Customer Ratings & Reviews

As an owner and fan of the original Ninja Creami, I was excited to try out the updated Swirl model and see how it stacked up. It did not disappoint. The Swirl has a slightly larger footprint than the original Creami, but the added soft-serve functionality makes it a worthwhile upgrade. I followed the included vanilla soft-serve recipe for my first test and was impressed with the results. The controls are intuitive, and the ice cream blended to a smooth consistency on the first pass without needing a re-spin. The processor remains as powerful as ever, effortlessly churning through frozen bases. However, that power comes with one tradeoff: noise. The machine is fairly loud while running, but since the processing cycle only lasts a few minutes, it wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. The soft-serve attachment works well, with the lever providing good control over the flow of ice cream. One thoughtful addition is the drip tray, which helps catch drips from melting ice cream left in the nozzle—a small but useful touch. My first batch came out with a firm, creamy texture that held up well and was delicious eaten on its own or in an affogato. One of the best aspects of the Swirl is how easy it is to clean. I was able to clean all parts with a quick rinse or wipe down. Since the parts are dishwasher-safe, tossing them into the dishwasher for an even simpler clean up is also possible. Any leftover ice cream can easily be capped and stored in the freezer for later. Overall, I’m very happy with the Ninja Creami Swirl. The ability to control ingredients and customize flavors makes it a fantastic addition to my kitchen gadgets. While the noise level is noticeable, the quick processing time and excellent results more than make up for it.

I love Ninja products and I own several. I will continue purchasing them because I trust Ninja will always deliver a quality product and so far, I have not been disappointed. The aesthetics and quality of their products have always been fantastic. I typically don't start with the bad things but I'll go ahead and get it out of the way. It's big. It's really big.It takes up a large amount of counter space for me. The problem with that is not everyone is ok with the amount of space it takes up. I think this is more of an item where you need to have a dedicated space that doesn't interfere with the day to day operations of your kitchen. It is quite loud too. I've made several recipes and I do have to say, it's loud when it mixes. It's not deafening but it's loud enough to make it unusable at certain times of the day/night. I love ice cream. My family loves ice cream. We are ice cream connoisseurs in my house and that's why I wanted this from Ninja. The recipes can take up to 24 hours before you can consume them. Which means, you really really need to like ice cream to make it, wait for it to freeze and be ready, then put it back through the machine. It's quite a process and I'm just being real that with a large family with little kids of my own, it's not very convenient. For someone with patience and creativity in the kitchen, I can see this being perfect as long as you are ok with the amount of space it takes up. It is great at what it does. There are endless options and recipes. It's very much a multi purpose machine if you are looking to make shakes and ice cream and soft serve, etc. I just think for me, it's a little too large and not convenient enough for me to use regularly.

