A kitchen is never complete without a good set of blenders and stand mixers! The first is absolutely essential, since a best blender can enhance our creativity to make great beverages, shakes and cocktails with very few efforts.
For a while, the adage our grandmas used to say was a reality: “they don’t make blenders like in the ol’ days anymore”. Thankfully, that changed during the early ’00s as the gym boom hit hard. Health-conscious consumers demanded sturdier options, and the market obliged! While the best blender machines are certainly not cheap, they’re investments that stick with your for many years, just like the ol’ days blenders of our grandmas!
Since there are so many blenders in the market, sometimes it gets dizzy to select for real a good product. From my own experience, most of the models waving and begging you to be purchased are pure garbage. These days there are a lot of models that won’t last over 2 years – and I’m being quite generous and optimistic here – as they will start to leak or the blades will get dull. Is not easy. But I’ve learned the hard way to select something good, specially because, like many people these days, I like to hit the gym weekly and bring with me a good protein shake, and so does my husband.
I selected carefully a good set of the top 10 best blenders for 2018 available in the market, considering their building, potency, price and buyers approval. I did learn a lot of things when I purchased my own blender that is sticking with me for at least two years so far. It’s included in this list, but I want to be impartial and offer really a set of best options to fit what you consider the best for you among the best overall. So let’s get to it quickly and later, catch up the lesson I’ve learned to select a good product, some very important details and features you have to know wisely when purchasing your blender.
Best Blenders in 2018
Vitamix 7500 Blender
If you hit the gym often and want to make things really quick for you and even for your partner, very few blenders will be as boosted and powerful as the 7500 developed by Vitamix. This brand is famous for creating blenders that suit very well professional needs, ideal to process food for drinks fast and with consistency. This model is one of their most popular releases, with a 64-ounce capacity cup where you can prepare up to 8 cups.With this blender you will be able to blend not only fruits but any kind of food. Throw it in and get started. There are 10 different speeds, plus a pulse function, and this is what makes this blender one of the top choices for you in the market. It’s motor is really strong, an ice breaker, so you can even use it to help you when cooking as you can prepare dough and sauces, able to crush the hardest veggies smoothly.
Its motor works with a 1440 W potency.To prepare robust shakes, yon can even include frozen fruits and ice as the double layered blades are sturdy enough to process the food and do not damage the blades of the blender.While it doesn’t offer any other superfluous attachments, the 7500 is as complete as it is, one of the most powerful options to blend food in the market. You can find it available either on white, black or red dyed base.
Blendtec Total Blender Classic with WildSide & Twister Jars
A good counterpart for Vitamix’s 7500, Total Blender is an equally powerful blender. You can say that just by its sturdy design, your surely have seen some of these before on your gym, or even on some movie’s gym. Blendtec is quite famous for commercial use and it prepares shakes like no other. From our list, and overall in the market, this is the most powerful motor, 1560 Watts to turbinate and blend any kind of food very fast. On the other hand, it has a smaller cup in comparison, 32-oz, around 4 cups.
The blades are steel cold forged, this makes them incredibly resistant and unstoppable. If you hypothetically throws a stone inside this blender, it would be easier to crash the glass jar than these blades get damaged. They are ice-crushing proof, so you don’t even have to freeze fruits to get he shake or juice cold if you didn’t have the time to freeze them.
Different from the 7500, this blender has different speed presets that allow you to prepare something easily with just one touch. For shakes, you get one preset, for cocktails, another, and so on with dough, sauce, and other options of blending. There are six different presets.
This blender is like a little computer, it is aware of everything, from speed to time of use and temperature. This enables the blender to know when it is safe or not to work, so it will auto shutoff when heating up, or when it is working for too long. All this mechanism avoids accidents due to overheating.
Cleanblend 2001 3 hp 1800W Commercial Blender
With a less known name but with superior potency, if your partner is interested in something really devastating in the kitchen, this blender will surely make that job comfortably. This Cleanblend machine is the second strongest of our list, with a 1800 motor, and its qualities are already makings its fame. Not a long while ago it was featured on Ellen Degeneres show and from that on it just got more popular. One thing in particular with the powerful motor helps it become a juicy option: the price.
While it is more powerful than most blenders, it still cost almost half of what famous blenders do.But it is not all about the motor when it comes to power. The blades of this blender are made on an enclosed sturdy stainless steel, with a sealed ball bearing so you really will not see this beauty leaking after some years, it takes a lot like a champ, so your boyfriend can mix really a lot of things there with no concerns about damaging it.Ice crusher, fast pulverizing, you can blend your shake very fast and smooth.
To help improve the time of processing and the quality of the pulverization, this model includes a tamper wand. The wand will reduce the space inside the generous 64 ounces cup placed in a strategic spot, so all the content is forced to meet the blades more often, shocking against the blades easier and making the whole process faster and more efficient.Another thing that is really cool of this model is the speed setting. It is not predetermined, it works smoothly through a dialer.
