My rather old immersion mixer died recently so I decided to try Ninja’s 2-in-1 immersion mixer and hand mixer to see what it is like. I was dazzled by the promises of a 750W motor, but what does that really mean in the real world? Find out in the review below
Transcript
Can you really replace two of your kitchen gadgets with one that does a better job than both of them combined? This is the Ninja Foodi 2-in-1 blender & mixer. It’s a hand whisk AND an immersion blender in one… Have Ninja done it again and come up with another kitchen essential or are you actually better off buying two cheaper products?
At the heart of this machine is an 850W power base which transforms to a hand mixer or blender by swapping the attachments. That wattage is a pretty impressive number when you compare it to the competition and so its natural to think that what you’re buying is really powerful and will get the job done really quickly, but is it?
When you are using this tool as an immersion mixer there are two blending speeds and when you are using it as a hand mixer there are five mixing speeds plus a turbo option with both which gives you maximum power in short bursts.
I tested it out as a hand mixer side by side with my old one to see how quickly it could turn two egg whites to soft peaks and I didn’t get the results I was expecting
My ancient 150w Kenwood hand mixer did the job in 50 seconds whilst the Ninja took 1 minute 10 seconds on maximum speed. The Ninja may say that it’s 850W in the product description but I tested both these hand mixers with a gadget that measures the power they use and both hand mixers only needed about 50w of power to whip those egg whites
Next I tested the immersion attachment. My old immersion blender died so to give myself something to compare it to I bought Amazon’s best seller, a £12 300W blender from an obscure Chinese manufacturer. Side by side the build quality and finish of these two blenders felt miles apart but which did the job better?
I made a big batch of soup, divided it in two and put the blenders to work… and discovered both blended soup in about the same time using about the same amount of power. The Ninja peaked at 189w whilst the cheap blender peaked at about 170w
So what is that 850w thing all about? Well in theory it’s the power this gadget could use if required to mix or blend something very stiff, like say cookie dough, but I think many of us will only ever use an appliance like this for blending a soup mix or cake or pancake mixture and so you need to consider how often you are likely to use a hand mixer to mix really stiff batter. Personally, I also have a stand mixer and do stiffer mixes in that, my hand mixer is a quick grab-and-go option.
So both the blender and the mixer perform similarly to cheap alternatives when used in common applications, but how do they compare in other ways?
Weight wise it is heavy. With the immersion attachment it’s just over 1kg, with the hand mixer attachment it’s 1.2kg. I compared that to the listed weight for the 10 best-selling hand mixers and blenders on Amazon and you can see it’s heavier than average in both categories
So here’s what I like about it.
It feels really sturdy and well made and it looks visually appealing and the novelty and convenience of a gadget that does two jobs is a real bonus
The hand mixer will stand on the base if you need to pause while cooking and there’s a hands-free release button for the mixer attachments. It also has a generous 1.5m long power cable.
All the attachments are made of stainless steel and are safe to go on the top rack of your dishwasher
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Now here’s what I don’t like about it….
When you use the Ninja as a hand mixer, I found the part of the mixer attachments that are inside the appliance become very warm to the touch, so if you are in the habit of ejecting them to pass them to a child so they can eat the cake mixture you have to be careful and I got a telling off from my 8-year-old when I handed her warm prongs
The buttons on this hand mixer are also small and you have to press them 4 times to move up to the highest speed instead of a sliding button which you can push in one move. You CAN use the Turbo button to give you maximum power but it’s intended for short bursts and you have to keep your thumb on it to make it work
So I’ve compared a top-range product with ones that are a lot cheaper. and the one thing I can’t measure is longevity. The hope is that Ninja is a reliable brand that will last, but it’s impossible to know for sure as for that big impressive wattage number, my advice is that a blender or mixer that’s 200W or 300W will probably do the job for most people and that means you could make quite a saving buying the two appliances separately…. but of course Ninja have this brilliant skill of creating these amazing looking products that we all want in our kitchen and that is hard to resist! Let me know what you think in the comments.
Links to purchase
Ninja 2-in-1 hand blender and mixer https://geni.us/dKft
