Ninja's new CrushBoss system just replaced my blender and food processor – it's the all-in-one food prep system I've been waiting for

The Ninja Crushboss System is an upgrade on the Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor with Auto IQ which is already well liked for its multi-functional capabilities, not to mention it’s long-standing residency on our list of the best food processors.

At £239.99 the CrushBoss is only £40 more expensive than the previous model. It comes with similar accessories, but the menu of functions includes more smart capabilities, more blending speeds, and a more sophisticated user interface.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on it just before it launched, so I used it in my home kitchen to see whether this combination appliance really can save you space and money by combining three food and drink prep machines in one.

In a nutshell

The Ninja CrushBoss System is a multi-functional, space saving appliance that works as a blender, food processor, and cup blender. At £239.99 it’s a great value option compared to buying all three appliances individually, what’s more, it’ll free up valuable storage space too.

Clever detection technology means it always knows which accessory you’re using, and offers the appropriate presets on the menu. Furthermore, the SmoothSense mode takes the thinking out of blending smoothies, soups, and other lump-free blends.

I found it really easy and intuitive to navigate through the menus using the big wheel on the front. And I love the safety feature that means it won’t operate unless the accessories are locked in position, and the lids are also locked in place.

In use it was fast and efficient, it excelled at virtually every task I threw at it and it’s quickly becoming a real workhorse in my kitchen. The accessories are all top-rack dishwasher safe, but the larger jugs and cup didn't fit on the top rack of my dishwasher, so be prepared to hand wash these larger parts.

Who tested the Ninja CrushBoss?

Helen McCue

Helen is Ideal Home's expert kitchen appliances tester, with a wealth of experience that spans a Home Economics degree and a stint at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Over the last three years, she has tested dozens of products for Ideal Home from her home in Buckinghamshire, including a long list of air fryers, blenders, bean-to-cup coffee machines, vacuums and sleep essentials. Helen is our go-to kitchen expert and tests out every kitchen appliance with a range of delicious recipes.

Living and mostly working from home in a small cottage kitchen means she's always intrigued by appliances that’ll save some space. I tried the Ninja CrushBoss System in my own home for over 10 days, and was so happy with it’s performance that I’m going to keep hold of it. It’ll replace my bulky food processor and separate blender, freeing up some much needed storage space.

Unboxing and first impressions

True to form for most Ninja appliances, the CrushBoss System came well protected in completely recyclable cardboard and paper packaging, so there are no unwanted trips to the dump with a load of polystyrene.

The motor base is the size of a typical blender base and it has four suction cup feet that instantly grab and secure it to my worktop. The main blender jug is a great size and the lid has a pouring spout so that you can pour out liquids without having to remove it altogether.

The stacked blade for the blender has no less than six blades at different heights, so it really looks like it’s been built for the job of serious blending. By holding the top, the blade can be removed from the jug for easier cleaning of both the jug and the blade.

I really like the look of the tumbler cup and can imagine taking it out and about when I want a smoothie on the go, or a protein shake in my gym bag. It’s got a large handle and a secure flip top lid.

The tumbler cup has its own blade assembly, which is designed to work efficiently with the shape of the cup. And the smartly designed large straw has a clever rubbery bit at the bottom, allowing you to push it down when you want to close the lid.

The last main accessory is the food processor bowl and lid. The lid has a large 13cm feedchute, but the double pushers mean there’s also a smaller feed chute if you leave one in place.

Unlike some complicated food processors I’ve come across, this lid clicks seamlessly into place and the bowl clicks intuitively onto the motor base. You can choose between the four blade stacked chopping blade or the plastic equivalent that’s for dough.

The multiblade disc houses the interchangeable grating and slicing discs. You get one grating, one slicing, and one crinkle cut disc. But others are also listed in the instruction manual so may be available to purchase separately.

The base detects which accessory you’re using and then offers the relevant presets on the menu. There’s an on/off button as well as a pulse button. All other presets and processing speeds are accessed via the big wheel on the front.

