What to Do With Ninja Creami Leftovers and How to Keep Them Soft After Refreezing

Are your leftovers frozen solid? Don’t panic…this is NORMAL!

One of the tricky things about Ninja Creami ice cream is the leftovers can become rock solid, like a chunk of ice, after refreezing. Usually, the leftovers are not soft enough to scoop. This can be problematic if you don’t want to have to process leftovers every time you want to eat them or if you have added mix-ins (mix-ins get completely mixed into the ice cream if you process them again).

What to Do With Ninja Creami Leftovers and How to Keep Them Soft After Refreezing

A couple reasons why the leftovers are not scoopable…

Air-The Ninja Creami works differently than industrial ice cream machines used to make store-bought ice cream. The Ninja Creami does not “churn” the frozen mixture the same way. It does not add any air. Without the air, the ice cream is much denser and freezer more solid. This issue cannot be resolved as there is no way to add air to Ninja Creami creations.
Ingredients-A lot of Ninja Creami recipes are using low-fat, low-sugar, and high-protein ingredients that store-bought ice cream does not use. These ingredients tend to freeze harder and more solid than full-fat and full-sugar recipes do. The higher the fat and sugar content, the softer the leftovers will be. Also, a lot of store-bought ice creams have different stabilizers in it. Yes, many Ninja Creami recipes have stabilizers like guar gum or cream cheese in them. But, if you look on the package of store-bought ice cream you’ll likely notice that there are several stabilizers added like cellulose gum, xanthan gum, locus bean gum, or carob bean gum.

How to resolve this issue…

When you take the leftovers out of the freezer, put them back into the Ninja Creami and process it again on the original function used like ice cream or lite ice cream. Do not process the leftovers straight out of the freezer using the re-spin function. You have to process it on the original function first, even on leftovers.
If you don’t want to process the ice cream every time, don’t want to add anything additionally to the ice cream, or if you added mix-ins when you originally processed the ice cream, it’s not recommended to process the leftovers in the machine because all of the mix-ins will get completely ground up and mixed together with the ice cream base. Instead of processing the leftovers again, you can thaw the ice cream on the counter or stick it in the microwave for a few seconds, until it’s soft enough to scoop. The texture will not be as creamy if you thaw it versus processing it again in the Ninja Creami.
Try adding a small amount of alcohol to your recipe. Alcohol changes the freezing point of the ice cream. But, be careful. If you add too much, the ice cream will not be hard enough to scoop. The amount you will need to add will vary based on the alcohol % of the liquor that you use.
Make high-fat and high-sugar recipes. These stay softer in the freezer.
Add FOOD GRADE vegetable glycerin to your base recipe before freezing it. The amount per 16-ounce container will vary based on the recipe. You will need to experiment to see how much works best for your recipes. You DO NOT need to add vegetable glycerin unless you plan on having leftovers.

How to use FOOD GRADE Glycerin to keep leftovers soft enough to scoop…

See the below “GUIDE” on how much vegetable glycerin to use per pint. This is only a guide because it is a process of trial and error. The ingredients used, freezer temperature, freeze time, etc., can change the amount of vegetable glycerin needed to keep the leftovers scoopable.

Which glycerin is best to use?

I have done several experiments using FOOD GRADE glycerin. I used Raw+Rare vegetable glycerin in all of my experiments. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best vegetable glycerin; it just means that it worked in my experiments.

Several people have mentioned that they used different brands, and the results were not the same. I can’t speak to other brands because I have not tried them in Ninja Creami ice cream.

The most important thing is to make sure you are using FOOD GRADE VEGETABLE GLYCERIN. There is a lot of vegetable glycerin available at different retailers, but they are not all food grade, which means they are not all safe to consume.

Shop

Experiments using Vegetable Glycerin to keep leftovers soft…

I did several experiments using food-grade vegetable glycerin to see if it would keep the ice cream soft enough to scoop. Some of the experiments went well, others went terribly. If you add too much vegetable glycerin, the texture is almost like a mix between Styrofoam and marshmallow and if you don’t add enough, the ice cream stays rock hard.

See the experiments here:

Full Fat/Sugar

Protein

Lite Ice Cream

Videos about the experiments:

What’s the most common way to use leftovers?

In a recent social media poll, most voters said that they take the leftovers out of the freezer and reprocess them using the same function as they originally used.

Can you transfer the leftovers to different containers?

You can save leftovers in disposable containers.
However, disposable containers cannot be used in the Ninja Creami.
The ice cream will be very hard after being saved in other containers. You can thaw or microwave the leftovers to soften them up, but the texture will not be the same as it was after processing in the Ninja Creami.
Since the Creami needs to have the ice cream frozen into the grooves at the bottom of the container to work properly, you cannot freeze the leftovers in different containers and then transfer to the Creami containers.