The 10 Best Blenders For Your Kitchen
Special Honors
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Editor's Notes
December 11, 2020:
With each passing year, innovation provides us with new tools for preparing our meals, and blenders are no exception. As a result of such innovation, our rankings have shifted substantially on this topic.
For instance, while the KitchenAid KSB1570ER is certainly a serviceable blender, its cousin - the Kitchenaid K400 - incorporates more advanced blending technology while providing a sleeker aesthetic. While more expensive, it justifies its price with its performance. The Oster Designed for Life was similarly swapped for the Oster Blender Pro thanks to the latter’s more user-friendly controls and larger capacity.
In some cases, products gained a slot thanks to distinctive design. The Mueller Austria Ultra-Stick, for example, can provide the power of a full-sized blender but is small enough to stick in a kitchen drawer. The Instant Ace Plus Cooking Blender stands out because it not only works effectively as a standard blender but has a heating function that allows it to actually cook foods like soups and dips.
While the Vitamix 7500 continues to demonstrate exceptional performance and value, the Ninja Professional Countertop offers considerable power, as well, and at a fraction of the price, earning it greater recognition than its predecessor.
Many of these options are impressive, but it’s important to note that they’re intended for use around the home. If you’re looking for something for your small business or are likely to find yourself using your blender more frequently than most, it might be worth it to check out a commercial blender instead.
December 06, 2019:
You can spend just about as little or as much as you want on a good blender. The Hamilton Beach Wave Crusher and Oster Designed For Life are two of the most affordable options, but, surprisingly, don't make many sacrifices to achieve such a low price. The Ninja Professional BL610 is only a bit more expensive and performs exceptionally well given its cost. The KitchenAid KSB1570ER is another tiny step up in price, and it's actually quite technologically advanced, though some users report that it may suffer from poor quality control.
If you want something a little stronger, the Breville BBL620 is a good choice. It's extremely well made, and one piece of evidence toward that fact is a very tight-fitting lid that won't fly off during extended use. The Blendtec Total Blender Classic is made with premium materials to exacting standards, and should stand up to full-time use. Then there's the Ninja 4-in-1 Kitchen System, which is relatively costly, but provides a level of functionality that an everyday blender simply can't match.
We also want to take a second to point out the NutriBullet Magic Bullet, which is a remarkably popular personal blender, and for good reason. It's not ideal for some traditional blending tasks such as making hollandaise sauce, but for small amounts of ingredient preparation or single-serving smoothie making, it's an excellent choice.
Finally, the Vitamix 7500 is one of the most successful models from a very well-known company. It's loud -- as in, so loud you might want to wear ear protection -- but it's able to liquefy ingredients with the very best of them. There's a reason it, or one much like it, is a staple in restaurant kitchens. By the way, the Cleanblend 2001 borrows quite a few elements from the Vitamix's design, and is nearly as reliable.
If none of these do it for you, we've also looked into a range of blenders from Oster, Waring, and Vitamix, as well as a host of versatile immersion blenders.
Blending The Personal With The Professional
Finally, there’s the potential to up your game in the kitchen.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should divulge that I not only own one of the blenders on our list, but that I also worked for that company for several years.
I won’t go so far as to say which company it was — for fear of implanting any bias in you readers — but I can confidently say that I am intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the industry, as well as all the capabilities and limitations of the models we’ve selected. As to those capabilities, there are a few things that each and every blender in our list has the potential to do for you.
First and foremost, these machines can save you money. Whether you’re after the healthiest possible smoothie or the smoothest possible daiquiri, taking the little bit of time out of your day to make it yourself in a high-quality blender is a huge cost-saving opportunity. The average 16-ounce smoothie at Jamba Juice costs about $6. You can make the same thing at your house for about $2 or less. Have a smoothie for breakfast each workday, and that’s a savings of a little over $1,000 each year.
Secondly, a good blender can be great for your health. Any increase in your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables — even if you’re just making bloody Marys — has the potential to provide significant health returns. Many studies have shown that our brains and bodies are wired to crave the foods they most often consume, so sneaking some extra greens into your milkshakes can be the first step toward weaning you off the bad stuff and building up cravings for the healthiest foods out there.
Cravings can also come from the body’s desire for certain nutrients that we’ve come to associate with less-than-healthy foods. With a good blender, you can find ways to incorporate healthier options that can surprisingly indirectly satisfy some of your most devilish cravings.
Finally, there’s the potential to up your game in the kitchen. If you take your culinary skills seriously, then you need a blender that can support a variety of recipes. Many of the models on our list can double as food processors for a multitude of tasks, and some can replace other machines entirely, from ice cream makers to peanut butter grinders and more.
How To Choose The Right Blender For Your Kitchen
Since chains such as Jamba Juice and Smoothie King became popular, more and more people have been making smoothies for themselves in the home. Before the advent of this particular craze, most people used their average household blenders to make the occasional margarita, and not much else. What you plan to do with your blender (beyond the obligatory cocktail preparations), will go a long way towards telling you which model you should buy.
Imagine adding ice creams, soup, nut butters, puddings, salad dressings, and more to that list.
If you’ve just had a cheap blender break down on you and all you want to do is replace it with something a little more durable, you probably aren’t too interested in the more expensive models on our list. There’s no shame in opting for something further down in our selection, but there is danger in that move. The danger is that you could miss out on an opportunity to vastly improve your kitchen’s output, both in quality and quantity.
Imagine for a moment that you are open to the idea of spending a little more and getting a high-end blender for yourself (this imagining will also serve any of you who already know you’re in the market for such a device). What would you make with it? We’ve mentioned that some of these machines can make ice cream. A few of them also have the ability to cook soup — from cold to hot — right inside the container.
In this instance, the more you see yourself doing in one of these high-tech blenders, the smarter a purchase it would be. We also spoke above about the potential for savings on simply making your own smoothies. Imagine adding ice creams, soup, nut butters, puddings, salad dressings, and more to that list. The savings would add up very quickly.
One last thing to consider when evaluating the blenders on our list is the amount of material you plan to make for a given recipe. One of the biggest drawbacks to the top performers in the blending industry is that they tend to have a minimum amount that you must make for them to be effective. If you have a large family, this isn’t an issue, but a single person (or a couple with very light appetites) might feel frustrated by the need to always make more than they can consume in a sitting.
A Brief History Of The Blender
The blender as we know it hasn’t changed a lot since its initial design in the early 20th century. It’s gotten stronger and quieter, and the field of manufacturers has grown considerably, but the basic layout of the machine has remained much the same.
The blender as we know it hasn’t changed a lot since its initial design in the early 20th century.
In 1919, a Polish American inventor named Stephen J. Poplawski set out to design an effective drink mixer that he could market to soda shops, where milkshakes had become a mainstay. His machine featured a simple container with blades at the bottom that spun under the force of an electric motor.
Other companies took note of Poplawski’s invention, and endeavored to improve upon it. Waring and Hamilton Beach — two big players in the blender game — developed their machines in the early 1930s. Later that decade, the first Vitamix blender hit the market. Unlike the majority of competitive blenders, which all used glass containers, the Vitamix provided consumers with a container made from stainless steel. The power of this unit far surpassed that of the competition, and the company continues to make some of the most powerful blenders on the market.
In more recent years, interest in smoothies and a movement toward more culinary expertise in the home has led to the development of even more blender designs. Many of these are significantly smaller than the blenders of old, and seek to capitalize on people’s lack of space and time. They tend not to be as powerful, but they can be very convenient.