Nutribullet Rx Review | TechRadar

Nutribullet is probably one of the first names that come to mind when you think of blenders for making protein shakes and smoothies. The brand offers a range of personal cup style blenders conveniently designed to blend single servings of your favorite drink in the cup from which you will be consuming it.

The brand also offers full size blenders – some of which are among USA Health Reports’s best blenders; but the Nutribullet Rx is a bit of a hybrid option. It’s configured as a personal cup blender, where you screw the blade onto one of the two cups and turn it upside down on the base to blend. However, it also comes with a pitcher that works in conjunction with a seven-minute SouperBlast program to liquefy and heat ingredients so you can make delicious soups or sauces.

While the oversized cup is too large for a single-use mixed drink, it’s great for making batches of smoothies for all the family, especially since it comes with a pitcher lid for easy pouring. There is also a short cup to make single servings; but unfortunately there is no to-go lid for easy drinking on the go. Instead, there’s what Nutribullet calls a comfort lip ring, which attaches to the top of the cup to make drinking it more comfortable.

This is without a doubt a powerful blender, suitable for making super smooth drinks and soups. But the intense speed and power proved overkill for other tasks – making mayonnaise, for example – that we had hoped the pitcher would allow us to do. As such, the Nutribullet Rx is great for whipping up drinks and soups, but it won’t completely replace a full-size blender.

(Image credit: Ditching)

Nutribullet Rx: price and availability

MSRP: $179.99 / £139.99

The Nutribullet Rx is available directly from Nutribullet in the US and UK. At the time of writing it is not available in Australia and we have not been able to determine if it will be back in stock.

Note that the Nutribullet Rx is a cross between a full size blender and a personal blender. While it has a much larger capacity and more powerful motor than a standard personal cup blender (including other Nutribullet blenders such as the Nutribullet Magic Bullet Kitchen Express or Nutribullet Go), it doesn’t offer the versatility of a full-size blender.

Nutribullet Rx with ice in it

(Image credit: Ditching)

Nutribullet Rx: Design and Main Features

Two blending modes
Suction cup feet
High with pitcher in position

In terms of size, the Rx is much larger than Nutribullet’s other personal blenders. The footprint on the counter is actually relatively small, but it’s tall, which can be problematic if you want to place it under wall-mounted cabinets. The dimensions with the pitcher attached are 18.5 x 6.7 x 6.3 inches/47 x 17 x 16cm (HxWxD).

The black and gray motor base fits neatly into the corner of most kitchen worktops without being noticeable, but since it comes with two cups and a pitcher, there are plenty of accessories that will require storage space in your cabinets. There’s also an extractor blade that fits both cups and the jug, plus a long-handled blade remover that makes it easier to remove the blade if it’s too tight.

The 34 oz 1 liter pitcher has a vented lid that allows steam to escape when making soup, and it is used just like a large blender pitcher. The 45 oz/1.3 liter oversized cup comes with a lid to seal the contents after mixing, while also making pouring mess-free. Despite being the smallest of the three, the short cup still offers a decent 30oz/350ml capacity. When the contents are mixed, you can attach a lip ring for more comfortable drinking or a screw cap; but we would have preferred a to-go lid of the type you get with other Nutribullet cups.

This blender only offers two settings and is quite intuitive to use. Once the motor base is turned on, the one minute blending cycle will begin automatically once the cup is in place. Pressing and holding the n button on the front for two seconds starts the seven-minute SouperBlast mode. This mode liquefies soup ingredients using the powerful fast blades, and the friction created heats the liquid, giving you hot soup.

All accessories except the blade are dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.

Nutribullet Rx with ingredients for a soup (cauliflower, carrot, sweet potato and stock)

(Image credit: Ditching)

Nutribullet Rx: Performance

Fast and powerful
Lacks the finesse for delicate mixing tasks
Creates very smooth drinks and soups

To try the SouperBlast mode, we checked the Rx recipe book online and came up with instructions for a sweet and spicy carrot soup. This simply meant adding all the ingredients to the jug and starting the seven minute cycle. The Rx will blend for the full seven minutes, hitting 82dB on our sound meter, which is quite loud.

At the end of those seven minutes, however, we were rewarded with a silky smooth soup at a steaming hot 189oF/87oC. Due to the short heating time, the ginger in the soup still tasted quite hard and raw, but both the carrot and the cauliflower were cooked through. It’s worth noting that some soup ingredients, like the sweet potato in this recipe, need to be cooked ahead of time, which of course adds to the overall prep time. After I cleaned the stockpot, it was clear that the turmeric in the recipe had turned it yellow; it took a few more cleans in the dishwasher before it was gone.

Nutribullet Rx with a mixed heated soup in it

(Image credit: Ditching)

Then we made a smoothie in the extra large blender jar, with pineapple, spinach, apple juice, Greek yogurt and banana. We let it blend for the full 60 second cycle – and given the power of this blender, we weren’t surprised that it successfully pulverized all the ingredients into a flawlessly smooth and beautifully airy smoothie. We attached the lip ring with the intention of drinking it straight from the cup, but the lip ring turned out to be too thick, so we poured the smoothie into a glass.

We used the small cup to crush six ice cubes, and let the blending cycle run for 60 seconds. The ice was completely and evenly ground to a fine snowy texture. But we did have to use a spoon to dig some of it out of the pit around the edge of the blades.

Crushed ice next to the Nutribullet Rx. The ice cream is mostly finely mixed, with some larger pieces

(Image credit: Ditching)

One of our standard blender tests is making mayonnaise. Since the Rx comes with a mixing jug with a removable insert in the lid, which allows us to pour the oil in while mixing, we tried to make mayonnaise. Unfortunately, as the speed is not variable, the fast mixing cycle proved simply too intense for this delicate task, where the mayonnaise was unable to emulsify. The blades had also gotten a bit warm, which didn’t help.

We also tried chopping hazelnuts in the jug; while we could pulse the nuts using the power switch, they quickly turned into a fine flour, rather than the chopped texture we were looking for. And, as was the case with the ice, a lot of this fine powder was in the pit around the base of the blade, so we had to use a spoon to get it out. This task also proved to be the loudest, reaching 86dB on our sound meter.