping are out, so a silicone spatula becomes your friend. There is only one temperature across the whole plate, so you cannot run one side hot and the other cooler. And it is huge: if you do not have the counter and storage space for the plates and lid, this is not the machine for you.

At 179.99 pounds direct from Ninja, it sits in Ninja’s usual position of undercutting established rivals rather than being either cheap or expensive. It scored an impressive 8.5 out of 10, with the only real hesitation being its sheer size and the fact that a good pan can do some of the same jobs.

Which One Should You Buy?

If your dream kitchen has room for exactly one of these, the choice comes down to how you cook. The Sizzle Pro XL suits households that want volume cooking and brunch-friendly versatility, and it earned a place on the shortlist precisely because plancha-style cooking feels new rather than redundant. The SLUSHi is the aspirational pick: it does something at home you otherwise simply cannot achieve, and its score reflects that. The Foodi Three-in-One Toaster is the hardest to recommend without reservations, since a conventional toaster and a separate panini press may serve you better, but as a compact all-in-one for small kitchens it does its jobs well.

Conclusion

Ninja sells a dream, and in the case of the SLUSHi and the Sizzle Pro XL, the products largely back it up. The SLUSHi earned the highest marks of the three at 9.3 out of 10 for delivering genuinely restaurant-style frozen drinks at home, the Sizzle Pro XL impressed at 8.5 out of 10 as a capable indoor plancha, and the Foodi Three-in-One Toaster landed at 7 out of 10 as a competent but compromised multi-tasker. Match the machine to a real need in your kitchen and none of these will disappoint.