Ninja Fit Compact Review

The Ninja Fit Compact powers through thick smoothie mixtures and large chunks of ice with its impressively strong 700-watt motor. This personal-sized blender comes with two 16-ounce blending cups and spout lids, making it easy to quickly blend a frozen drink and take it on the go.

Smoothies

Small bullet-style blenders can sometimes struggle to spin through fibrous veggies, frozen berries, or large ice cubes, but the Ninja Fit Compact showed no signs of slowing. It has enough power to spin through all of the smoothie ingredients we put in without needing any extra taps, shakes, or tampering to help it out.

The Ninja Fit Compact made a yummy green smoothie loaded with kale, spinach, and frozen fruit. It had no problem breaking down the greens, though it didn't fully atomize them. Numerous green flecks remained in the final result, but they were fine enough that our taste testers couldn't feel the greens in their mouth. It was “pretty smooth” and had a fruit-forward flavor, according to our testers, who were happy with the consistency.

Then we set the Compact against a frozen berry blend. It showed no struggle and easily whirled and melded all of the ingredients together. However, it didn't break down the seeds. In the end, the berry smoothie was a bit crunchy, but only because of the seeds. Everything else was pulverized, and the drink was otherwise smooth, delicious, and easy to drink with no large chunks left behind.

Pureeing

Smaller blenders typically aren't great for dry grinding ingredients, and despite its powerful smoothie blending, the Ninja Fit Compact isn't great at making nut butter purely from dry ingredients. So, in order to test its pureeing prowess, we made sure to add some extra wet ingredients to help it along.

After one minute and 45 seconds, the nut mixture was broken down enough to let it run for 50 seconds straight.

The resulting nut butter was thin due to the extra oil required, but it was easy to pour from the blending cup and spread perfectly. But, the blending friction had warmed it to 130°F. Small bits of nutty grit remained as we spread it over bread, but overall, the butter was acceptable in texture and had a pleasantly nutty flavor.

We would have also liked to have tested the Ninja Fit Compact's ability to puree soup, as we've done with other blenders, but you cannot use hot ingredients with this blender since the ingredients can pressurize the container, which is a typical restriction for small, personal-sized blenders.

Frozen Drinks

That strong-for-its-size motor is clutch when making frozen drinks. The Ninja Fit Compact quite literally crushed this test.

The Ninja Fit can whip up a crisp, refreshing, and sinfully smooth frozen margarita in a flash. In less than a minute, the Ninja Fit blended our icy ingredients into a beautiful frozen beverage. It crushed all of the ice into sippably smooth slush—not a single leftover ice chunk could be found. It didn't struggle, and we didn't even have to give it a shake. This little blender did all the work.

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Controls

While the Ninja Fit Compact is shockingly simple to use, one small design tweak could have made it much easier to use and more convenient. After filling the blending cup and placing it on the machine, all you need to do is push down on the cup for it to blend. Simple, sure, but not particularly convenient, as you have to continuously apply downward pressure for it to blend. There's no set-it-and-forget-it mechanism. If Ninja had engineered it so that you could lock the blender in place once the process started, you would then be able to walk away from it to take care of another task while the mixture blends. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Still, it is simple to use, which is nice in a sense. However, the machine also lacks presets that could make blending different mixes more convenient. And there are no speed controls or timers to interact with, so the only control you actually have to use is the manual push-down-to-blend action. It works, but you have to actively participate in the blending process 100% of the time.

Ease of Cleaning

Everything, aside from the blending machine itself, is dishwasher safe, which is incredibly convenient. For typical use, that means you can blend up a smoothie and toss the blending cup, blades, and lid in the dishwasher as soon as you're done. Easy-peasy. Ninja recommends putting the blades and lid in the top rack, but the cup can be placed anywhere in the washer.

There's no self-clean preset, but you could also add water and a little soap into the cup and give it a quick blend if all it needs is an aggressive rinse. Otherwise, handwashing will be required for built-up grime. The narrow blending jars can be a challenge to scrub for larger hands. Also worth noting is that the spaces where the blade assembly screws on the blending cup are recessed and very narrow, making it difficult to see into and even harder to clean. There's enough room to clean the underside of the blades, too, but they are sharp, so take care when doing so.

Should You Buy the Ninja Fit Compact?

The Ninja Fit Compact excels as a personal blender for making smoothies and frozen blended beverages like frozen cocktails or frappes. If you are looking for a small blender that can be stored in a cabinet easily, makes a single blended beverage at a time, and is easy to clean after each use, this is the blender you've been looking for. You'll find it quick and simple to use, and the blended beverages will generally be smooth and enjoyable to drink. However, if you want to blend more than 16 ounces at a time or are interested in a multi-use blender that can also make showstopping soups and purees, you'll want to consider a bigger and more powerful blender.

What Other Blenders Should You Consider?

For its size, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better blender. That said, if you're looking to save a few bucks, the Nutribullet 600W is a bit less expensive and blends nearly as well as the Ninja Fit. It blended a slightly smoother green smoothie than the Fit, but struggled to crush ice in frozen cocktails.

If you're looking to step up your smoothie game but still don't want to drop hundreds of dollars on a premium blender, consider upgrading to the Nutribullet Combo. This more versatile, full-size blender does a much better job of pureeing than the Ninja Fit, and it can handle hot ingredients, too.