We live in the golden age of homemade slush. It’s a new era that has come to us after last year’s viral virus Ninja Slushi Maker ($349)) introduced the slushie machine to the American kitchen and with it a new world of frozen margaritas and Bapple slushies, and cockamamie slushie recipes shared on Reddit And TikTok.
After three weeks of testing to find the best slushie machines, I’m happy to report that the condition of the slushie is solid. Boozy slushies may be the one thing I miss from that first Covid pandemic summer — the days when “supporting local businesses” meant slurping whiskey slushies out of parked cars like a John Cougar Mellencamp character. These days I’m like the king of daiquiris. I am the sultan of tamarind micheladas and the brother of frosé. These frozen drink machines can, of course, also make normal slushies without alcohol, for parents and 7-Elevens lovers. Frozen juice is delicious. Anything frozen is slightly more delicious. There’s also the promise (but not quite the reality) of smoothies and milkshakes.
Because the Ninja continues to sell, we also tested a few products from the new wave of slush machines that have flooded Amazon in Ninja’s wake — frozen drink makers whose names sometimes sound strange to English speakers and are often written in all caps. One of them, the Horse ($260)already offers credible competition to the Ninja as the source of your next espresso martini slushy.
Do you prefer ice cream? My colleague Adrienne So saw her spring and summer changed by a rainbow of delicious soft serve and sour fro-yo “Ninja Whirlwind” by Creami (9/10, WIRED recommends). For other summer refreshments, check out our guide to Best cold brew coffee makers, and the Best Pod Coffee Makers for Cold or Hot Brew.
Best slush machine
Photography: Matthieu Korfhage
Photography: Matthieu Korfhage
The Ninja Slushi is a triumph of industrial design: the machine that successfully brought the cocktail bar or convenience store slushy to the home kitchen counter. Many imitators have now arrived. But among those we tried, the Ninja Slushi remains the fastest and most reliable. The controls are the most intuitive, its dispensing spout is the easiest to clean and the collection tray attaches much better to the machine. The Ninja is easy to assemble, disassemble and clean, and even the dispenser can be taken apart for easy cleaning.
It is also a childish pleasure for adults. I don’t know anyone who owns a Slushi who doesn’t just rave about it. I made coconut-lime daiquiris for a family of visiting Brazilians, who joked that they planned to bring the machine back with them on the plane. I threw a party full of kids with the non-alcoholic version of the slushy. And I’ve made silly frozen cocktails at home, whether they’re lime Jarritos slushies or tamarind michelada slushies. Turns out anything frozen is better. Freezing a cocktail adds fun and eliminates shame.
Ninja Suggested Recipes are extremely varied, and the Ninja fans on Reddit go even further. But stick to delicious dairy-free slushies. The Ninja fared better with milkshakes and smoothies than other slushie machines we tried, but the texture of the milkshake was never quite right: it was always a little frothy or grainy, cleanup is higher stakes, and slushie machines don’t allow for the fruit bits that are always the best part of a milkshake anyway. The lesson is: don’t ask a cat to be a dog. If you expect soft serve ice cream from a Ninja, don’t buy a slushy machine. Buy the soft serve ice cream machine. More precisely, buy the “Ninja Whirlwind” by Creami (9/10, WIRED recommends).
Specifications Dimensions 16.3″ x 6.5″ x 17″ high Weight 25 pounds Ability 16 ounces minimum, 64 ounces maximum Settings Slushie, Enriched Slushie, Shake, Milkshake, Frozen Juice, Rinse Noise 55-65 decibels Freezing time for 16 ounces of Mike’s Hard Lemonade ~15 minutes Best Budget Slush Machine
After we both tested the Chivalz, my colleague Kat Merck and I each registered a pleasant surprise. Merck declared it, without insult, “a completely respectable imitation of Ninja Slushi.” It even suggests some improvements. The Chivalz has a digital temperature display that shows you the current and target temperature. It allows you to schedule the start of a slushie for hours in the future (which is only really useful if your drink doesn’t require refrigeration to remain food safe). And it has a removable back panel on the main chamber that makes cleaning much easier. The Chivalz produced a 16-ounce slush almost as quickly as the Ninja, and the dispenser allowed the slush to drain much more easily. If you’re strictly making slushies and spiked slushies, the Chivalz is a contender. Like the Ninja, the Chivalz parts are dishwasher safe.
Alas, the Chivalz produces 10 ounces less slush in the same size tank, which essentially means it will serve one less person at a gathering. The Chivalz also does not freeze dairy products: the “ice cream” setting produces a thin, watery milkshake. The controls are a bit clunkier and less intuitive, with a strange and unnecessary need to hold the power button for three seconds to start the machine. And the dispenser doesn’t come apart, which means it’s a sanitation issue that requires pipe cleaners. But what if you just want frosé all day? Chivalz is your friend. And because it goes on sale often, it’s usually $50 to $100 less than the Ninja.
Specifications Dimensions 17.3″ x 8″.2 x 17″ height Weight 26 pounds Ability 16 ounces minimum, 54 ounces maximum Settings Ice cream, granita, enriched slushy, chilled juice, milkshake, smoothie and self-cleaning. Preset timer. Noise 55-65 decibels Freezing time for 16 ounces of Mike’s Hard Lemonade ~16 minutes
A Slushie Machine We Don’t Recommend
Inoviva
88 oz Slush Maker
Inoviva machines are among the best-selling slush machines on Amazon. The chamber and dispenser look strikingly similar to the Ninja Slushi, and the company bills itself as quieter than its competitors. But according to my decibel meter, the Inoviva was the loudest machine we tested, and the compressor wasn’t as consistent in bringing down the temperature. The same recipe took very different freezing times, and in some cases the Inoviva failed unexpectedly with a standard recipe. My model also arrived with the condenser drip pan stuck inside the machine, so to shake the drip pan I had to extend the machine and pull on the pan so hard I was afraid I would break it. The machine’s logo, affixed as tiny stickers, quickly began to slide down the front of the machine.
