Gadget review: Ninja Master Prep Pro

Will the Ninja Master Prep Pro be worthy of a place on my kitchen counter, or will it end up in my dusty cupboard of gadgets that didn’t make the cut?

The main thing that singles out the Ninja for praise is its ability to chop, blend, mix and crush for the altogether rather reasonable price of £59.99. This means in theory that a banana smoothie should be as easy to achieve as a diced carrot. The head, containing the 500 watt Ninja motor, can be fixed onto different sized bowls/jugs. In the box I got a 48oz pitcher and a 40oz bowl. Each comes with its own removable cutting blades and lid, so they can double as serving bowls.

I receive a weekly vegetable box so I had plenty of vegetables to experiment with. Holding a recipe for rainbow rice in one hand and the fingers of the other hovering over the over-sized pulse button on the top of the Ninja, I lined up my veg, death row-style, to meet their maker.

I soon learned that less is more when it comes to prolonged presses of the pulse button – 500 watts of power turned carrots into mulch in five seconds, while two brief taps nicely sliced courgettes into mini morsels for my awaiting wok. It passed the smoothie ice test as well - obliterating six ice cubes in moments. It may not be the most glamorous of gadgets, but the Ninja reduced my prep time to seconds, and its 500 watts of power cackles in the face of a lot of its lesser competitors.

£59.99 from www.jmldirect.com