Ninja Creami Troubleshooting Guide – Common Issues

The Pacojet is typically only found in professional establishments, so getting the technology of the Pacoject into the hands of home cooks is a tremendous gift.

But is it perfect? No. Nothing is! But homemade, healthy, low-calorie, high-protein ice cream that tastes AMAZING wasn’t possible before this machine. No appliance on the market available to home kitchens gives similar results.

But the truth is, it is prone to a few bugs just like every single small appliance on the market.

This guide is here to help you through these most common problems.

Visit my Ninja Creami Recipes page for some delicious ice cream flavors that have a MUCH better texture than blender nice cream!

For all models, you will create a base mixture and freeze it for 24 hours in the designated ice cream container (2 cup capacity for the 5-in-1, 7-in-1, and the Breeze, but 3 cups for the Deluxe).

Once completely frozen, you can install the pint into your machine per the instructions for your model. Select the ice cream option on the control panel that best fits the ingredients of your base recipe and your desired end result. The control panel has a variety of one-touch programs that vary slightly depending on the model you purchased, but all Ninja Creami machines have the same basic functions, such as Ice Cream, Light Ice Cream, Sorbet, Mix-In, and Re-Spin.

When the first spin completes, you can remove the processed base from your Ninja Creami Ice Cream maker by pressing the bowl release button and check the texture. From there you have three choices:

1. Eat as is. If your ice cream looks good, go ahead and eat!
2. Re-Spin. The re-spin program option is for fixing your ice cream if it is bumpy-looking or powdery. Most of the time, you will end up needing one re-spin.
3. Mix-in. If your ice cream looks good or is just slightly bumpy and you would like to add some mix-ins, you can do that with this setting. Scoop out a well in the center of the ice cream container, add up to 1/4 cup of your mix-in of choice, then put back in the machine and press “Mix-in.”

Remember that just because it’s hard to touch on the top doesn’t mean it’s completely solid through the middle. The middle is the last part to completely harden, and that core center cannot be seen or touched.

That said, will some mixtures be fine with less than 24 hours of freeze time? Sure. But there will be some that won’t, too.

Too many variables go into this for me to say whether or not you can universally get by on less time, such as the sugar content. Both sugar and sugar alternatives lower the freezing points of these mixtures, so that alters timing.

If you spin your Ninja Creami mixture too soon, you’re likely to end up with a soupy mixture that overflows your container when spun. You also risk overheating your machine because it will not be able to churn properly.

For best results, give yourself 24 hours in the freezer or as close to it as you can.

Deep freezers, such as a chest freezer, are often set lower than that–as low as -10 degrees F. If your chest freezer is set that low, it would not be a good place to keep your Creami concoctions and you should make room for them in your fridge freezer.

As for me, I find it may lessen the hump a small amount, but I still get one, and I’ve had a few disastrous spills or things messing with my uncovered Creamis that the benefit is not worth the risk for me. I always freeze with a lid, and the hump is not much of an issue, but it comes down to personal preference.

Certain mixtures of base recipes are more prone to humps than others.

It’s worth pointing out that the Ninja Creami user manual does not suggest you should eliminate the hump on your ice cream, but removing the hump has become conventional advice by users in the online Ninja Creami community.

As for me, I don’t think that a small, symmetrical hump is worth worrying about. I used to spend so much time trying to get rid of any hump regardless of size, but it did not seem to spin any better when I did than when I didn’t.

However, the concern comes into play if your hump is large or asymmetrical. At that point, you risk sending the blade in a crazy direction that will break your machine or possibly shave plastic from the side of the container into the ice cream.

If your hump looks large or off-center, then I recommend removing it with one of the following methods:

These are the options I believe to be best. While some other ideas float around online, those ideas will also begin to soften and melt your base affecting the results of your ice cream.

First of all, make sure the blade is installed properly–remove the blade from the lid and put it back in to rule out any issue there.

Assuming you’ve made sure it’s installed correctly, the Ninja Creami blade repeatedly falling off despite proper installation is a sign that your lid is breaking down or that something is off with the metal blade itself.

This can be the result of normal wear and tear on the machine from long term regular use, or it could be a result of an accident (like dropping the lid, etc).

When this first happened to me, I was able to tinker with it** to get it to work a time or two after that, but it was the beginning of the end for that lid.

Tinkering Note: I love to tinker as much as the next person, but be careful. If your Ninja Creami starts making a loud, scary noice, that is what happens when the blade falls off but it keeps trying to drill. Do NOT let it keep going. Press the power button to turn off immediately. This is how people have melted parts of their Ninja Creami and caused a burning smell or fires.

But assuming you followed all best practices for making your Creami, finding plastic shards in your ice cream reflects a defect in your Ninja Creami machine. This happened to me with the first machine I had, and only about 1 month into owning it!

This was when my machine was new and I was very careful with it–only following tested, safe recipes, removing any semblance of a hump, etc. Everyone online had me believing this machine would break if I did even the slightest thing not by the books, so I was certain to follow all the rules. Yet, it still happened.

The cause is most likely one of two things:

1. A defect with the machine. This defect, while not super common, is a known issue and if your machine is affected, Ninja is good about replacing it. Contact customer service for support.
2. A foreign object got into the ice cream without you knowing that caused the blade to malfunction, or you added hard mix-ins that were not appropriate for the Ninja Creami.
3. You may have had a large, asymmetrical hump that caused your blade to get off track while spinning.

D. Ninja Creami Won’t Release

When the Ninja Creami bowl gets stuck and won’t release, the first thing to examine is to make sure your pint was installed correctly–was the pint container properly aligned in the bowl assembly, was the outer bowl lid placed on properly, etc.

If you’re certain that it was installed correctly, then your mixture was likely too thick and/or too hard. This could be because of a few reasons:

1. Improper proportion of ingredients. Despite what you may see in a TikTok video, not everything can be thrown in a creami cup and spun to perfection. Ninja cautions against freezing plain water–water freezes too hard without other ingredients to lower the freezing point (one way this is done is with sweeteners–sugar and most non-sugar sweeteners will lower the freezing point of a liquid).
2. Freezer is too cold. As mentioned above, the temperature range for a Ninja Creami mixture should be between -7 degrees F at the coldest up to 9F.
3. Container was over-filled. This means there wasn’t enough headspace, which could cause it to get stuck.

If you do not have a dishwasher, you can wash all these parts by hand with soap and water.

After each use of the machine, wipe it down with a clean, damp cloth. Make sure to wipe off the spindle that hands down from where the lid meets the machine.

You may also wish to occasionally swish the lid in a water-vinegar mixture. If you choose to do this, MAKE SURE TO REMOVE THE RUBBER GASKET ON THE LID. You can do this easily with a fork.

Vinegar will destroy rubber and ruin the seal of the gasket.

That said, vinegar is a good choice to kill mold spores. Just make sure you remove the gasket and rinse the lid thoroughly before putting it back on, and you should be good to go.

Start by registering your Ninja Creami here: https://ninjakitchen.com/myaccount/registerproducts/

Then, contact customer service by phone. They’re available 9am-9pm ET on weekdays and 9am-6pm on Saturday. Last time I called them, I didn’t need to wait to speak to a representative at all. Ninja Creami’s customer service number is 1-800-365-0135.

You can go to Ninja’s Website to see more customer service options.

A typical customer service experience will involve a video call so they can see the issue for themselves, determine if it falls within the warranty guidelines, and whether or not you need replacement parts or an entirely new machine. If a replacement is warranted, the will replace the machine with one of equal or greater value.