Ninja NeverClog JC151 Review: Great at Greens, Weak at Carrots

Quick verdict: The Ninja NeverClog JC151 ($149.95) is the cold press juicer I recommend to most first-time buyers, and it is genuinely very good with kale, spinach and celery. It is also, by independent measurement, clearly worse at hard produce than a centrifugal juicer costing exactly the same money. Buy it if leafy greens are a regular part of what you juice. If your juice is mostly apples, carrots and beets, this is the wrong machine at this price.

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The JC151 is Ninja doing what Ninja does: taking a category that used to start near $300 and putting a competent version on the shelf for $150. It is a masticating juicer, a slow auger that crushes rather than a disc that shreds. What matters is not whether it is good, but where it is good.

Specifications

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Ninja NeverClog JC151: the independent test numbers

TechGearLab buys the juicers it tests and ranked the NeverClog first out of thirteen machines, with an overall score of 76. That headline is the part every affiliate site repeats. The category breakdown underneath it is the part almost nobody quotes, and it is far more useful, because the same lab tested the Breville JE98XL — a centrifugal juicer at an identical $149.95 — on the same rubric in the same 13-machine pool.

Read the middle two rows again. On hard produce the Ninja scores 5.3 and the Breville 8.3. On leafy greens the Ninja scores 8.7 and the Breville 3.7. Those are not small gaps and they run in opposite directions. Two machines at the same price, from the same test, are close to mirror images of each other.

This is the single most important thing to understand before buying either one, and it is why “which juicer is best” is the wrong question. The right question is what you are going to put in it. I go through the mechanical reasons behind this split in more detail in the masticating vs centrifugal comparison.

Does the NeverClog name hold up?

Mostly, with an asterisk. The auger turns slowly under high torque, which is the right combination for celery strings and kale stems — the fibres get crushed and pulled through rather than wrapping around a spinning screen. Ninja also fitted a Reverse program, which backs the auger out of a jam without disassembly.

The asterisk is that a reverse function existing is an admission that jams still happen. “NeverClog” is a marketing name, not a guarantee. What it honestly means is that when the machine does bind up, clearing it is a button press instead of ten minutes at the sink with a brush. That is a real improvement over cheap slow juicers, and it is worth having. It is not the same as never clogging.

Where the 150 watts shows

A 150-watt motor sounds feeble next to the 850 watts on the Breville, and the two numbers are not comparable — torque at low RPM is a different job from speed at high RPM. But the hard produce score is where the limit becomes visible. Dense carrots and raw beets are the load that a slow auger struggles with, and 5.3 out of 10 is a below-average result even among the machines it beat overall.

In practice that means slower going and more pushing on hard root vegetables. It does not mean the machine cannot do it. It means that if hard produce is 80% of what you juice, you are paying a masticating premium for the thing this machine is worst at.

Cleaning

Every juice-contact part is dishwasher safe, which is the single best thing about living with it. The 7.0 cleaning score is a shade below the Breville’s 8.0, and the reason is the filter: a fine mesh basket with pulp pressed into it needs a brush and running water regardless of what the dishwasher can do afterwards. Budget two to three minutes at the sink after each session. Leave it until the pulp dries and that becomes ten.

The two interchangeable pulp filters are a genuinely good feature rather than a spec-sheet one. The Less Pulp filter produces juice you would recognise from a bottle; the Lots of Pulp filter keeps enough body that the juice feels like food. Swapping them takes seconds.

The $20 colour tax

This one is worth knowing before you click buy. The JC151 comes in more than one finish, and Amazon does not price them the same. At the time of writing the Charcoal (JC151) sits at $149.95 and the Silver JC151SL sits at $129.99 — the identical machine, same 150-watt motor, same filters, same jug, $20 less. There is also a Navy JC151NV at $149.99.

The catch is review volume rather than quality: the Charcoal has accumulated 3,625 ratings and the Silver only 132, because it is newer to the listing. Both sit at 4.5 stars. If the colour does not matter to you, check the Silver first and keep the $20.

The step-up is the JC152 NeverClog 3-in-1 at $199.99, which adds slicing and shredding attachments. That is only worth $50 more if you actually want a part-time food processor; if you do, a dedicated food processor does that job better.

