Ninja - Professional XL Food Processor - Platinum Silver

My first item I tried chopping was a green pepper. It had inconsistent cuts. Some were diced and then it had this long strips. I'm not sure what happened but i think it was something on my part because i peeled my onion and dropped it in whole. It came out perfectly diced in 10 seconds. I was amazed. My eyes were still watering while removing them. I've shredded blocked cheese and sliced cucumbers. Making the dough for my pizza was a breeze. This has truly simplified making meals or simple snacks. My prepping time has been cut in half. Im anxious to try some of the recipes that came with it. As far as cleaning everything, that's a little on difficult side. It's so many crevices that the dry ingredients get into that makes it a bit of a task when washing by hand. Everything else easily wipes right out. That would be my only complaint. Which isn't something a dish brush can't fix. It doesn't take up too much counter space which is what my initial thought was when i saw how big the box was. I love the box that comes with it that holds the other slicers and dough mixer.

Unboxing the Ninja, I was pleasantly surprised at the storage box for the disc assemblies. Love it. Yes, it is large but it holds everything in a well-designed case that even has air venting holes. No more trying to remember what drawer or cupboard holds the accessories. You won’t want to store this large box on your counter. There is also a Quick Start Guide, Instruction Manual and a recipe book included. The storage box holds an adjustable slicing disc (0.3mm-8mm), reversible shredding disc, dough blade assembly and a disc spindle. The chopping blade assembly is included in the bowl. An optional 4.5 cup nesting work bowl and small chopping blade assembly can be purchased separately. The food chute has a 3-part food pusher. This is a brilliant idea because you now have the option of small, medium and large chutes to adequately fit the size of your food. The small pusher is also a measuring cup but only up to 70ML (2.37 ounces or 1/3 cup) and not shown in ounces or cups. Controls are simple: Chop, Dough, Puree and Disc. Auto-IQ is designed so you just push the button and it takes care of it. Low, High and Pulse speed settings are used for manual control. Ninja says you can dishwash the components but I never do. They last much longer if you hand wash. These components have more nooks and crannies than my last processor so if you hand wash you will need to let them drain for a while even after towel drying. My first project was making cookie dough. You add the softened butter, sugars and liquids and hit “dough.” That worked excellent. Then add the dry ingredients and hit “dough” again. That worked very well but still required hitting “pulse” for a few seconds to finish. Then you add your mix ins. Mine were coconut, chocolate chips and raisins. The Ninja didn’t do well here. It doesn’t circulate the ingredients enough on the “pulse” setting. The bottom of the dough kept spinning but the mix ins were just sitting on top. Even after I helped by stirring it didn’t move the top of the dough. I definitely prefer my mixer for this. The Ninja worked much better on Swedish meatballs. I usually make about 16 lbs. in batches. It has to mix the hamburger, sausage and other ingredients very thoroughly and it did excellent on that. The regular blade seems to circulate much better than the dough blade. After using for several days I am impressed for everything but the cookie dough. With a 12-cup bowl and 1200 watts the Ninja really does a nice job. NOTE: I received this product in exchange for my fair and unbiased review.

This Ninja XL food processor is a powerful, beautiful & large machine, not to mention the most amazing Suction underneath so that it won’t move around on you. First thing out of the box, I set it on the counter and it STUCK and I couldn’t move it. It was in a pretty good spot so I left it there. I will ask for help to remove it from the counter at some point. I was able to shred soft cheese with ease. A 2lb block of Colby Jack was fully shredded in 60 seconds. I did 2-30 second batches so I wouldn’t overfill the huge bowl. I used the large chute with the large pusher and it worked so nicely! I will say Colby Jack is a rather soft cheese and perhaps I should have put it in the freezer for a couple minutes first because due to its softness, the last of it got a little balled up on top of the shredding disc. This wasn’t wasted though - I just ate those tasty little cheese balls. Drawback - some of that soft cheese got stuck and made cleaning difficult. Eventually opted for the dishwasher that time and all was good. The ability to be able to shred my own cheese will save $$ on pre-shredded cheese. And I can bag it up and freeze it because I will do large batches at a time. Using the reversible blade was so easy and convenient. I did half the cheese finely shredded for salads or taco night. I flipped the blade over for the remainder of the shredding and got beautiful thicker shreds perfect for my au gratin topper!! Slicing potatoes with the adjustable disc was so much fun. The disc can be adjusted from very thin to what looks like about 1/4”. I got evenly sliced potatoes for my first try at potatoes au gratin. What a thrill to make that from scratch and not a box! Greased a baking dish with butter, laid down several layers of sliced potatoes, poured a stick of melted butter over the top, added a good bunch of that shredded cheese and topped it with panko breadcrumbs. Talk about yum! I’ve never done anything like that before and there is so much more I will be able to do now. This comes with a chopping blade, a dough blade, a reversible shredding disc and an adjustable slicing disc. All of that comes in a handy storage case except for the chopping blade which I will keep in the machine. You also get a small recipe book and a quick start guide with a booklet. There are 4 pre-programmed settings: chop, dough, purée, and disc (which is used when you’re using the shred or slice discs). There is also low, high and pulse, in addition to the power button. Be warned, this is not a smoothie blender. It doesn’t like ice as a matter of fact. This is a food processor and a very good one! The powerful 1200 watt motor and the large 12 cup size guarantee you will have the power and space to create the meals and snacks your friends and family will love.

