10 Ninja Creami Ingredients Like Xanthan Gum (Pros & Cons)

Because protein pints are low in fat and sugar, and those are the two things that keep regular ice cream soft. Take them out and your base freezes into a hard, icy block. That’s also why Lite Ice Cream mode exists: leaner bases need a longer, faster spin.

Each DIY ingredient tries to replace part of what fat and sugar normally do:

• Gums hold onto water so it forms smaller ice crystals.
• Pudding mix adds starch, body, and flavor.
• Sweeteners bring back the sweetness sugar used to provide.
• Cream cheese or cottage cheese add some fat and creaminess back.

It’s a smart approach on paper. In practice, it’s a balancing act, and that’s where most pints go sideways.

Here’s every common add-in, its job, the amount most recipes call for, and the trade-off that comes with it.

*Typical amounts from common community recipes, not official guidelines.

Xanthan Gum

Xanthan gum is the most popular Ninja Creami thickener, and it works. It’s a gum made by fermenting sugar with bacteria, and it grabs onto water so ice crystals stay small. The result is a smoother spin with less iciness.

The problem is the margin for error. A tiny amount does the job, and a little too much turns your pint stretchy, gummy, or slimy, especially after a respin. Most recipes land at 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon per pint, and measuring that with regular kitchen spoons is harder than it sounds.

Use it when: your base keeps coming out icy and you are willing to test small amounts.

Guar Gum

Guar gum does almost the same job as xanthan gum. It comes from guar beans and gives a slightly creamier, less stretchy feel, so some people prefer it or split the amount with xanthan.

Your gut bacteria ferment guar gum. In a small 2023 study in Frontiers in Nutrition, healthy men taking 8 grams a day had more gas at first, which eased as their gut adjusted. One pint uses far less than that. Still, if gums tend to bother you, they add up over a day.

Use it when: you want thickness with a softer, less stretchy texture.

Sugar-Free Pudding Mix

Pudding mix is the shortcut ingredient. A tablespoon or two gives your pint body, flavor, and that thick, scoopable feel, which is why it shows up in so many viral recipes.

Read the box first, though. A typical zero-sugar instant vanilla pudding mix lists modified cornstarch, maltodextrin, several phosphates, xanthan gum, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and artificial colors. So adding pudding mix usually means adding a gum and two artificial sweeteners on top of whatever else is already in your pint.

Use it when: flavor and thickness matter more to you than a short ingredient list. And if you use it, you can usually skip the extra xanthan gum.

Stevia

Stevia is a plant-based sweetener that is far sweeter than sugar, so a few drops go a long way. It adds sweetness with zero calories.

The common complaint is aftertaste. Plenty of people taste a bitter or licorice-like finish, and how strongly you notice it varies from person to person. It came up again and again in our own customer survey, with shoppers checking that a mix had no stevia before they bought, including one who is allergic to it.

Also check the label on granulated stevia. Many blends list erythritol as the first ingredient, with stevia as the smaller part. So you may be adding erythritol without meaning to.

Use it when: you don’t pick up the aftertaste and want a zero-calorie sweetener.

Sucralose

Sucralose is one of the most common zero-calorie sweeteners around. It shows up in yellow packets, flavored syrups, flavor drops, and many bottled protein shakes, so it often lands in a Creami pint even when you didn’t add it on purpose.

It tastes closer to sugar than stevia, which is why it’s so popular. The questions are about what happens after you eat it. In a 2022 study published in Cell, sucralose caused the biggest gut microbiome changes of the four sweeteners tested and raised blood sugar responses in some people over just two weeks. Results varied a lot from person to person.

Separately, a 2023 lab study from NC State found that sucralose-6-acetate, a compound found in commercial sucralose, showed DNA-damaging effects in tests on human cells. That was lab research, not a human trial, but it added to the questions.

Use it when: you’re fine using it once in a while and want a more sugar-like taste than stevia.

Erythritol (and Other Sugar Alcohols)

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that adds sweetness and bulk with almost no calories. It’s in a lot of keto and low-carb sweetener blends, which is how it ends up in so many Creami pints. There are three things to know before you use it.