I have a love/hate relationship with this Ninja Swirl by Creami (Swirl). It’s massively fun, addictive, and easy to use I feel the need to push harder during my daily workouts to deserve indulging. Thankfully for my heart and waistline, the Swirl is like a versatile James Bond gadget rather than a one-trick pony. So, while rich soft-serve ice cream is definitely the marquee attraction it can also deliver healthier treats like soft-serve fat-free yogurt and fruit whips. It’s also a boon to those who avoid dairy because substituting cow milk with nut “milks” and protein powders works great. If you stop reading here just know, yes, the Swirl is an appliance that will put smiles on everyone in your family, even if they have to run an extra mile afterward. I won’t list every kind of treat the Swirl makes. Best Buy’s product page does that fine. But, in sum, it’s almost any frozen treat you can imagine. I’ll discuss my experience making a few of these treats in a bit, but first a few details about the machine itself. THE SWIRL BY CREAMI MACHINE This machine not only has a tall list of talents, it also has a big presence too. I’ve attached a photo of it in my kitchen. It’s so tall it barely fits under my cabinets. The point here – identify its home in your kitchen before bringing it home. The Swirl’s body is plastic but imitates stainless steel well. You have to tap it to be sure. Build quality is solid too. The swirl lever offers a confident feeling resistance when pulling down to prevent accidentally going full throttle, and the touch-sensitive control panel is quick and accurate to engage. It’s easy to be intimidated by all the lids and bowls when unpacking the Swirl. Not to mention all the lock and unlock buttons. Relax, it’s really a kid-simple machine to use once the routine is learned. To assist, Ninja cleverly put stickers on all the important parts explaining what each does and when it’s used. It really made for a great experience not having to delve into a manual to figure out what bowl goes where and does what. It also made the learning curve that much flatter. All the removable parts are dishwasher safe. The main bowl doesn’t really come into contact with food, so I just rinse after use. All the other parts I put in the dishwasher after every use. Ninja also recommends removing gaskets after every few uses to clear any trapped build up. Perhaps the two most important items in the kit are the recipe book and the pint containers which hold the frozen treat. Two one-pint containers are included, and I think it’s highly likely you’ll want to buy extras, especially if you have more than 3 in your family or you want to keep treats ready-to-go in your freezer. If you do buy extras only buy the one’s specifically for the Swirl. Ninja says a pint makes 4-servings, but as we’ve all experienced, one person’s full serving is another’s sample. Personally, I think Ninja is doing a bit of marketing magic making the 4-serving claim. To my stomach a pint makes maybe 3 “adult servings.” Also, like an empty ketchup bottle, some of the treat won’t be able to make it to a cone and you’ll have to spoon it out. But it’s still delicious. If you have enough left over to make a full serving you can refreeze and use later, but it’s best to always start with a full pint. A SWIRL OF EXCITEMENT – MAKING TREATS Normally I trash included cookbooks. But I’m a rookie making ice cream and other frozen treats so the one that ships with the Swirl is my best friend. Sometimes I use it as a guideline, other times I follow directions verbatim. Regardless, the ingredients can get expensive, so don’t think of the Swirl as a way to save money. Its genius is that is allows you to create whatever flavor or kind of frozen treat you desire with the ingredients you want – things that might not be available at the grocery store or even the ice cream shop. By example, I’m not a fan of full fat milk or loads of sugar in commercial products and even some of Ninja’s own recipes. So, to make some vanilla ice cream, instead of 3% milk I substituted oat milk. And I cut the sugar does in half and used raw sugar rather than granulated. Still not healthy, but less unhealthy. And the result of that vanilla ice cream batch was not bad for a first try. It was rich and creamy and interestingly tasted more like honey than vanilla and plenty sweet for me. It had a slight syrupy texture, so, yeah, a work in progress, but, to me, experimentation is part of the fun with this machine. But if you want instant gratification, this machine does that too. Just pack in store-bought ice cream or similar, follow the directions in the recipe book, and in minutes you have soft-serve ice cream. Whether it’s a momentary craving or you are hosting a big family gathering where you need a lot of soft-serve fast, it’s great the Swirl is not so exclusive that it can accommodate store ice cream, not just specific recipes. To try this out I packed in some Breyer’s Pistachio Almond, which to me is ice cream, but to the powers that be is “frozen dairy dessert.” Either way it was amazing in soft-serve form. Long after I ate it I read in the Swirl’s instructions not to use mix-ins with soft-serve. I’m unclear if this applies to store bought ice cream too. This had chunks of almonds in it, and, while it’s clearly not recommended, my machine was no worse for it. Again, delicious, and enjoyed the almond bits. A few days later I tried this with Turkey Hill Cookies and Cream and that produced a slightly less thick soft-serve so YMMV depending on brand and ingredients. A twist, on this, if you will, is soft-serve store bought Greek yogurt. Personally, I only eat Dannon Oikos Triple Zero and Chobani Zero-Sugar to limit sugar and saturated fat. (I mention this because I’m sure brands with sugar and 2-3% fat will taste different, so again YMMV and just experiment.) I was feeling mischievous, so I mixed two Oikos cherry cups and one vanilla into the pint and put it in the freezer for about 20 hours. The basic process to make any soft-serve treat is 1. Place pint into an outer bowl, 2. Place outer bowl into the processing side (right) of the Swirl. 3. Press the kind of treat to be made on the control panel and let the Swirl do it’s thing. If the treat looks crumbly just press the re-spin button. 4. Place the pint into the soft-serve side of the machine and enjoy. As a warning the machine is loud. My Apple Watch noise meter app recorded it at 85 dB at one foot away, something to keep in mind if you have noise-sensitive people in your house. So, in this instance I pressed the “frozen yogurt” button and went through the quick process. A few minutes later soft-serve yogurt was delivered to my cone. To my surprise the taste was less sweet than the yogurt straight out of its own cup. It was tangy and tart, pleasantly so. Happy memories of Pinkberry swirled in my head as it left my area long ago. As noted, full sugar and fat yogurt will probably taste sweeter, but I can’t say for sure since I don’t buy that type to be able to test. These are just a few of the treats I made to find out what this machine can do, and how well it does it. It represents a small number in a long list of possibilities. I won’t touch on the hard ice cream and mix-in feature, but if you like hard ice cream too it’s available here too. BUT ITS NOT ALL A BOWL OF CHERRIES AND CREAM The downside of any kitchen appliance is the clean-up. And that’s no different here. As noted above, there’s lots of bowls, lids, grommets to be cleaned, some of which need hand cleaning from time to time. The beauty of going to the ice cream shop is you get your ice cream and leave the cleaning to the store. But you don’t get the unfettered flavor or ingredient options available with the Swirl. And while going out to get ice cream is fun, using the Swirl is too. It’s a great parent-child activity and introduction to cooking if that’s what it is. In short, whatever mess is involved is 100% worth it. This is a super-fun addition to everyone’s small kitchen appliance kit, and I look forward to experimenting with all it offers in the months and years to come. That said, this machine only makes small batches so while it’s a perfect family activity don’t pull it out for a summer party.

