Description
What the Ninja Express Chop is
The NJ110GR is the smallest thing Ninja makes that plugs in: a 200 watt chopper with a 16 ounce bowl, a four blade assembly and a single button on top. Press the button and it chops; release it and it stops. There is no speed selector, no timer and no program.
Sixteen ounces is two cups, which sets expectations correctly. This is a machine for an onion, a handful of nuts, a few cloves of garlic, a small batch of pesto or breadcrumbs from a slice or two of bread. It is not a food processor and it does not pretend to be one. The included components are the chopping blade, the container and the lid, and the packed weight is 1.1 pounds.
Read the product name carefully: this listing is a pack of two. That is stated at the end of the title and it is easy to miss. The included components list describes a single set of parts, so the two entries do not agree, and the packed dimensions of 12.2 by 10.35 by 5.75 inches suggest a carton holding more than one unit. Confirm the quantity with the seller before ordering.
What 200 watts actually does
Two hundred watts is modest and it is appropriate for the job. A small bowl with a short blade needs far less power than a full size processor, because the blade tip travels a much shorter distance and there is far less food resisting it.
The consequence is that the machine is good at some things and poor at others. Soft and medium ingredients, onions, garlic, herbs, cooked egg, soft fruit, are handled quickly. Hard ingredients test it: whole nuts, hard cheese and ice will move it toward its limit, and running it continuously against a dense load is how small choppers burn out. Pulsing in short bursts is both the intended technique and the way to protect the motor.
Ninja lists grinding among the uses, which realistically means grinding small quantities of nuts or spices rather than coffee. Nothing in the listing claims coffee grinding, and a blade chopper produces an uneven grind in any case.
Cleaning and the hand wash instruction
The product care instruction in the listing is hand wash. That is worth flagging because many competing choppers put the bowl and lid in the dishwasher, and hand washing around a four blade assembly is the least appealing part of owning one of these.
The blade lifts out of the bowl, which is the important part. Choppers with a fixed blade are genuinely difficult to clean; a removable blade means the bowl can be washed properly and the blade handled separately with care. The lid contains the motor coupling and should not be immersed in any case.
The bowl is not described as dishwasher safe and no material is stated for it beyond the listing’s general description, so treat hand washing as the requirement rather than a suggestion.
Technique matters on a machine this small
A pulse only chopper rewards a particular way of working. Short bursts of one or two seconds, with a pause between them, produce an even chop, because the pause lets the contents fall back down onto the blade. Holding the button down instead spins the food up the sides of the bowl and leaves large pieces at the top and a paste at the bottom.
Size and preparation matter as well. Cutting an onion into rough quarters before it goes in gives a far better result than dropping it in whole, and filling the bowl no more than two thirds full leaves room for the contents to circulate. None of this is unique to Ninja, but the listing offers no guidance at all, and the difference between following it and not is the difference between an evenly minced result and a bowl of onion puree.
Where it sits against a knife
The honest comparison for a chopper this size is not another appliance, it is a chef’s knife. A confident cook with a sharp knife chops an onion in under a minute and washes one blade afterward. The chopper is not faster on a single onion once the bowl and lid are counted, and it does not produce the even dice a knife does.
Where it wins is on repetition, on ingredients that fight back, and on hands that do not want the work. Four onions, a bag of nuts, a pile of herbs or a batch of hard boiled eggs are where a chopper earns its cupboard space, and so is any situation where knife skills or grip strength are limited. Bought with that in mind it is a useful tool; bought as a general replacement for a knife it will disappoint.
Highlights
- 200 watts with one touch pulse operation and nothing to configure.
- 16 ounce bowl, well sized for single ingredient prep.
- Removable chopping blade for cleaning.
- Very light at 1.1 pounds and small enough to live in a cupboard.
- Covers mincing, chopping, grinding and light blending.
- No assembly, no attachments to store and nothing to lose.
Things To Consider
- Hand wash only. The listing does not describe any part as dishwasher safe.
- The product name says pack of two while the components list describes one set. Confirm the quantity.
- The listing has no description field and no feature bullets. Everything comes from the title and the attribute table.
- 16 ounces is small. Anything beyond a single ingredient means working in batches.
- Pulse only, with no continuous run and no speed control.
- 200 watts struggles with hard ingredients, and sustained running against a dense load risks the motor.
- No dimensions for the unit itself are published, only the package.
- The bowl holds two cups. Overfilling it is the fastest route to an uneven chop and a strained motor.
- A blade chopper produces an uneven result compared with a proper grinder or a disc equipped processor.
Who it suits
This is the right tool for someone who wants to stop chopping onions by hand and has no interest in a food processor. It costs little, stores in the space of a mug, and it does the single most tedious prep job in a home kitchen in a few seconds. For a small kitchen, a first apartment or a second machine to sit beside a larger one, it makes sense.
It is not a substitute for a processor. Anyone slicing, shredding or working with more than two cups of anything needs a real machine, such as the KitchenAid KFP0918 or the Cuisinart FP-11GMP1. Buyers comparing choppers of the same size should read the Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus, and those who would rather not plug anything in should look at the Pampered Chef manual food processor. The full range sits in the food processors category.