Texture. Erythritol has a noticeable cooling taste, and it can recrystallize in the freezer. That’s one reason some pints turn crunchy or gritty.

Your gut. The FDA notes that sugar alcohols aren’t fully absorbed, so bacteria in your large intestine ferment them. That can cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea in some people. We go deeper on why sugar alcohols upset your stomach in a separate guide.

The research. A 2023 study published in Nature Medicine, covering about 4,000 people, found that those with the highest blood erythritol levels were roughly twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke over three years as those with the lowest. That’s an association, not proof that erythritol caused it, and the researchers say more safety studies are needed. Still, it’s a big reason people are cutting back.

Use it when: you tolerate it well and don’t mind the cooling finish.

Allulose

Allulose is the sweetener a lot of DIYers switch to after erythritol. It’s a rare sugar found naturally in small amounts in figs and raisins. It tastes and behaves a lot like regular sugar, but your body doesn’t metabolize it the same way, so it has minimal impact on blood sugar.

It also skips erythritol’s cooling finish, which matters in something you eat cold. Like most sweeteners, very large amounts can still bother some stomachs. For the full breakdown, allulose ice cream explained covers it in more detail.

Use it when: you want sugar-like sweetness without the aftertaste.

Cream Cheese and Cottage Cheese

Both add back some of the fat and creaminess that protein pints lack, and cottage cheese adds extra protein too. A cheesecake-style pint is basically built on this idea.

The downside is consistency. Brands vary in fat and water content, so the same recipe can come out differently from one tub to the next. Some people also notice a tang that fights with lighter flavors like Vanilla or Strawberry.

Use it when: you like a tangy, cheesecake-style flavor.

Protein Powder

Protein powder is the base of most DIY protein pints. The catch is that most powders are made for shakes, not freezing, so pints often come out chalky, icy, or with that unmistakable protein taste. That’s exactly why the gums, pudding mix, and sweeteners get added in the first place.

If your pints also leave you uncomfortable, here’s why some protein powders leave you bloated.

Use it when: you’ve found one powder that freezes well and you stick with it.

Ready-to-Drink Protein Shakes

Pouring a bottled protein shake straight into the pint is the easiest DIY base there is. Freeze, spin, done. That’s why it’s all over social media.

The catch is what’s already in the bottle. Many are sweetened with sucralose or acesulfame potassium and thickened with gums like carrageenan or gellan gum, so you get a sweetener and gum stack without adding anything yourself. They’re also thin and low in fat, so they tend to freeze hard and spin icy unless you add pudding mix or a gum. Which brings you right back to the stack.

Use it when: you want the fastest possible pint and don’t mind an extra respin.

Because it’s a lot of work for results that change every time. About 1 in 12 on Reddit and some Facebook groups mention giving up on multi-ingredient Creami recipes before switching. The same themes keep showing up: pints that never turn out the same twice, a sweetener aftertaste, and a cabinet full of ingredients for one dessert.

That’s pretty common. Most of the downsides above, like the aftertaste, stomach issues, and uneven texture, happen when you add a lot of separate ingredients to one pint. Each one fixes one thing, like texture or sweetness, but can bring a new problem with it.

CRUSHS protein ice cream mix uses tara gum instead of xanthan or guar. Tara gum comes from the seeds of the tara tree, which is native to Peru (you’ll sometimes see it called Peruvian carob). The seeds are milled into a natural powder that is about 86% soluble fiber. It gives ice cream a smooth, scoopable texture and acts as a prebiotic. It’s the gum CRUSHS uses instead of mass-produced gums like xanthan and guar.

This brand also uses allulose and monk fruit instead of erythritol or stevia, and milk protein isolate with real whole milk and cream for the fat side. Same four or five jobs, just handled by fewer ingredients, so there’s less room for any one of them to go sideways. One serving works out to 23g of protein and 180 calories.

A DIY pint gives you full control, but you’re managing four to six ingredients and their side effects. A ready-made mix trades that control for the same result every time.

Either way, the Creami steps stay the same. Freeze for 24 hours, spin on Lite Ice Cream, then respin with 1 to 2 oz of milk until it turns creamy.

If you love tinkering, DIY is half the fun. If you just want the pint to work, fewer ingredients wins.