Skip to main content

Ninja Intellisense Kitchen System review

The Ninja Intelli-Sense Kitchen System crushes ice and the competition

Ninja Intellisense Kitchen System review
Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends

“Why you can trust Digital Trends – We have a 20-year history of testing, reviewing, and rating products, services and apps to help you make a sound buying decision. Find out more about how we test and score products.“

If you’re like us, your cabinets and countertops are chock full of small appliances – from blenders to coffee makers to food processors. As companies create more must-have items (sous vide machines, anyone?), we often wonder if they think our kitchen cupboards have endless capacity. Not all foodies live in large kitchens, and all those gadgets can be difficult to store.

Recommended Videos

Ninja has has a possible solution — the Intelli-Sense Kitchen System ($220 on Amazon right now), which does away with multiple appliance bases and is a blender, food processor, and food spiralizer all in one. Not only that, but the system takes the guesswork out of how long you should blend, puree, or chop your items, as it has built-in smart technology that detects when the chopping or blending should be finished.

We put the system to the test to find out if it’s as smart and space-saving as it promises to be. Here are three things we love about the Ninja Intelli-Sense Kitchen System, and one thing we dislike.

The Good

Versatility: It crushes! It purees! It turns your homemade pasta into fun shapes!

If something is billed as a “crusher” in the kitchen, it’d better deliver. The Ninja’s total-crushing pitcher setting does just that. The high-powered blender grinds up ice cubes like they’re fruit in under a minute.

Ninja Intellisense Kitchen System review
Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends
Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends

We made several smoothies, with ice added, over the course of a month, and rarely found even a tiny ice cube. This device was perfect for making ice-cold cocktails like daiquiris or margaritas.

The food processor attachment impressed us as well. We pureed cauliflower in the device on the high setting and enjoyed a pleasant, smooth texture. Just make sure that you have enough of what you want to puree in the cup, or the blades will miss the stuff on the bottom once it gets close to puree texture. Luckily, the device has a large cup and a small cup for this very purpose, in case you only have a little bit to chop or puree.

If something is billed as a “crusher” in the kitchen, it’d better deliver.

Whether you have it on the blender setting, or processing setting, this device is loud, but the blade rotation is surprisingly fast. The chopping features comes in handy for things like dicing onions. Sometimes we find that food processors either decimate your vegetables immediately, or they dice inconsistently. The Intelli-Sense system finds the right compromise.

We were most excited to try out the spiralizer, which finely cuts vegetables like carrots into, well, spirals. Our dinner guests were impressed with the fancy-looking carrots in the salad. The device can also handle pasta dough, cutting it into fettucine, but we didn’t have opportunity to test that feature. The spiralizer isn’t the headline feature, but it’s nice to have.

Smarts: Intelli-Sense has intelligence

Beyond its abilities as a solid three-in-one appliance, the device also has some brains.

A menu pops on the Ninja’s large LCD screen, and the menu will be different, depending on which attachment you connect. For the blender setting, you have options like low, high, and pulse. For the processor attachment, you can choose from puree, chop, or other options. Push the “high” button on the blender, and the device will whiz to life.

There’s also no need to push the stop button, as the device detects when its job is done and shuts off automatically. It took time to trust the Ninja, but the feature never let us down. You can hit a button and walk away.

Fewer bulky appliance bases in your cupboards

Instead of thinking of this device as a food processor, a blender, and a spiralizer, think of it as a single base with attachments that do all these things.

Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends

Instead of lugging out a blender with a base for smoothies, a food processor with a base for dicing vegetables, and a machine with a base for cutting pasta for your dinner party, you can keep one base on your countertop (if you have the room, otherwise, just store it in your cabinet) and switch out the accessories that go with it. Nifty.

That said, there’s a lot of accessories to keep track of, which is our one gripe with this device.

The not-so-good

Honey, have you seen the spiralizer? You know…the twisty thing?

We love that this system rolls a blender, a food processor, and a spiralizer together. But the system comes with a lot of extra stuff to store and keep track of, and we had a lot of trouble keeping it all together in our testing kitchen. It’s too bad that none of the accessories can be used for more than one function, and Ninja doesn’t provide a storage solution.

Ninja Intellisense Kitchen System review
Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends

To give you an idea of the number of items we’re talking about, here’s a list of what the system comes with:

  • A 72-ounce capacity blender pitcher, a blade, and lid.
  • A 24-ounce single serving blender cup with a lid.
  • A 64-ounce food processor bowl with a blade, plus a smaller capacity bowl and blade with a lid.
  • A spiralizer with two cups, two different blade choices, and a lid.
  • And a steel brush to clean the small, hard to reach spots.

Once you take things apart and start washing them, you’ll find that there’s a lot of little pieces you’ll want to make sure you keep together, and that’s not easy. Where do you store bonus blades and lids? To be fair, one could argue that if we had three different devices instead of one, there would be just as much to keep track of. But we still wish that there less parts to worry about getting lost in our kitchen utensils drawer. Couldn’t we have the same lid for all the devices?

Our take

Despite the chaotic mass of parts, we still recommend this multi-use kitchen system. It’s powerful. The Intelli-Sense feature works well. And we now have more room on our countertop to fill with the next must-have small appliance.

DT Editors' Rating: 4/5

Kim Wetzel
Former Smart Home Editor
Before joining Digital Trends as Home Editor, Kim was an adjunct journalism professor at Linfield College and high school…
Tineco carpet cleaner at lowest-ever price for Prime Day — here’s how to save more
A man using the Tineco Carpet One Cruiser Smart Carpet Cleaner.

Not all vacuum deals will be able to provide in-depth cleaning for your carpet. You're going to need something more specialized, and we highly recommend the Tineco Carpet One Cruiser. From its original price of $699, it's available from Amazon's Prime Day for its lowest-ever price of $489, but you can get an additional 5% off with the checkout code TIN25PDPR. That means you'll only have to pay $465 for this smart carpet cleaner, for total savings of $234, but you'll need to act fast as we're not sure if the stocks that are up for sale will last until the final minutes of the shopping holiday.

BUY NOW

Read more
Tineco vacuum nearly $300 off for Prime Day — use this code for extra savings
The Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 cordless vacuum cleaner cleaning a spill.

In one of the most attractive vacuum deals that you can shop for Prime Day, Amazon has slashed the Tineco Floor One Stretch S6 to its lowest-ever price of $319 from its sticker price of $599. However, we've got a code for you to be able to get the cordless wet-dry vacuum cleaner with an extra 5% off — just enter TIN25PDPR during the checkout process so that you'll only have to pay $303, for total savings of $296. That's an excellent offer that you wouldn't want to miss, and you better hurry if you want to take advantage of it as it may not remain available until the end of the shopping holiday.

$303 at Amazon

Read more
Tineco’s docking vacuum has a special Prime Day price, but you can get it cheaper
A Tineco Pure One next to its charging base.

Vacuums feel like they're getting more and more expensive, and not just robot vacuum and mop combos, but ordinary hand vacs. You can go to Walmart and see bagged, corded vacuums that cost hundreds of dollars. It doesn't have to be that way. Tineco's Pure One vacuum brings power and convenience for the same price that other vacuums have, but with new features instead of going backwards into the world of cords and bags. Usually $459, it is down to $319 for Prime Day (that's a savings of $140 already) and we're happy to report you can get an extra 5% off with the code TIN25PDPR on Amazon. Tap the button below to see the vacuum yourself and snag this great deal, or keep reading for what makes this vacuum truly unique.

BUY NOW

Read more