Ninja Swirl by Creami review: It's noisy, but lives up to the hype

Despite being an enthusiastic lifelong consumer of frozen yogurt, soft serve and traditional ice cream and writing about food and cooking for many years, I've never owned a traditional electric ice cream maker. I live in an apartment in New York City, so my storage space for larger kitchen appliances is limited and honestly, I never thought much about making ice cream at home. But my TikTok feed — and my tween and teen — told me I had to try the new Ninja ice cream and soft serve maker. What did I think after using it for several days? Here's for my Ninja Swirl by Creami review.

When the box arrived I was slightly intimidated. This is not a small piece of machinery. It's a bit over 17 inches tall, 15 inches wide and 11 inches deep (not including a removable drip tray). It comes with a generous recipe book and easy-to-follow directions, plus I watched a few videos about how to operate it. I learned about the many modes — you can make 13 desserts, including six types of soft serve and six types of scoopable ice cream, milkshakes and more. If that's not enough, you can customize the ingredients for different dietary needs (think low-sugar, dairy-free, high-protein) and still end up with a creamy, delicious result.

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What I liked: It's easy to use, and fast

An important note about the Ninja Swirl by Creami is that you must make and freeze the soft serve or fruit whip base for at least 24 hours before you can process it. This means there's no way you're serving up the "16 Handles" experience of fro-yo on demand unless you keep a few pints of your favorite base mixture in the freezer in anticipation of cravings.

I made a pint of the Ninja recipe for chocolate soft serve and one for their non-dairy tropical fruit whip. Both were easy to prep, though I now have an open packet of instant chocolate pudding mix (you need one tablespoon of the mix for the chocolate soft serve) that will likely end up in the garbage.

When the base had frozen for 24 hours, and I'd watched a couple of how-to videos, I was ready to go. I inserted the paddle and popped the frozen pint into the outer bowl. Each piece has helpful arrows and lock and unlock symbols to guide you. Next, I slid the outer bowl onto the base and turned to lock it in place, and raised the platform. I selected the soft serve mode, then the ice cream mode for the chocolate soft serve, and the fruit whip mode for the tropical fruit whip. The soft serve ice cream processed for four minutes while the fruit whip processed for six — this takes longer because there are chunks of fresh banana and pineapple in the base. There's a count-down timer that lets you know when it's done.

The processing is very loud, which made me cringe because I tested the Ninja Swirl by Creami at 7:45 a.m. during my daughter's school break and she was asleep. Luckily she is very interested in having a machine like this at home and let it slide.

It's so fast! I could hardly believe it churned soft serve in four minutes. Once it was done churning, I removed the pint from the outer bowl and attached the dispensing lid. I placed this into the dispenser and made sure the lid was open. Once you pull down on the dispenser handle it takes about 10 seconds for your frozen treat to come out of the machine. This is absolutely the most satisfying part of the Swirl experience, outside of eating the ice cream.

If you don't use the entire pint, you can press the retract button, or if you forget, the machine will do this automatically after five minutes of idle time. Then you can release the pint and freeze it for future use. The rest of the parts can go into the dishwasher.

One of the major pluses of the Ninja Swirl by Creami is its versatility. It allows you to experiment with flavors and types of frozen desserts — and it can even help you stick to your nutrition goals. If you're on a keto diet, there are recipes for that. Want to omit dairy? Try an ice cream recipe with coconut milk or oat milk. Or make sorbet from fruit alone. And when it's cocktail hour, you can whip up a batch of frosé.

What I would change: I have a wish list for Ninja

Considering the $349 price tag, I have a number of minor issues with the Ninja Swirl by Creami, starting with this: I wish I didn't have to wait at least 24 hours to freeze the ice cream pints before processing them. It's a real test of one's capacity for delayed gratification, but I get it. If the ice cream mix isn't frozen long enough it won't process properly.

I also wish the processing were less noisy! It's loud, though I understand it is not quite as loud as the original Ninja Creami. If you live in close quarters, this isn't the activity to take on during anyone's nap time.

I wish the machine were smaller, but if I lived in a house in the suburbs this might not matter much.

I wish the Swirl was less expensive because it's tough to justify spending $349 on a frozen treat machine. However, if you know you'll use it weekly, it surely will quickly pay for itself. No more $11 cups of fro-yo every weekend!

The verdict: It's big. It's noisy. It's magical!

The Ninja Swirl by Creami is a premium and pricey product. It's $349, about $150 more than the brand's original Creami ice cream machine. However, the Swirl does much more and is truly an innovation in this category. The two types of soft serve I made were phenomenal. The classic chocolate is everything you think of when you close your eyes and imagine your first ice cream shop visit of the season. Its mouthfeel is rich and creamy, and it has real chocolate flavor. The tropical fruit whip is made with coconut milk, fresh fruit, honey and vanilla extract and tastes like a beach vacation (or a trip to Disney). The texture is spot on and it swirls just like you want it to. If you can swing the price, I give it an enthusiastic 'add to cart.'