As you dial it the speed increases gradually, is quite a soft flow and really good to avoid the hard punches the blender can produce when switching from one speed to another, something that often damages the motor of standard blenders and reduce their lifespan, specially when you place big hard chunks and the blades can’t handle it suddenly changing speed, so this dialer gives you total control to gradually boost the hardest mixes you may create.
Waring Commercial MX1200XTX Xtreme Hi-Power Variable-Speed Food Blender
Waring is another brand that is not that well known by the public, specially when you are looking for a blender and you are not familiar with the main manufacturers. While this brand is not on the news as heavily as other, its blender motor is a heavy weight high quality contender and another sturdy option if you want a turbo machine in your kitchen. The Xtreme is our strongest blender, has a 2600 Watts motor, a set of 4 sturdy blades made on stainless steel cold forged and a generous 64 ounces cup jar.
The Waring Xtreme is the kind of not well known blender that people feel afraid to spend their money on because of lack of status, but this is an assured well crafted and well approved model, with one of the highest ratings on online stores like Amazon.
Breville BBL910XL Boss Easy to Use Superblender
Another blender manufactured by a well known brand, the Boss BBL910XL is a great Breville addition to the blender industry, with the same kind of accuracy and care they put into the crafting of their renowned coffee machines. This Boss model is really among the bosses of the industry, is a top seller for its price category and offers you great potency for a more affordable amount of money. The great motor of this blender has a 1500 Watts power, superior to the prestigious Vitamix and Blendtec models but cost less.
And as a Breville machine, it surely has its own exclusiveness. Learning a lot from their presetted express machines, this blender has a lot of automated functions, and is the only model that has a LCD display, through which you can set the speeds freely by intensity. But if you want to save the trouble on figuring out what is the best speed for a specific preparation, the blender also has presets for common recipes.
- Smoothie
- Green smoothie
- Frozen dessert
- Soup
- The pulse function (that also works for ice crush)
Also, you can determine the operation time with the speed boost and just let it work. Like any automated machine, when the time is over the blender shutoff automatically.
Through the LCD display you can also set the exclusive cleaning function. Everything becomes incredibly simple with this blender. And yeah, all this happens inside a good measured cup, with a 68 ounces of capacity where everything is crushed mercilessly. The blades system has a patented technology, the ProKinetic blade. This is the only model that implements a set of 5 layered blades, 3 base sturdy clean cut stainless steel with two upper-adjacent saw blades. It can pulverize any food very fast with a quite smooth, puree quality consistency. The Boss also includes a tamper wand to make the pulverizing even more efficient and fast. Too bad they only have one chromed skin for it, the only let down of this excellent machine, another top rated seller in the market.
Ninja BL771 Mega Kitchen Blender System
Ninja is another famous brand, more because their products are the perfect middle ground between beautiful design, convenience and power. The motor of this blender is no little player on this competition, is also 1500 Watts, you can process anything with it as it is also ice crushing. The cool thing however of this model is the fact it is not only a blender but a kit. You get one powerful motor and several cups: one 72 ounce blender cup, one 64 ounces food processing bowl and 2 professional cups for nutrient and vitamin extraction.
It is also a more modest mechanism of blending, as you have only 3 different speed sets and the pulse option. This won’t give you a wide array of speed control, but it doesn’t limit this Ninja model to boost any preparation to maximum force.
While they are only 3 speeds, Ninja also developed a preset program:
- Speed 1 for dough.
- Speed 2 for a standard blend.
- Speed 3 for crushing.
This Ninja set is all made in black details and its sturdy base has safety suction cup feet, so you can let the blender alone while you do something else in the kitchen, it won’t run away from the counter.
Ninja BL660 Professional Blender
This next Ninja model is more affordable on our best blenders list as it is also less potent. BL660 is ideal for everyday blending with the standard set of fruits and vegetables, as well as for dough preparation. The motor is not that less potent, 1000 Watts, that is still enough to process hard vegetables and crush ice, though it may take a little bit longer than previous models as the motor doesn’t present the same power of destruction of a 1500 W engine.
The set includes more that just the blender and cup, with two Go lids so you can store your shakes/beverages and take it with you for the gym.Is important to note that this model is quite similar in design to the BL771 model, but shows a slimmer base and the cup has a squared shape, different from the cylindrical cup of the 771. On the other hand, you can buy a sturdier version that resembles that wide base, including the suction cup feets and with an extra 100 W of potency (1100 total).
Magic Bullet 12-Piece High-Speed Blender/Juicer System Review
I think Nutri Bullet quite doesn’t need an introduction. They are arguably the most popular blender brand out there, not exactly for making the most powerful blender machines, but for making exactly what most people need on a daily basis – and more – for a blender. The NBR-12 is a kit in the same way as the Ninja sets, it includes 12 different pieces to make it quite complete, from blending to storing and transporting.The blender motor itself is a demure 600 Watts.
It includes two cups of different sizes that work both for processing the food and transporting/storing it, as they are also on-the-go cups so, when you are finished, you just have to cover it with one of transport lids and get on the go.
