The 2 Best Slushie Machines of 2026: Now With Soft Serve

We live in the golden age of the home slushie. It's a new age brought upon us after last year’s viral Ninja Slushi machine ($349) brought the slushie machine into the American kitchen—and with it a new world of frozen margaritas and Bapple slushies, and cockamamie slushie recipes shared on Reddit and TikTok.

After three weeks of testing to find the best slushie machines, I am happy to report the state of the slushie is strong. Boozy slushies are maybe the one thing I miss from that first Covid pandemic summer—the days when “supporting local business” meant sucking down whiskey slush by parked cars like some John Cougar Mellencamp character. These days, I’m like the king of daiquiris. I am the sultan of slushed tamarind micheladas and the friar of frosé. These frozen drink machines can, of course, also make normal slushies without booze in them, for parents and lovers of 7-Elevens. Frozen juice is delicious. Everything frozen is slightly more delicious. There is also the promise (but not quite the reality) of frappés and milkshakes.

Because the Ninja keeps selling out, we also tested a few products from the new wave of slush machines that have flooded Amazon in Ninja’s wake—frozen drink machines whose names sometimes seem strange to native English speakers and are often written in all caps. One of these, the Chivalz ($260), already offers credible competition to the Ninja as the source of your next espresso martini slushie.

Prefer ice cream? My colleague Adrienne So has had her spring and summer changed by a rainbow of soft serve and tart fro-yo from the delightful Ninja Swirl by Creami (9/10, WIRED Recommends). For other summer refreshment, see our guide to the Best Cold-Brew Coffee Makers, and the Best Pod Coffee Makers for Cold or Hot Brew.

The Ninja Slushi is a triumph of industrial design—the machine that managed to bring the cocktail bar or convenience-store slushie to the home kitchen countertop. Many imitators have now arrived. But among those we've tried, the Ninja Slushi still froze the fastest and the most reliably. The controls are the most intuitive, its dispenser spout cleaned the easiest, and the drip tray attached itself much better to the machine. The Ninja is easy to assemble, disassemble, and clean—and even the dispenser can be disassembled for easy cleaning.

It's also childlike fun for adults. I don’t know a soul who owns a Slushi who isn’t just kinda delighted by it. I’ve made coconut-lime daiquiris for a family of visiting Brazilians, who joked that they planned to take the machine back with them on the airplane. I’ve entertaine