Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ Review

The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ makes superb smoothies, thick and creamy oat milk, and well-crushed ice. 

When testing, we were struck by how reasonably priced this option is for such a capable blender. It is noisy though, and while there's nothing offensive about the design, you can feel that it's not been made with the highest quality materials. 

Despite it being louder and harder to clean than other models, its overall price and performance makes it one of the best blenders you can regularly buy for under $100. If you want to know why, read our Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ details.

Ninja Professional Plus review: Price and availability

 The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ can be purchased directly from Ninja or from online retailers like BestBuy and Bed Bath & Beyond. It retails for $119 but regularly goes on sale for around $100, and if you're willing to pay a bit extra you can also buy the Professional Plus Kitchen System BN801 which comes with a food processor attachment and a single-serve blender cup. 

Ninja Professional Plus review: Design

The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ is an attractive, powerful blender that comes with more accessories than alternatives such as the Breville Super Q. In addition to the included recipe book, you can spend a little extra for the BN801 iteration which features a 64 oz precision processor bowl with chopping and dough blades and lid; a 72 oz crushing pitcher with stacked blade assembly and lid; and two 24 oz single-serve cups with pro extractor blades and spout lids.

The suction cup feet well-stabilize this blender, and the locking lid mechanism offers confidence that nothing will fly out while blending. The blender’s pour spout creates a very pleasing and precise pour into the glass (much smoother than jars and cups without a pour spout) that, with a little attention, won't even drip. A thoughtfully-designed small flap also helps to keep contents fresh-tasting between servings. 

The thick, rubberized pitcher grip running from top to bottom on the pitcher’s handle improves ergonomics. While the turn-to-lock mechanism attaching the jar to the base offers confidence the blender is secure and ready for its next batch. 

There’s no dedicated cleaning cycle, but running the Ninja at its highest setting with a dollop of liquid soap and warm water is usually sufficient to remove the remaining contents. That said, the stacked blade assembly of the Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ requires a bit more attention while cleaning, as it tends to slide out. 

Ninja Professional Plus review: Ease of use

The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ has a noticeably more involved cleaning process because of its inherent design and the number of parts. Though there’s no dedicated clean cycle, the smoothie, and splattered protein powder could be removed by running the blender on the highest setting with soap and water and doing a quick rinse. Hummus, however, was another story. 

Cleaning hummus out of the jar still required handwashing after running the 1-minute rinse cycle — since the blades had sprayed ingredients everywhere inside the jug and onto the cap. Also, the cap's multitude of moving parts and opening means there are many nooks and crannies where the hummus liquid is sprayed while blending. The rinse cycle did not remove all the residue.

It’s also necessary to carefully handle the triple-blade arrangement. Though the blades are designed to be removed so they can be rinsed, they can also easily fall out by accident. 

However, the jar's clear handle component can be removed for cleaning — all you have to do is press a small tab button and unscrew the bottom.

Ninja Professional Plus review: Performance

The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ produced better smoothies than virtually all of the blenders we tested (the only two that surpassed it were the Vitamix A3500 and the Breville 3x Bluicer) but it was an extremely loud procedure. Pressing the Ninja’s pre-programmed smoothie button unleashes a sharp and sudden calamity, initially in a span of intermittent stop-go action for 55 seconds, before unleashing all 1,400 watts of power into one last 10-second burst. Fortunately, the end result is milkshake-like smoothies that are thick, frothy, and free of chunks or clumps of protein powder.

We also found that the blender could easily mill grains down to a fine powder, turning simple rolled oats and water into smooth oat milk. Initially, the sip of oat milk tastes smooth and milk-like, then regresses a bit into a slightly watery second half. Testing produced a good oat flavor but none of the pleasant sweetness the Breville produced. The pour spout made for very precise pouring and the oat milk would have gotten an impressive 7/10 (most oat milk tests hovered around 4-5), were it not for the high-pitch noise that accompanied the blending.

While the overall noise clocks in at a reasonable 94.9 dB, we found that the blender produces a painfully loud and sharp noise during the one-minute ice-crushing mode. It hurt the ears of one of our testers and made them twitch in surprise, as it produced a much sharper and louder noise than what was registered while sound testing. 

Aside from the piercing noise of the ice-crushing mode, the three-tier blade is pretty effective when crushing ice, which produces an even amount of crushed ice in about 20-30 seconds. The final texture was reminiscent of Hawaiian shaved ice rather than extra fine Taiwanese snow ice, but there were no chunks found in the mix. The crushed ice mixture came out of the jar as one large piece that then broke up once in the glass. 

Ninja Professional Plus review: Verdict

The Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto IQ produces superb smoothies, good oat milk, and great crushed ice. It surpassed our overall top pick in the smoothie department and tied it with ice-crushing. Despite its stealthy name, the Ninja can be painfully loud, especially when crushing ice. If you like to keep your kitchen quiet, this is not the blender for you. However, if you’re looking for great performance, price, and loads of attachments to boot, this could be an ideal choice.