Ninja Mega Kitchen System [BL770, BL770AMZ, BL771]  Blender Review

The Ninja BL770 is a rather bulky blender. It's pretty tall and large, so it either needs to be stored in a spacious kitchen cupboard or directly on your counter.

This blender is very well-built. The plastic used feels solid, although the transmission gear could have been metal, which would feel more durable. On the upside, the assembly of all pieces is premium, and there are no gaps. Overall, it feels high-end.

It comes with a 72-ounce pitcher (64oz maximum liquid capacity) and a 64-ounce food processing bowl with its own blade assembly for slicing and chopping. The BL770 and BL770AMZ come with a pair of 16-ounce personal jars, while the BL771 comes with only one. If you want a combo food processor/blender with fewer parts, you may prefer the Ninja Foodi Power Blender Ultimate System, which comes with different blades for slicing and grating that work with the main pitcher instead of a separate jar.

The jars and lids are made of plastic. They're all dishwasher-safe, along with the blades and lids.

The blade assembly for the main pitcher is shaped like a column with six very sharp blades. You can remove it from the jar, but the design makes the blender hard to clean because you have to be careful not to cut yourself. There's a separate blade assembly for the personal jars, as well as dough and chopping blades to use with the food processor bowl. The blade assemblies are all dishwasher-safe.

The main jar only locks into place when the arrow on the lid is aligned with the corresponding arrow on the jar. While there's no dedicated mechanism to add ingredients to your mix, you can open the spout if you want to put in small items or liquid, although this isn't as convenient as a 2-part lid.

The power cord is long enough to reach an outlet near your counter. However, it doesn't have any stowaway compartment to hide it when not in use.

• 72 oz blender pitcher and lid
• Stacked blade assembly
• Motor base
• 2x personal 16oz jars and lids
• Single serve blade assembly
• 64 oz food processor bowl and lid
• Dough blade assembly for processor bowl
• Chopping blade assembly for processor bowl
• User manual

The Ninja BL770 and its variants are fantastic for processing small batches of fibrous ingredients. Using one of the 16-ounce personal jars, it takes roughly two minutes to make a very silky smoothie with ingredients like kale. The only downside is that you need to hold down the 'Single Serve' button during the process.

It's good at processing fibrous ingredients in the main jar. If you use its full 72-ounce capacity, it makes a very well-blended puree with ingredients like kale. The ingredients aren't completely liquified, and you can see some small grains left over. A more major downside is that you need to blend for almost 10 minutes for the best results.

The Ninja BL770 and its variants are outstanding for ice crushing. This blender takes a very short amount of time to crush the ice down to a snow-like consistency, which is amazing.

This blender is excellent for nut butter. Aside from a few minor inconveniences, it's very easy to use to make smooth, spreadable nut butter. It takes longer than some blenders, and you need to scrape down the sides of the jar with a spatula a few times, which involves stopping the machine and taking off the lid.

The Ninja BL770 and its variants are quite loud. There are quieter full-size blenders, like the Ninja Professional Plus Blender DUO with Auto-iQ and the Breville the Fresh & Furious.

While the blender doesn't have a fine-tuning speed dial like the Ninja Foodi Power Pitcher System, you still have four different preset speeds. The recorded speeds are measured with the main jar, and you reach the lowest speed with the 'Dough' setting and the maximum speed with the 'Crush' setting. You don't have many options for fine-tuning the blending speed, which isn't ideal if you like to start at a low speed and slowly ramp up or if you're trying to achieve a certain texture.

The buttons marked 1-3 correspond to 3 different speed presets. The 'Dough' button provides the lowest blending speed and 'Crush' the highest. These settings aren't blending programs, meaning the blender won't shut off automatically after a set amount of time. The single-serve option can only be selected once a 16-ounce personal jar is docked on the motor base. If you want more options for automatic blending, the Ninja Detect Kitchen System Power Blender and the Ninja Deluxe Kitchen System both come with similar attachments, including a food processor, and have blending programs for each jar.

It's not easy to clean. Because the blades for the main jar are so sharp, they can be dangerous to clean, and you need to handle them very carefully. Their design adds to the difficulty since food can get caught in the hole at the bottom of the column where it fits into the jar.