The Inoviva had a great feature: the ability to adjust the thickness for each drink setting. This is mitigated somewhat by the inability to see drink temperatures relative to each other and a clunky “lock” feature that prevented me from using the device without adding any special security that I could understand.
I tested the Ninja Slushi and the Inoviva slushie machine. My colleague Kat Merck and I tested the Chivalz slush machine. Note that the latter two marks appear in capital letters on Amazon, but we prefer to write them in an unobtrusive way that doesn’t hurt our eyes or our editors’ feelings.
We have made many, many slushies with each machine, from dairy and non-dairy slushies to coffee slushies and straight wine bottles. Specifically, we tested every version of slush advertised by a machine. If Ninja or Chivalz say they can make frozen smoothies, milkshakes and juices, we’ve made frozen smoothies, milkshakes and juices, tinkering as necessary. I froze orange juice and strawberry juice, made a rosé bouquet, and made slushies ranging from daiquiri to margarita to whiskey Coke. I made tamarind micheladas (a great idea) and Twisted Tea (a really bad idea).
Photography: Kat Merck
I also tested the freezing capabilities of all three machines by pouring a 16-ounce can of delicious Mango Mike’s Hard Lemonade into each, then seeing which machine was fastest. And I made smooth, dense coconut-lime daiquiris with coconut milk, according to Ninja’s recipe, to test how each machine’s dispenser would handle a real dense-textured challenge.
How do home slushie machines work?
The technology is quite simple, almost ingeniously so: a sturdy cylindrical freezing core in the center of the beverage chamber continually cools any liquid in contact with it. It is surrounded by a plastic auger attached to a motor. The auger mixes the drink, keeps it mush instead of freezing solid, and also pushes the resulting slush toward the dispenser nozzle so you can have some. The purposeful simplicity of this design allowed Ninja and others to narrow down the commercial slushy maker for home consumers hungry for frozen treats.
The main requirement is that the frozen drink contain more than 4 percent sugar – or between 3 percent and 16 percent alcohol – in order to lower the freezing point of the resulting concoction and make slush preparation possible. Some granita machine sellers recommend percentages rather close to 15 percent sugar, for a perfect consistency. But I often balk at it. Coca-Cola and orange juice each contain about 11% sugar, so it’s quite, very sweet. An Internet hero created a slush calculator for easy reference.
A minimum of 16 ounces of fluid is required for most 88-ounce home machines, for simple reasons: the fluid must be in physical contact with the core in order to melt and also to prevent ice from forming on the surface of the center cylinder.
Can you put diet soda in a slushie machine?
No and yes. Slushes depend on a useful property of water: dissolved sugar (and salt) n water lowers its freezing point below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. For what? Solubles like sugar are agents of chaos. Sugar molecules move randomly, refuse to dissolve in ice, and interfere with water’s ability to form hydrogen bonds and become crystal clear. Some water molecules freeze, but sugar water does not. Tada! Slush.
If you try to make a slushy with sugar-free soda or anything sugar-free, ice crystals will easily form. The stainless steel freezing core will frost and scrape the auger, and the ice cubes or chunks will gather mass in the slush maker. The cylinder will start to shake, then the machine will slam, and eventually you’ll probably end up breaking your machine: the low-sugar safety systems on these devices haven’t been very reliable, alas. So don’t do that!
This doesn’t mean you’re doomed to consume a ton of calories if you want to make a slushy. Not all artificial sweeteners lower the freezing point appropriately, but the one Ninja recommends for diet slushies is allulose, a rare but natural sugar that is 70 percent as sweet as basic sugar but is not metabolized efficiently by the human digestive system. This means it is low in calories and does not cause insulin spikes. But as with many non-digestible products, note that side effects may include bloating or gastrointestinal upset for some.
For easier use in a slushy, purchase liquid allulose. Powdered versions also exist, but to use them you will need to make a simple syrup by heating the powder in water to help it dissolve, then letting it cool. If you just try to pour allulose powder into your machine with Diet Coke, it may not dissolve and you may still get ice. Or at least I always had ice forming when I tried this on the Ninja and had to stop my machine.
How Can You S The Best Milkshakes Get Frothy in a Slush Maker
I bet you weren’t expecting a lesson on milk proteins today! But here’s the problem: Mlik proteins start to separate when shaken. In fact, churning milk is how butter is made. The proteins separate and you get butter on one side and buttermilk on the other. Both are delicious, but neither is necessary in a milkshake.
Photography: Matthieu Korfhage
If you try to make a milkshake in a slushie machine using only milk, you will eventually see the effects of these milk proteins separating from the buttermilk, which will first manifest as unwanted foam. To avoid this, Ninja also recommends adding heavy cream or half-and-half to any milkshake recipe. The higher fat content will make things softer.
Note that it’s easier to use fruit syrups, rather than juice, and add vanillin, otherwise it will be a bit boring: heavy fat tends to overwhelm the subtle fruit flavors. Another deep secret of the tasty milkshake? Salt. Add a small pinch; this will help bring out the flavor. A 16-ounce McDonald’s milkshake contains 260 milligrams of sodium, or about one-sixteenth of a teaspoon of table salt, or about the amount that fits between your index finger and thumb.
But temper your expectations here. None of the slushie makers we tested offered a texture comparable to a regular milkshake. The texture is often a bit grainy and never as richly textured and integrated as the milkshake you’ll get from your local burger joint, let alone the restaurant’s soft serve. famous broken ice cream machines at McDonald’s. Slushie machines also can’t handle frozen fruit pieces, which are often the best part of a milkshake.