The centre of the wheel is the screen and you press this to select a programme and start blending. It then displays a countdown timer or the speed. There are between 3-5 presets depending on which accessory you’re using, as well as smart sensor programmes, and manual speed selection. So I’m pretty sure there are enough options to cover most uses.

What is it like to use?

Tumbler cup

For single serve smoothie style drinks, you can blend everything in this cup. I made a banana chocolate smoothie by adding soya milk, ground flaxseed, chia seeds, peanut butter, cacao powder, frozen banana slices, and ice cubes.

A card that came in the tumbler gives advice on the order you should add different ingredients in. Once in position on the base, I selected the SmoothSense automatic programme.

It spent a few seconds sensing the ingredients before going into the Power Blend mode. All-in-all the process was completed in 52 seconds. The drink was beautifully smooth, all the powders had blended in well, and the frozen banana and ice had been completely pulverised. It was pleasant to drink using the straw.

My sound meter recorded 90dB during the blending process, which is loud, but most blenders are. And it’s only for a short burst.

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The process was similar when I made a fruit smoothie with fruit juice, frozen berries and yogurt. The ingredients were turned into a delicious smoothie in around 50 seconds, impressive given the size of some of the frozen strawberries.

There were some tiny seeds in the smoothie, giving it a somewhat gritty texture, but rarely have I made a berry smoothie in a blender that’s capable of completely obliterating these tiny seeds.

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The final smoothie I tried was a green kiwi and spinach smoothie containing two kiwis, a lump of frozen spinach, some frozen banana slices, a spoon of chia seeds, soya milk, and yogurt.

Once again, it was pulverised to a lump free smoothie in just over 50 seconds when using the SmoothSense auto programme. I really enjoy drinking out of this tumbler cup, both using the straw and drinking straight from the lid. The large handle is also super comfortable to hold.

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Food processor bowl

It just so happened that I was planning a pizza night the day after this appliance showed up on my doorstep, so as soon as it was unboxed, I put it to work making the dough.

I added all of my pizza dough ingredients to the bowl, with the dough blade in position. Then I selected the dough programme on the menu. It blended the ingredients for 30 seconds and successfully combined them into a smooth dough.

I had hoped it might knead the mixture for a while, so after the initial dough programme, I went into the manual speeds and switched on the low speed setting. I let it run for one minute, but turned it off and completed the kneading by hand. It was starting to shake a bit as it kneaded the dough. Luckily the suction cups on the base keep it firmly rooted to the worktop, nevertheless, I didn’t want to damage it.

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Homemade slaw is one of my summer staples and grating everything is much easier with a food processor. For my beetroot slaw, I grated a whole carrot by chopping it in half and placing the pieces side-by-side in the feed hole.

I used the shredding blade with the disc preset on the menu, and the carrot was grated in around 4 seconds. Similarly a whole peeled beetroot took around 3 seconds. Both times there was a small piece of ungrated vegetable left, but honestly it’s so fast I don’t care. And to avoid waste you can finely chop these ungrated pieces and add them in anyway.

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The crinkle cut attachment is an unusual addition if you ask me, I’d rather have two different thickness slicing or grating blades, but I gave it a go nevertheless. This time I pushed half a cucumber through the feed hole. The crinkle cut slices were about 5mm in thickness and took just a few seconds.

The slicing disc is ideal for quickly prepping vegetables. It sliced up my carrot so fast I barely had a chance to press start and stop on my timer. The slices weren’t perfect, but rarely is there a circumstance when I want or need them to be 100% uniform. It was fast and easy, and that’s good enough for most slicing jobs. Though some perfectionists out there might disagree.

In contrast, the slices were very uniform when I sliced a whole kiwi. In seconds I had seven uniform 5mm thick slices of kiwi and just a few pieces of waste.

Homemade houmous is one of the things I regularly use my current food processor for, and I wanted to see how this one managed. After adding all of the ingredients, I decided to trust the SmoothSense smart programme to take care of the blitzing.

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Including the sensing part of the blend, my houmous was blended to a smooth paste in 70 seconds, I was very pleased with the result. After tasting it, I added in some extra salt and spices, then used the handy pulse button to mix the seasoning in without over blending the mixture.