What this machine is actually for

Buy it if: green juice is the point. Kale, spinach, chard, celery, cucumber, herbs, wheatgrass. This is the cheapest machine I know of that handles those properly, and the 8.7 leafy greens score is the reason it took the top spot in a 13-juicer test despite a mediocre hard produce result. It is also the right call if you want to make juice in the morning and drink it at lunch, because slow-pressed juice separates and oxidises more slowly.

Skip it if: your juice is apples, carrots, oranges and beets, and you want it in two minutes. At exactly the same price the Breville does that job substantially better and cleans up faster. Skip it too if you juice for four people at once — the 24 oz jug means stopping to empty partway through.

If celery juice specifically is what brought you here, the celery juicer guide covers the machines built for that one job, including the step up from this one.

How this assessment was made

Specifications, price, availability and rating data were verified directly on the live Amazon listing for ASIN B0BR8HZL9V with a United States delivery address, on the date shown below. The comparative performance figures come from TechGearLab’s tested review of this exact model, which buys the units it tests and scored the JC151 and the Breville JE98XL in the same 13-machine pool on the same rubric. I have not run a side-by-side yield test on these two machines myself, and I have not invented one — where a number appears here, it comes from a named source that measured it.

Verdict

The NeverClog JC151 earns its reputation, but not for the reason the marketing implies. It is not a machine that beats a centrifugal juicer at everything for the same money. It is a machine that trades away hard-produce performance to be very good at the one thing cheap juicers are traditionally hopeless at. If that trade matches your shopping list, it is the best $150 in the category and possibly the best $130 if you take the Silver. If it does not, the identically-priced Breville is the better tool and no amount of cold-press marketing changes that.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Ninja NeverClog really never clog?

No, and the Reverse button proves it. The slow high-torque auger jams far less than a cheap masticating juicer, and when it does bind the Reverse program clears it without disassembly. That is a real improvement in daily use, but “NeverClog” is a product name rather than a guarantee.

Is the Ninja JC151 good for celery and leafy greens?

Yes, and this is its strongest suit. TechGearLab scored it 8.7 out of 10 on leafy greens, the highest result in its 13-juicer test pool. Celery, kale, spinach and herbs are exactly what a slow auger handles well.

Is 150 watts enough for a juicer?

For soft produce and greens, comfortably. For dense carrots and raw beets it is the machine’s weak point, and the independent hard produce score of 5.3 out of 10 reflects that. Watts are not directly comparable between masticating and centrifugal juicers because torque at low RPM does a different job from speed at high RPM.

Ninja JC151 or Breville JE98XL?

They cost the same and are close to opposites. The Ninja wins on leafy greens (8.7 vs 3.7) and juice quality; the Breville wins on hard produce (8.3 vs 5.3), speed and cleaning. Pick based on what you actually juice, not on which one ranks higher overall.

Why is the silver JC151 cheaper than the charcoal one?

Amazon prices the finishes separately. The Silver JC151SL has been listed at $129.99 against $149.95 for the Charcoal, for the same machine with the same specification. The Charcoal simply has far more accumulated ratings, which is a listing-age difference rather than a quality one.

How long does juice from a cold press juicer keep?

Slow-pressed juice separates and oxidises more slowly than centrifugal juice, so a day or two in a sealed container in the fridge is realistic rather than the drink-it-now window a fast juicer gives you. Shake before drinking; some separation is normal and is not spoilage.

Related guides

• Best Juicer 2026: Cold Press and Centrifugal Picks Tested
• Masticating vs Centrifugal Juicer: Which Should You Buy?
• Best Juicer for Celery in 2026

About Glenn

Glenn is the founder of Kitchenware Compare and has spent years researching, testing, and reviewing kitchen appliances, cookware, and gadgets. A lifelong home cook raised in a family that treated every meal as an occasion, Glenn started this site to cut through the noise of conflicting product reviews and give readers honest, practical guidance. When he is not testing the latest air fryer or digging into the specs of a new espresso machine, he can usually be found experimenting with new recipes or hunting for the perfect cast iron skillet at a flea market.