Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
There’s a certain corner of the internet where you can’t escape the Ninja CREAMi. The at-home ice cream maker uses an incredibly powerful (and frankly, loud) blade to pulverize a frozen mass of blended ingredients into a soft treat. This means pre-freezing mixes about a day in advance, then loading them into the machine and waiting a few minutes as the device absolutely pulverizes them.
The CREAMi could be used to make sorbets, milkshakes, gelato, low-fat/high-protein “lite” ice creams—everything except soft-serve.
Enter the Ninja Swirl. Ninja’s newest ice-cream device adds soft-serve functionality as a second step to any scoopable treat you want to make. Personally, I’m into the at-home ice-cream craze for the healthier options. If I’m going full calorie, it’s gonna be Ben & Jerry’s Netflix and Chill’d for me, but after seeing what the Swirl can do with a tub of yogurt, I’m sure it would make the best gelato you’ve ever had (if you’re willing to temper a few egg yolks).
As long as everything you add is more or less blended into a mush, you can really go wild with what you turn into ice cream. Of course, there’s the opportunity to swap cream for every kind of dairy and non-dairy milk you can imagine (oat and coconut milk are highly recommended by the internet for their creamy results; cottage cheese, yogurt, and kefir come up often for lactose lovers). But why stop there? Would blueberry pie filling and a can of sweet corn make a Michelin-worthy treat? What about your unfinished coffee and favorite creamer? I tried some basic recipes below, but you can really go wild with it.
Recipe 1: Store-Bought Ice Cream
You may scoff at calling this a “recipe,” but it was the first example in the Ninja Swirl’s included recipe book. I tried this the day I got the machine because it requires no 24-hour wait while ingredients freeze. I grabbed a regular pint of ice cream, used the re-spin setting on the Swirl to mix it up, then loaded it into the soft-serve dispenser. Success—you can turn your favorite pints into soft-serve in about four minutes.
This is a great option for lazy folks (and I am often a member of this group) or those who don’t want the fuss of mixing and waiting. It’s especially great for fans of store-bought protein ice creams like Halo Top, Nick’s, or Arctic Zero: a common complaint is that the lack of fat makes these types of ice creams too hard. A quick spin in the Swirl changes that. 5/10, why not?
Recipe 2: A Can of Fruit
Again, this is barely a recipe. For one pint, I plopped a can of pineapple tidbits, juice and all, into the bucket. 24 hours later, I had refreshing pineapple sorbet. Then, I did the same with a can of pears. For sorbets, I’d suggest scoopable over soft-serve, but you do you. 7/10—makes me feel better than other people.
Recipe 3: Fruit and Coconut Milk
My first attempt used a can of mango, some full-fat coconut milk, and some no-calorie sweetener (I used Splenda, aka aspartame). Because I forgot to close the pint’s twistable base fully when freezing, the soft-serve port was clogged with frozen mix, so I had to settle for scoopable ice cream. But settle might not be the right word—this was incredible. If I got this ice cream at a local scoop shop, it would become my go-to order.
The second fruit-and-coconut blend was peaches and light coconut milk, plus sweetener. This was also great, though the lower amount of fat delivered a less creamy result. 9/10, I’m obsessed.
Recipe 4: Greek Yogurt
You might be picking up that my preferred type of ice cream recipe involves opening a container, pouring the contents into the container, and freezing the container—end of recipe. I froze non-fat strawberry cheesecake yogurt with nothing else. The original result was a little powdery-looking. When you encounter this, just add a splash of liquid (I had coffee creamer handy), mix well (make sure to scrape the sides), and use the respin setting until smooth. Especially if you’re attempting non-fat recipes, the respin setting is your friend.
The end result was incredible. It tasted like my favorite frozen yogurt from 16 Handles during the New York City fro-yo boom of 2010. I can’t wait to raid the yogurt aisle to find new flavors to ice-cream-ify. 9/10, would smash.
Recipe 5: Bananas and Peanut Butter
This was three mashed bananas, a big spoonful of peanut butter, and a few pumps of Torani sugar-free peanut-butter-flavored coffee syrup I happened to have (flavored coffee syrups are a great way to add sweetness and unique flavors). This produced the creamiest treat of the bunch. It made my husband propose (we’ve already been married for a decade). 10/10, where have you been all my life?
Final Thoughts
The Ninja Swirl is a definite upgrade from the CREAMi, but there’s enough overlap in functionality between the devices that current CREAMi owners may want to wait until their current device bites the dust to get the newer model (unless soft serve is a dream realized, then you do you). Anyone who does decide to upgrade should be warned: the pints from the CREAMi and CREAMi XL Deluxe do not fit the new Swirl—and the third-party market for cheaper additional Swirl pints has not yet caught up.
If you’re looking for even more recipe inspiration, there are tons of people swapping experiments on Reddit and Facebook. Because take my word for it: once you buy an ice-cream maker, you start seeing the world in terms of “can I make that into ice cream?”