We just recently upgraded our main food processor to a rival's high-capacity model (which costs about 20% more); but our daughter is getting ready to move out so we thought we'd try to outfit her kitchen with some new small appliances as well. However, we were also looking to economize a bit and thought the Ninja Professional XL might be a good, more value-oriented alternative that still provided outstanding performance. After auditioning this unit for a few weeks on chopped nuts, salsa, vegetable prep, and fruit slicing, I can say without question that if you have LARGE-capacity food processing requirements, the Ninja Professional XL is a hard act to beat! Most high-capacity food processors top out at a 12-cup food prep bowl like this one so you're getting just about as much capacity as you can possibly find in most consumer-level units...a few of the new KitchenAids do feature a 13-cup bowl, and there are some 14-cup units I've seen for sale from Cuisinart, but all of those are significantly more expensive. Construction is solid enough though the all-plastic design does mean it's not quite as heavy as you might expect for a unit of its size. Nevertheless, the unit feels substantial and the base features suction cups to keep it from skittering across the counter while in use, and the rear of the unit has a handy stub for cord winding/retention to avoid having excess power cabling snaking around your kitchen countertop. A VERY handy plastic storage box is included which houses the dough blade, slicing and shredding rings, and the disc spindle so you can keep all the accessories neatly packed together when they are not in use. Fully assembled, the Ninja is just about 17.5" tall so I would imagine it will fit under most standard kitchen cabinets even with the lid and pusher assemblies attached. Like many food processor designs, this one is a twist-to-lock affair...twist the workbowl onto the base, and then twist the lid onto the top of the bowl. Multiple safety features are in play to ensure you don't invite a food processing calamity or cutting hazard while in use. For example, the workbowl ONLY fastens securely to the base when the handle is pointing towards you and to the right--the unit will not operate if the bowl isn't seated properly on the base. Likewise, the locking lid must be fully engaged AND the largest-sized food pusher must be inserted a bit above the "Max Chute Fill" line on the outside of the pusher before the unit will even run--this helps prevent curious fingers from finding their way into the top of an open bowl with a spinning slicer or chopping blade awaiting them below. A large manual switch button keeps the lid engaged to the top of the bowl until you are ready to disassemble the unit. There are two other food pushers of varying diameters that nest inside the largest pusher to accommodate different ingredients--despite what might be your desire to get everything done at once, using the smallest possible feed chute pusher/opening made for better results shredding and slicing, especially for not getting ingredients caught spinning around above the slicing blade rather than settling down into the workbowl. The four-bladed design of the chopping and dough blade assemblies were AWESOME for both making short work of our ingredients (heavy veggies, cookie dough, walnuts and pecans, etc.), and for providing *surprisingly* uniform results (especially for readying nuts for baking without getting multiple chunks that needed to be re-chopped or turning everything into a fine powder). In fact, the four-blade design of the Ninja did a better job at evenly mixing our cookie dough and uniformly chopping shelled nuts than the two-bladed design of the pricier KitchenAid unit that is in our kitchen now. The reversible shredding/grating blade easily allows you to pick coarse or fine results and is handy if you want to go from lettuce to carrots to cheese without having to constantly unpack and mount a different blade. The slicing disc is adjustable to provide results that range from .3mm to 8mm (pretty thick) running through a full 27 separate adjustment settings! Unfortunately, the thickness dial is on the underside...if you don't like the thickness of your initial slices, you do have to stop the machine, pull out the blade, and twist the adjusting ring to another setting...this is the only area where I really like the design of the KitchenAid better as it allows you to adjust the thickness settings through a dial that is affixed to the outside of the mixing bowl. Cleanup is relatively easy as everything comes apart quickly for either a handwashing or a run through the dishwasher (everything is dishwasher-safe...NICE!). However, the the adjustable slicing ring does feature a few VERY small tabs of folded plastic and metal where some food particles might accumulate and could require a little extra manual attention to clean out. This is not unique to the Ninja as every adjustable slicing ring I have seen in other food processors also feature some small mechanical parts or folded edges that are simply magnets for tiny food particles. Also note that while the gasket that keeps the lid tightly sealed to the mixing bowl does a GREAT job of keeping food from creeping out through the seams, it does have two flanges rather than one...drying the gasket/lid took a bit longer than I was expecting because water became trapped in the narrow channel that runs between the gasket's two rubber "collars." Finally, we get to operation which was smooth and effortless. The 1200W motor could probably make paper pulp from a few branches if you tried it--for our uses, the Ninja simply tore through hard vegetables, fruits, and mixed nuts within just a few seconds of starting. There are three manual controls for low and high (each will run unattended for a full minute with a single press), and pulsing motor setting that only runs when the button is pressed for when you want total control over the results. The Ninja also includes four "Auto-IQ" programs with corresponding LED-lit buttons for one-touch chopping, dough mixing/kneading, purees, and operation of the slicing and shredding discs. These four programs run automatically and vary motor speed, run time (from a few seconds to over 1 minute), and start/stop cycles to maximize results for various ingredients/recipes based on which accessory/program you've selected. It's a great way to take some of the guesswork out of how long you should hold down the pulse button or even which speed will likely give you the best results for your efforts. Speaking of results, Ninja even includes a colorful recipe book with 10 Overall, we were incredibly impressed with the Ninja Professional XL--from its high power motor and high-capacity workbowl to the user-friendly controls and convenient storage box for unused accessories, this food processor will probably do everything you need in in the kitchen. There is a smaller 4.5 cup nesting bowl and smaller chopping blade assembly that is available separately which can extend the flexibility and versatility of this unit even further when smaller output quantities are the goal. Definitely recommended if you want to step up from what feels like a "toy" food processor into something a bit more serious without necessarily feeling like you have to invest some serious money to get those results.