When tomatoes and a pepper needed roughly chopping for a recipe I used the main blade with the Chop preset. It's a speedy 12 second pulsing programme that resulted in slightly uneven pieces, but it’s okay for a rough chop for things like soup and sauces, and definitely saved me time. If you’re hoping for evenly diced vegetables though, you’ll be disappointed.

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Blending jug

There’s only a couple of recipes included in the booklets that come in the box. One of them is for a chunky salsa that you make in the blender, so I gave it a try. It’s as simple as adding all the ingredients to the jug and selecting the PrepIQ Mince preset.

It’s a very speedy 11 second programme that pulses the ingredients. At the end though, I could spot a large chunk of green chilli pepper that still needed to be processed. So without even scraping down the sides, I set it going on the mince programme for a second time.

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The second go did the trick and created an excellent salsa. It probably wasn’t as chunky as the recipe intended but it wasn’t pureed and all the little chunks were exactly the same size, making it look very professionally made. It tasted great too.

There isn’t a dedicated ice crush preset, so I chose the variable speeds for this job. I emptied a whole ice cube tray into the jug and started it on speed 2, which is one of the slower of the ten speeds on offer.

Unsurprisingly, ice is no match for this six bladed blender and in just five seconds, the whole lot was pulverised into a snowy dust. I poured this into a glass and added milk and espresso for a homemade frappe style drink, and it worked as a great alternative to a slushie machine.

At the time of testing, we were experiencing a heatwave and standing in the kitchen making a hot soup couldn’t be lower on my list right now. A recipe I’d saved for gazpacho, on the other hand, had been calling to me.

Once the vegetables and all ingredients were in the blender, I turned on the SmoothSense auto blend programme. It blitzed the soup for 90 seconds, turning it into a completely smooth liquid that poured nicely from the spout in the lid.

On the menu there’s a preset called Large Chop that’s only an option when using the blender. I needed to chop an onion, so I peeled and quartered it before starting up the quick eight second pulsing programme.

The size of the chopped onion was smaller than I expected and there were a few rogue bigger chunks, but if you hate chopping onions, this eight second preset will absolutely save you a job. I might just stick to manually pulsing it next time, so I can control the size of the pieces.

What's it like to clean?

While I appreciate the fact that absolutely everything except the motor base is dishwasher safe. The guidance is that it should all be cleaned on the top rack, and I don’t know about your dishwasher, but I can’t fit a full size blender jug on the top rack of my dishwasher.

It’s not just the blender jug though, neither the food processor bowl, nor the tumbler cup fit on the upper rack of my dishwasher. Furthermore, I don’t love filling the dishwasher with loads of sharp blades. So while I did occasionally put some of the parts in the dishwasher, I mostly opted to wash everything by hand.

Blender and food processor parts are always fiddly to wash, and these are no more or less fiddly and dangerous than other sharp bladed appliances. But as long as you’re careful, it’s not too much of a drama. I recommend a long handled brush as the best way to clean anything sharp, whilst keeping your fingers out of harm's way.

How does it compare to competitors?

An obvious comparison is the predecessor model, the Ninja 3-in-1 Food Processor with Auto IQ. Choosing this lower tech option will save you £40, but it’s only worth it if you don’t mind having fewer blending speeds and a more limited menu of automatic programmes.

The other alternative is that if you don’t want the food processor capabilities, you can buy the exact same appliance as a standalone blender for £154.99.

Should you buy the Ninja CrushBoss System?

In my opinion this is a great value system that performs well and offers plenty of functionality. It is a lot to store, but in comparison to having three separate appliances, it’s a really great space saving solution. So, the key thing to think about is whether you really do want or need all three appliances in one bundle.

In testing, I was impressed with the performance across the board. If I’m nitpicking, the only thing I could really fault it on, was that it didn’t always chop things into even sized pieces. And it’s a stretch to say that everything is dishwasher safe, when it’s unlikely to fit on the top rack of most people's dishwashers. But, if you can get over these small hurdles, it’s a great all-rounder.