The Ninja Swirl by Creami is the best of both worlds for making scoopable and soft serve frozen treats at home. Build Quality The build quality is fantastic, units is very heavy and feels solid and stable. The unit is quite large, so it will take up some counter space. Features This machine has all the options of the previous non-swirl version and will allow you to make scoopable and soft serve in a matter of minutes. The preprogrammed modes allows you to create a multitude of various frozen creations (ice cream, fro-yo, fruit whip, custard, etc.) Operation The device is fairly loud (80-90dB) but it's powerful and has been able to turn all of the recipes in to a nice and smooth soft serve without any issues. Follow the recipes in the provided inspiration guide and you will have fantastic outcomes. The inspiration guide has many recipes and variations that will guide you into how to make the best frozen treats. Cleaning Clean up is a breeze. All of the parts breakdown in to pieces which allows for a through cleaning and most parts are dishwasher safe.

TLDR The Ninja Swirl is a full-featured make-it-at-home machine. While easy to use, it takes some trial and error to not only find good recipes, but to make whatever just like you like it. INTRODUCTION My family and I have been looking at the Swirl for some time now. We were very excited when it came up for review. Who doesn’t love a good bowl of ice cream? When the Ninja arrived, it was like someone had called a family meeting. Everyone was in the kitchen and couldn’t wait to see it. Ooh and aahs were heard all around and everyone had their own opinion on what the first kind of ice cream should be made. While unboxing, I was a little shocked to learn that the Swirl isn’t just a one trick pony that does only ice cream. The product advertisements show making ice cream and everything else is overlooked or just not advertised. But the Ninja can do so much more than just make a good bowl of ice cream. It can make very tasty protein shakes, milkshakes, gelato, soft-serve, whips, froyo, sorbet, etc. I was very impressed and didn’t realize the Ninja had a whole other side to it. USE Let’s be clear, protein shakes, and healthy snacks can wait. It’s all about ice cream. With each family member having their own idea of what ice cream is the best, grocery shopping is often a compromise. Who has room to fit multiple ice cream containers in their freezer? To me, this is the biggest benefit of the Swirl. Now each person can have their own personalized bowl of ice cream or ice cream cone whenever they want it. Surfing the interwebs and watching some YouTube videos showed me that, for most treats, you can just make a basic vanilla base and have multiple different flavorings or toppings as options. Super smart! Just keep some pints of vanilla “base stock” frozen and then each person can add what they want. Whether it be Snickers, Oreos, fruits and berries, etc. most desserts can be built with ease. There are dozens of recipes around the web for homemade desserts, protein infused desserts, healthy drinks and snacks, etc. The possibilities seem nearly endless. So many, it is hard to find one that you like. With 9 different food options available, the Ninja does its best to guide you without fuss to making your desired treat. Ninja has done an excellent job of making a product with so many moving parts and pieces, easy to use. Assembly and disassembly procedures are intuitive and very well labeled on all the parts. Items that fit together are clearly labeled and all snap with a reassuring click so you know everything is right. However, forget a step or not have things connected perfectly and the Ninja will let you know. The Swirl will give you an error code showing something is amiss. It won’t tell what it is, but it will tell you something isn’t right. NEGATIVES Without a doubt, using the Ninja is not as convenient as going to the freezer and grabbing a carton of ice cream. With the Ninja, you must plan ahead of time. The basic vanilla base stock I referred to earlier; the ingredients need mixed together and placed into the freezer a minimum of 24 hours ahead of time. The same goes for any other ice cream treat as well. Everything must be made ahead of time and kept frozen until use. Again, it is not nearly as easy as grabbing a spoon and container. There is quite a bit of clean up with the Ninja. It’s not horrible, but it’s not throw the spoon in the dishwasher when done easy either. Thankfully, Ninja has made most everything top rack dishwasher safe, so rinse off your stuff and throw it in the dishwasher. Mine come out squeaky clean after a cycle. There is a learning curve with the machine regardless of how well Ninja has worked to make things user friendly. There are a bunch of little tips and tricks that you learn either by trial-and-error, by reading the included documentation, or by watching some YouTube videos. For example, if you want Oreo ice cream, you can’t just grab the pint from the freezer, throw in some Oreo chips and hit the Mix-In button. Nope. Won’t work. It will just stir your Oreos in about a half inch down. Same with any other topping or ingredient. Instead, you must dig a hole down to the bottom of the pint and fill it up with topping as well, to ensure a thorough mix. Lastly, the Ninja Swirl is LOUD when blending and preparing. Using an Android app on my phone, I measured a peak of 95dB. That’s equivalent to an electric drill, heavy city traffic or a jackhammer at 50’. Thankfully, the longest blend cycle I’ve used was 5 minutes, but it was a loud 5 minutes. Plan on it waking the family up if used in the morning. FINAL THOUGHTS The Ninja Swirl has been a resounding hit so far in this household. It’s been used nearly every night so far. Whether it be for a bowl of ice cream or a quick milkshake, it has been put to good use. I think this is what sums up the Ninja Swirl better than anything. This is something the whole family is into. Everyone finds it user friendly enough that they all still love making a treat even after using it the first time. Not an easy feat for any manufacturer and Ninja has brought the goods. This scores a major win in everyone’s book. Ninja continues to impress me with their innovative products that are durable, easy to use, and easy to clean. Like all my other Ninja products, I have no doubt the Swirl will become a valued member of the family as well. RECOMMENDED