I have done one full recipe, and the tornado blade is pure magic. I used to be very brand specific. This processor blows any I have used out of the water. I am a forever fan.

It does its job just fine. Cleaning is tedious due to the design of the bowl with a corner. Shredded cheese gets crammed in to it. Need a pressure washer to get it out.

This was actually my 2nd one, the 1st one I returned because it appeared to have hairline cracks in the base of bowl. So we reordered and had it shipped and the new one also has these same hairline "cracks" in the bowl. The unit was packaged well and doesn't appear to have any shipping damage so I'm unsure if these are actually hairline cracks or some sort of manufacturing defect. We have only used it a few times and mostly to chop pistachios or mix bread crumbs etc "dry stuff" - so far so good. Size is much bigger than the normal ones so should be able to handle anything we throw at it.

The Ninja has been a delight! Easy to clean and I love the extra blades. The versatility is very useful to my business as a baker, chopped, shaved, sliced all very finely controlled.

When I first saw the box I thought, “This is BIG. Maybe too big for me?” After all, I’m a single guy and live alone. But after opening it and seeing all the friendly labeling on all the items, I stopped being intimidated and started thinking logically. Yes, it’s big. But I also do a lot of large meal batches that I later package and freeze so I have meals ready when I don’t feel like cooking. And doing things like dough really require a container big enough to allow free movement of the ingredients; something I hope to be doing more of with this device. So, while it makes perfect sense for your average family, I’d like to also note that smaller households shouldn’t rule this one out. It provides a lot of value for the price and is quite easy to use. (If you have the space to use and store it, of course. But I have a smaller kitchen for a one family house and had no issues.) The two things that stood out most to me was the packaging/initial impressions and the accessory storage. Whomever was the packaging lead on this team, they really did an outstanding job! As you open the box in layers, each piece is packed carefully, and everything is labeled with easy-to-understand points on how they are used. By the time you get the whole unit assembled, you already feel familiar with it even before you open any of the manuals. The Quick Start Guide covers the essentials; the other manual has a lot of duplication of the quick start guide but it’s safety guide on the first two pages is the main read here – and I read it carefully. The Ninja’s blades are super sharp, so I was more than happy to read the safety stuff! The other thing that was a standout to me was the accessory blade storage box. It’s a neat little way to keep everything together and safe and I never got anything like that with prior food processor purchases. May be this is a recent and more common inclusion but then again, the last food processor I bought was an old Moulinex in the 80’s! I thought it was a real nice addition and I’m surprised that neither the Best Buy site nor Ninja’s show it in the product images. I made sure to include a shot in my review. Using it was easy and it does a great job at the basic food prep functions like chopping and slicing. Thanks to the adjustable disks, you can get just the right thickness for whatever your needs, from potato chip thin to nice chunks for soups and stews. Haven’t got the chance to make dough yet, but the preprogrammed seems like it will make it easy. This is where the recipe booklet comes in handy. In the beginning of the booklet, there are tips on basic functions per recipe type (like doughs) that show how you’d use it for your own recipes. I’m a big fan of how Ninja does documentation, and this product is no exception. I’m also a big fan of how Ninja products are engineered. They are built solidly of quality materials and last a long time. I’ve NEVER regretted purchasing one of their products, from their Shark vacuums to any of their Ninja food line and they are all still working great for me.