Ninja 3-in-1 food processor with Auto IQ review

The 3-in-1 functionality is very practical if you're looking to kit out your kitchen but don't have space to store multiple gadgets.

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What do you get with the Ninja 3-in-1 food processor?

On opening, the box offers a smorgasbord of attachments. The 1200W motor base (22cm tall on its own) is sleekly designed with a smart selection of self-explanatory buttons, including four speed options (from low to pulse). Once you've loaded the chosen attachment, the motor base helpfully auto-lights suitable programs to choose from. Manual functions are controlled by the speed buttons.

Everything is big: the food processor bowl itself is 1.8-litres, with stainless steel chopping blades. A 2-in-1 stainless steel disc for slicing and grating has handy finger holes for safe removal, plus there's a four-blade system combo dough hook.

Then there's the 2.1-litre blender jug with frighteningly named 'total crushing blades'. For more everyday, personal blending, a 700ml cup with water-tight lid and screw-on extractor blade system is included. All the blades are remarkably sharp.

Something to bear in mind – on arrival, the chopping blades and stacked blades are not locked in place within the processor and blender cavities. It's pretty easy to load and unload .

Ninja 3-in-1 food processor results

Food processor bowl presets include chop, purée and mix. The lid twists left and locks with a click, requiring button release. There's a two-part food pusher that allows you to guide as well as press. It uses a handy twist-and-lock system.

There are measuring guides in ml, cups and oz on the outside of the processor bowl. When assembled on the motor base, the machine is very tall – roughly 48cm with its feeder spout. Plus you need some additional room for lifting the lid off. Blade loading is a simple lift/lower affair.

Potatoes and onions were sliced efficiently on a manual setting, which we found gave better control if you're feeding in ingredients. After flipping over the disc, cheese was also grated with zero-fuss.

Take away the disc adaptor and you can load the stainless steel chopper blades, of which there are four (designed for large quantities). We preferred the flexibility that manual speed control offered, but the pre-sets would be useful if you're preparing large quantities of ingredients (you can walk away and leave the blender to do its thing). The blades made light work of particularly tough galangal and fibrous ginger, when making basa gede spice paste.

Moving onto the blender attachments, tested by making BBC Good Food's super berry smoothie, the 2.1-litre jug with stacked blade assembly chomped right through large frozen chunks of fruit, as did the blades specifically for the 700ml single-serve cup. The latter took slightly longer to purée ingredients into a smooth, thick consistency, but it eventually achieved the same result as the larger blender. A practical, sealed cap is included in the set for screwing on in place of the blades.

Should you buy the Ninja 3-in-1 food processor?

Unboxing this gadget feels a bit like Christmas. The number of attachments is overwhelming, but thanks to easy-to-follow instructions and well labelled components, it's simple to get the hang of this machine.

If you have low kitchen cupboards over your work surface, the Ninja 3-in-1 might not fit under them. It's also incredibly loud when in use.

Safety-wise, most of the sharp blades can be contained within the components. The slicing disc and dough blade system hooks are the only internal elements that can't fit. The disc adapter can be slipped into the food processor so it doesn't get lost. Every part is robust, so for a multi-functional kitchen appliance that should last, this is an efficient bit of kit.

Ninja 3-in-1 food processor specifications

Components: 2.1L jug and lid, stacked blade assembly, spout lid, pro extractor blade assembly, 700ml single serve cup and lid, reversible slicing/grating disk, disk adaptor, 1.8L food processor bowl, feed chute lid with pusher, dough blade assembly, chopping blade assembly, instructions, recipe booklet
Auto-IQ presets: chop, slice, grate, purée and mix
Dimensions: 48 x 25 x 19 cm
Wattage: 1200W
Manual speed settings: low, medium, high
Guarantee: 1 year

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This review was last updated in February 2021. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.