I am now 2 years into my journey of a healthy lifestyle. I've lost 105 lb over this period of time, so let me start this review by saying that an ice cream machine was not really a temptation that I wanted to have widely available at home. Until I learned exactly WHAT all this machine can do and...it's crazy! Hint - you can have ice cream AND be healthy (or, just have ice cream, haha)! To start, it can do 6 different standard CREAMi programs from regular ice cream to frozen yogurt, sorbet, gelato, milkshakes and lite ice cream. This is ON TOP OF various soft-serve options as well, including regular soft-serve, fruit whip, frozen custard, swirled lite ice cream, frozen yogurt and CreamiFit. So, yeah, from my understanding, this does everything the CREAMi can do, PLUS Soft Serve. It really is the ultimate all-in-one stop for ice cream. I love the fact that you can do both Scoop or Swirl options and the Swirl is always so much fun to do and never gets old...it just brings out the kid in you, lol. Our daughter always volunteers to pull the handle and do the serving. However, my bread and butter with this machine is the CreamiFit setting. In the short time I've had this machine, I've already made two servings of ice cream with protein powder in it. Both servings were great and neither tasted overly "protein powder-ish". Anyway, unboxing this monster wasn't bad at all. I'm so used to Ninja products coming with a huge swathe of parts and various other tools and such that make it all work. I will say that it does seem a bit intimidating at first, but after making your first ice cream or two, it's not bad at all. All of the pieces and parts play together with each other, for the most part, so there's not like 10 different things to keep up with at once. Everything was packaged super well and in typical Ninja-fashion. The quick start and recipe book included are very nice and get you up to speed pretty quickly. There was some confusion at first because we thought we had to freeze the two pint containers first, before doing anything at all. But turns out, that's only for certain programs. Our go-to program so far has just been the Soft Serve and it's been amazing, in every way. Even our daughter was blown away by how great it tasted and said it was even better than the Vanilla cones from Dairy Queen! Score! We've tried several flavors, including Vanilla, Strawberry and Orange Creamsicle. The important thing to remember is for this, you cannot use ice cream that had "chunks" or "bits and pieces" in it, so make sure it's only the basic "flavors" and not the ones with say, cherries, chocolate pieces, etc, in it. And while I talked about the CreamiFit setting in the beginning, I can still use "healthy" yogurt-style, low-calorie ice cream in the soft serve function as well, if I don't want to do anything fancy, like adding protein powder or anything. Like, if I just want a typical "cone" ice cream, but not the full amount of calories. Really, with all of this being said, our only real complaint is when using the machine to make the ice cream, it gets SUPER loud. But this seems typical for Ninja, in general, from our experiences, especially with their various blenders. Not sure why this is the case, but it's a good sacrifice for some fantastic ice cream. The wife has used this way more than I have and when she does, I can hear it all the way across the house! Overall, I give the Ninja Swirl a solid 5/5 stars. It's design is minimalist, for the type of machine it is. Cleanup isn't bad at all - just make sure you rinse everything as soon as you're done with it. Don't let it sit overnight or you'll have a bit tougher of a time. There aren't too many stray parts to keep up with, which I love for a change and once you're over the initial learning curve and intimidation of all the various options this offers, you're well on your way to making the best ice cream in town, right in your kitchen. The little recipe book is only a start - your imagination is truly the limit with this one. We are having a small birthday for our teen daughter in the coming weeks and absolutely cannot wait to bust this out for the guests and it'll be amazing when we get into the hotter weather of Summer. We cannot wait to see what ideas we come up with for this and how creative we can get!

