We describe the controlled synthesis of dextran-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) using a stable passively-driven capillary-based droplet reactor. High quality highly crystalline particles were obtained with a narrow size distribution of mean diameter 3.6 nm and standard deviation 0.8 nm. The particles were evaluated for use in MRI, and found to exhibit a large saturation magnetisation of 58 emu/g and a high T2 relaxivity of 66 mM−1s−1 at 4.7 T, signifying good MRI contrast enhancement properties.