This is a fun, but ultimately pricy machine. It lands somewhere between being a pure novelty and a practical device you could real value from. That ultimately comes down to whether you take full advantage of all of its potential to create unique treats, or your desire to appease children (and adults) with swirled cones in Summer. You can make soft-serve from scratch (recipe) or simply process store-bought ice cream and extrude it into a cone. I tried a range of options, mostly with success, but probably the biggest point of advice is to be careful of how hard you make it work. It’s well constructed, but every machine has its limits. Regardless, I feel it’s important to mention that this thing is consistently loud - extremely loud - no matter what you make. The first thing you’ll realize is that this thing is both large and heavy. It seems very sturdy, but it also comes plastered with tons of stickers to encourage you to follow the instructions and make not of various locking buttons, etc. These stickers come off easily, but between them, the instruction booklet, and overall number of components, the machine gives the impression of its complexity. Luckily, once you get using it, everything makes sense and it’s not that hard to use properly. It’s worth noting that this ‘makes’ ice cream through shaving down pre-frozen concoctions in their special pint containers, and cannot freeze your mixture on the fly. The soft serve feature simply extrudes your treat right after you’ve processed your frozen recipe on the core part of the machine. (Using store bought ice cream speeds this process up, more on that below.) That said, *** Read all instructions! *** It’s easy to do just enough steps incorrectly in your first experiments to stress the machine. I jumped straight to the Signature Vanilla Soft Serve recipe because I was excited to see the machine make real, from scratch, soft serve. I followed the instructions, but used skim milk instead of whole. There are plenty of warnings about making sure you use proper amounts of sugar, fat or replacement ingredients to keep things going as expected. After freezing them for 24 hours, I suspect my mix had more ice crystals in it than it should have. The result was a toasty motor smell that emanated from the machine as it worked hard to get through the frozen block. You can find plenty of stories of people putting these through a bit too much stress, so be careful. My latter attempts went a bit better, with a little less worry about burning out the motor on my brand new machine. Ninja Test Kitchen provides a lot of recipes with various levels of difficulty, based mostly on how many steps, ingredients, or time waited are involved. I tried several so far: — Protein-Rich, Lite Soft Serve: With a little less prep than the Signature Soft Serve recipe that had me melting sugar (easy) this one required simply mixing protein powders and a few other ingredients and then freezing them. The machine seemed to struggle on this one as well, so if I did it again, I’d add a bit a cream or an emulsifier to the mix. After processing, it was a bit more watery than the others as well, but still extruded ok - yet melted quickly. I didn’t love the flavor of my Butterfinger-inspired recipe, but I could see its potential of being a protein-rich snack for summer months. — Frozen Yogurt: While there are more involved recipes, I chose the one-ingredient recipe, which is basically just instructions for freezing store-bought yogurt and processing it into soft serve the following day. It largely worked, but the mixed berry yogurt used remained a bit too tart in soft-serve form. Like the protein-rich recipe, it also melted fairly easily, so consuming your swirled cones quickly can be necessary. — Simple, Store Bought Soft Serve: This is by far the easiest way to make soft serve on this machine… mostly because you’re not really making it. You simply take a store bought ice cream (without chunky fillings) and scoop it into the machine’s pint containers. Since it’s already frozen, you don’t need to wait. You just need to process it on a lesser setting. This is perhaps an example of it being somewhat easy to overlook subtle differences in how you use this machine. I should have read the instructions and chosen ‘Re-spin’ in this case, but my brain defaulted to selecting ‘Ice cream’ - While the machine didn’t have to work that hard, it got slightly unbalanced as chunks of soft ice cream flung around inside. (Again, it’s all about following instructions, even if not many steps!) - This resulted in the best-extruding soft serve. My swirl technique was never mastered, but it still looked the part and didn’t melt as fast as my prior creations. I imagine this being the best way to appease young kids and have enough to go around at parties. The two included pints only provide 4 servings, so this route allowed for refilling quickly. — Summary: If you want to serve up unique soft desserts, whether that be ice cream, fruit sorbets, or protein desserts regularly, this could be the unique tool to do that. Some people swear by their Creamis, so there’s an audience for it. Similarly, those with kids who insist on swirled cones will find this fun. At the same time, cost and space requirements would still make this a novelty machine for many. It’s fun, but how much that fun is worth to you is subjective. Its learning curve is small, but I definitely felt like damaging the machine is a real possibility if you’re not careful, or if you fail to follow all of Ninja’s suggestions on prep and operation. And of course, the biggest downside is just how loud the machine is. I consistently registered 90 dBs during the height of use. I leave the room and close doors when running a program, it’s that loud. Yet, I still like mine, even if only for its fun factor. Making unusual or custom frozen mixtures seems to be the highlight of this machine. Where else can you get any kind of soft serve or real fruit sorbets you can imagine? *** The Good Stuff: - Ability to make unique desserts you won’t find elsewhere. - Making soft serve at home is a fun novelty. - Well designed, robust components. - All core components are dishwasher safe. Easy to take apart for cleaning. *** The Less Than Good Stuff: - Even with all its robustness, feels like you could easily destroy machine if not careful. - Extremely loud, no matter what you make (90 dBs) - Most recipes require a 24-hour wait time for freezing. - Small learning curve, lots of pieces to learn about and sort out before first use.

The Ninja Swirl Creami is another well built, well thought out device from Ninja. I picked this up to appease my children who are both ice cream lovers as well as mini chefs, and we haven't been disappointed. The build quality on this Creami is very good. All the parts are pretty durable, with the machine itself being mostly metal with a few plastic parts, and the containers being durable plastic. The pint sized cups have survived a couple drops so far, as well as the lid for the soft serve portion being frozen on. The machine itself comes with 2 pint sized ice cream containers, and one mixer. I do wish that it came with more pint containers, or that they were larger, but if you find yourself needing more they can be ordered online (which I plan to do). The machine itself is as intuitive as I think is possible, with buttons the correspond to what you want to do. That said, I do highly recommend reading the instructions to be sure. As for the instructions, I advise looking online for recipes. While there are some included in the booklet, I found the two that I made to taste a little off and the instructions not entirely clear on how to make ice cream vs soft serve. Almost all the entries say soft serve while only a few say ice cream (or it might say bowl). Once I tried other recipes and experimented on my own, we were making very good ice cream that the family enjoyed. One critique I will give the machine is that I wish it was audible. There are times when you need to do something and it has a light flashing indicator that doesn't stand out vs all the other lights, which leads to momentary confusion as to what to do next. For instance, when attempting to remove the container after making soft serve, the retract button faintly flashes on the display, but if you're trying to figure out why it won't release, you won't see it. As for the ice cream and soft serve it makes, its very good. The consistency of both has been in line with what I expect from the store or an ice cream shop. I haven't tried making sorbet or any of the other things listed yet, but I have faith in this machine. Overall very happy with this machine and look forward to making more deserts with it.

Before talking about this specific machine, I need to say that I have over 5 devices and appliances from Ninja, and I have never had an issue with any of them. the build quality is outstanding and they are always elegant and dependant. The Ninja Swirl is a wonderful addition that I found to be extremely helpful in my household. Right out the box, the instruction labels are placed for easy, quick learning and the all the mechanisms and switches and buttons are solid. the machine is also heavy. it comes with 2 tubs if you want to make and have 2 different kinds ready, I found t his very helpful and a nice touch. as a health concerned person with a family of people who eat and eat and don't seem to gain weight, I have been suffering and not enjoying the delicious ice creams my family eats. so when I got t his machine I got it for 1 reason and one reason only, to make protein based, healthy ice cream and I have been experimenting with it with different flavors and I couldn't be happier. cleaning it is easy and accessories are not an issue. I have placed it permanently on the kitchen counter under the cabinet and it fit nicely. I haven't tried the cone yet but am planning to do so soon. this has been a home run for Ninja and I really am happy I can make protein based ice cream and not worry about the quality of the calories am eating.

One of my favorite new gadgets of the last few years was Ninja’s Creami. My family and I enjoy the frozen treats. It has been nice knowing exactly what is going into our desserts. When I found out that Ninja was making a variant of the Creami with a soft serve dispenser, I leapt at the opportunity to give it a go. For the most part, the experience has been very good. It is not an experience without a few shortcomings, but my family and I have really enjoyed it. I can still make every treat that I love for the original Creami, but now we get the benefit of soft serve treats at home. Anyone looking into making their own soft serve ice cream cones, should pick up a Swirl by Creami. For more on my experiences, please read on! Setup: The Swirl comes with quite a few accessories. There are some obvious differences from the original Creami out of the box. For one, this comes with two new pints. These pints have a twist open base and a dispenser opening built into the pint. As far as I can tell, old pints from previous Creami models are not compatible with the Swirl. When making soft serve, there is a plunger lid that is made up of three different components. Beyond that, you still have the base unit, the container with handle, the paddle, and the lids for the pints. Experience: My favorite recipe for the original Creami is the Strawberry ice cream recipe from the original Creami recipe guide. Making a scoop recipe for the Swirl was exactly the same as it had been with the original Creami. I had heard that the Swirl was quieter than the original Creami. It may be a bit quieter, but it is still loud enough to wake up every kid in your house or to annoy apartment neighbors. Still, the recipe came out well. I tried my hand at a few soft serve recipes. There is a beginner soft serve recipe and an intermediate soft serve recipe. The difference primarily being that the beginner recipe uses vanilla pudding mix and the intermediate recipe uses milk powder and xanthan gum. Between the two recipes, I highly recommend the intermediate recipe. It is not much more difficult to make, and the product is much more stable than the beginner recipe. The beginner recipe tastes fine, but it melts super-fast. Nitpicks: I have already mentioned the noise, but there are a few other items that concern me a bit with the new model. First, the Swirl wastes a decent amount of soft serve from the pint. When the machine believes it has gotten all the ice cream out of the pint, there was still about a half of an inch of ice cream left in the bottom of the pint. More was stuck near the nozzle. The second complaint is that there are a lot more moving part now than there were with the original Creami. As mentioned above, the Swirl has many pieces to keep track of and clean. The original Creami felt more “self-contained” whereas the Swirl has an extra plunger lid that I must keep track of for making soft serve and the pints themselves have more working parts. And these new pints can leak beyond their base. They seal up, but the seal is not always perfect. Conclusion: Still, I have enjoyed Swirl by Creami. The frozen treats taste great. It is fun to make the recipes. Everything has worked well overall. I am not entirely sold on the new pints, and I wish the unit were quieter, but this is a great device for anyone looking to make frozen treats at home. 4.5/5 Recommend

This is our first ice cream maker and it couldn't be easier. We started out with the two vanilla recipes that come with the quick start guide and they are literally 5 ingredients. We mixed them up, put them in the provided pints, and put them in the freezer for 24 hours. While we were waiting, we had plenty of time to learn how to put the machine together. The instructions are easy to follow and several of the parts have a locking mechanism to show you that they are in the right spot and to make sure things are secure for when you operate the machine. Once your wait is over for the frozen mixture, the mixing has several pre-sets on the machine for what you are making. We have made soft serve ice cream that mixes for 4 minutes. It’s very loud in the first couple of minutes but not sure what they can do about that because it takes a lot of power to whip a frozen mixture. Once the mixing is done, to dispense the soft serve you simply lock on the cap and insert it into the locking mount and pull the dispensing lever. Kids can operate this as well with no fear of them getting injured as it has to lock into place to run. Once you are done, there are only a few pieces that need to be taken apart and cleaned which we have done by hand, but they are also dishwasher safe. And that's it! With only a few minutes of mixing, a day of freezing, and then a few minutes of operating followed by cleaning, it’s a very simple process. The machine also comes with a recipe book for many flavor ideas, but we also found one of my relative’s recipes that they made in an old-style ice cream maker and we duplicated it with ease. So, if you want to have some fun with the family, this Ice Cream Maker is easy to use, no mess, and safe for the whole family to operate. My kids thought it was great and commented that our ice cream was like getting it at a restaurant.

Relatively easy to use, my son loves it. Makes delicious soft-serve ice cream and milkshakes. A little bulky and many components, but that's a very minor complaint.

Awesome product and the family loves it! Easy to use and comes with plenty of easy recipes. It is a large appliance and loud as other reviews state, but runs efficiently and has easy cleanup.

The Ninja Swirl is likely the most unique appliance I have in my house, and one I never imagined liking as much as I do! I was mainly interested in this machine because my son struggles with trying new foods. He is diagnosed with mild autism and has always had severe challenges when it comes to introducing new foods or textures. My hope was that making ice cream together would provide him with a hands-on experience where he could learn about each ingredient, add them at his own pace, and feel more comfortable trying the final product. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but he refuses to mix foods—he loves tofu and he loves rice, but once combined into a single dish, he won’t touch it. I'm excited to say that my plan has worked amazingly well! He has already tried several new ingredients, including yogurt, and he’s genuinely excited about making ice cream now. As with all Ninja products, the design is incredibly well thought out. My wife was initially against getting this machine because she thought the cleanup would be excessive. To our surprise, it’s actually very easy to clean. The machine itself never gets dirty, only the pint containers and the various lids (blending and soft-serve tops) need washing. The lids have rubber gaskets, ensuring no ice cream ever touches the machine itself. I expected a steep learning curve, so I watched several tutorial videos before making my first batch. However, once you learn the process, it’s amazingly simple, and you’ll never need to refer to the instructions again. Interestingly, the machine is only used for the final step of the process (turning the mixture into ice cream or soft serve and dispensing it). This means you can store it away and only bring it out when needed, which is what we dot. I initially assumed the machine would be involved in the entire ice cream-making process, but it’s actually just the finishing touch. The soft serve function is incredible! My son absolutely loves soft serve, and this feature alone has made the machine worth it. So far, we’ve made a Mango Fruitwhip and a Peach Fruitwhip for soft serve, along with a Nutella Yogurt for scoopable ice cream. All three have been amazing and seem much healthier than store-bought alternatives. The machine is a thoughtfully designed machine that has exceeded all my expectations. I love that you can purchase extra pint containers, allowing you to store multiple flavors in the freezer and always have ice cream ready to go. A friend of mine is even considering buying extra containers to make homemade protein ice cream to bring over for the final step in the machine. Beyond the product itself, this appliance has given us a fun activity to share with our son. It’s helping him gradually overcome his sensory processing challenges in a fun and low-pressure way. I couldn’t be happier about it!

The soft serve feature is nice. The blending features are similar to any other ninja blender we have owned. Functions as expected. It is a large appliance.

The Ninja CREAMi Scoop & Swirl has delivered consistent results for every recipe we tried. We have made more than 15 variations of ice creams, custards, and frozen yogurts, and each one came out smooth with the right texture. The one-touch programs keep the process simple, and the machine handles mix-ins well. The only hard part is waiting 24 hours for the base to freeze before you can enjoy the batch. I recommend this maker to anyone who wants reliable homemade frozen desserts.

This thing is amazing! I have used it every other day since the day I got it. I'm able to make protein ice-cream and Acai bowls/ and so much more. I love that Im able to know what is going into my sweet treats. A side note that's a bonus is my PICKY toddler loves sorbet option, I'm able to add much more fruit and veg to his diet without him knowing! its been such a plus

This thing is amazing! I worked at a famous soft serve ice cream business as my first job. I remember over 20 years ago wishing for an in home soft serve machine. My dream has come true. The ice cream is super easy to make. Mix your ingredient and freeze in the provided container for 24 or more hours to really get solid. Then put in machine and select the proper function, it mixes it for the allotted time. You can respin if not smooth or adding more liquid. Then pop another lid thing on and place on the soft serve side and pull handle. The healthy options too, are endless on this thing! The only thing that would make it better would be to not wait so long for freezing.

Perfect texture, easy to use, great machine. Good set of instructions on how to do the Icecreams with the package.

TLDR: We made the best chocolate soft serve that even Joe Biden would enjoy! Prep the day before then in 24 hours enjoy! The machine is loud! The style is modern but the build quality is all plastic. Expanded review: Everything is included except the ingredients needed to make the best soft serve you ever had! The family was super excited to make their first batch. We used the included recipe book to make some chocolate ice cream. Once the ingredients were mixed we put the container in the freezer and patiently waited 24 hours to make soft serve. 24 hours later we put our previously frozen ice into the machine to convert it to soft serve. Wow the machine was as loud as a jack hammer. That is probably my only major complaint. The ice cream itself was delicious. Cleanup was easy and we just hand washed everything and cleaned the machine. The waiting time is another gripe we had. We couldn’t have instant ice cream. So if you are having a party you have to make the ice cream the at a minimum 24 hours before. The build is all plastic and it doesn’t scream luxury. It was easy to clean and wipe down.