These cups are respectively 32 ounces and 18 ounces and they have their own processing lids, for the big cup, a lid with 4 blades, and for the small cup, 2 blades. You attach either one or another of the cups onto the machine, make the preparation and then turn it up to then drink it right away, cover it with the transportation lid and store or to take it with you.The Nutri Bullet works with a big amount of pressure inside the cup while blending.
This is the secret of the super blending of Nutri Bullet, they even patented and called the process as extraction, since the vegetables and fruits in general get better processed, so you can fully enjoy all the nutrients of the food as many important elements are hidden inside seeds and skin.The kit also includes two detachable handlers for each one of the cups, a nutritional guide to help you get the most from each kind of food and also a cook book. Another eye popping differential of the Nutri Bullet is their cool designs in different colors. You can get this model either dyed on blue, gray, orange or red.
KitchenAid Diamond KSB1575MC
If you are looking for potent blender with less fabulous features and more a day to day use, KitchenAid has one of the best sellers of this category which, for the record, is not at all a weak plain model even though is not a power house but neither a soft-fruits-only smasher. Diamond has a 630 Watts potency motor, is slightly stronger than the NutriBullet blender, but like that model, it is not meant to quickly pulverize hardened foods. There is even an option for crushing ice among the preset speeds, but anyone who got a demure blender for some years will strictly advise you to do not so as it will reduce the life span of the product.
This model, like many other products of the brand, is manufactured in many different finishes, with a wide array of glossy vibrant colors, there are over 20 different colors, from vibrant pink and purple hues to energized reds and lively blues.The preset speeds include 5 different speeds, not including the ice crusher mode and the pulse function, so you got 7 different speed presets.
Oh, and surely we can’t forgot the cup. The cup jar is a generous 60 ounces.
Cuisinart SPB-7BCH SmartPower
The last model of our list is also the most affordable of all them and just what you need if you are not a chef with a lot of ambitious ideas on your kitchen and is not planning on becoming one. The SmartPower is a standard compact blender to prepare usual beverages, shakes and dough. It has a 500 Watt motor, the regular output of regular blenders, but among all the standards with low prices and demure features, this is the winner of the race.
All the other speeds apart from pulse are also presets of blending you can prepare with the respective names of the preparation they are designed to perform.
In order to make it clear which speed you are using, the touchpad keyboard has indicator lights besides each one of the speeds, so you will not be confused about what is going on, including whether the machine is on or off.The blender cup is a 40-ounce jar, enough for 5 cups. You can get it either on black, white, pink, chrome and a lead hued, dark chrome finish.
Important Tips to Purchase the Best Blender
What is the Best Blender set of features: Finding the Perfect Combo
Important here to be aware about the fact that it is not one or another feature that will determine how good an appliance is, and this not different with blenders. Is all about the synergy of features included. Blenders must, first of all, comply with their expected function to blend and mix food for all sort of beverages doing it good. But what makes it good is not that easy. What I’ve learned so far with blenders is that there is what I call a holy trinity that must be really met and respected, so let’s be quick and precise about these 3 factors that must be a strong check on your list:
Sturdy Motor : if you don’t want to sit and ponder everytime you are going to use the blender, whether that shake recipe can be good or bad for your appliance because it may be too harsh for it, the solution is always to look for the most powerful motor. This is the most straight-forward secret about blenders. A powerful motor will crazily spin your blender and make blending a silly joke, as it will easily crush anything on its way. The more demure and modest is the motor of the blender, the more dangerous it get to throw anything in. Is quite unlike the blender will burst or get trashed with one single mistake, but the problem about blenders is the time. Once you feel confident to throw carrots and ice into a weak blender, because it didn’t toast in your face right after, you will do it again, and after a while, you will, in the best case scenario, get a leaky jar or dull blades, so avoid the test and trial and stick with something where you just have to ponder whether throwing nuts in the shell inside the blender is a wise decision – which clearly is not!
There is a relation between horse power and wattage, you can learn a bit more about this relation here as not always the informed feature is wattage, but the horsepower. Since most of us women is not familiar with it, I thought it would be better to state the differences of potency between these models through Watts.
Another thing that is important to understand about the horsepower-wattage relation is the peak potency and the operating potency. While a model has a standard number of Watts, it often is describing its peak potency, but the operation nominal wattage is below that, so you have to stick to higher powers to endure a good performance. You should take a look on this great CNet reading about it to understand well how it works when you are using the blender.
Glass Jars : once again I summon our grandmas here for what is considered a standard of a good blender: glass jars/cups. All ol’ days blenders used to have glass jars because plastic was not a common reality. And glass is above all a more resistant and enduring option, even though it is not the most safe to handle, as it is heavier and when it breaks is not pretty, one of the reasons why the industry started to substitute glass for plastic. But nowadays customers know the benefits of glass and, if you are not a disaster in the kitchen, keeping it functional and safe will ensure a functional blender for decades. Glass jars also work better with the ball bearing system of the blades. It will really take a lot of efforts to break the sealing and make it a leaky jar, which happens more often with plastic models. While that doesn’t mean that plastic models are not goods, is a reality: a glass jar blender will endure much more than a plastic jar. Soon or later the former will start to leak or the blades will die out.
Strong Blades : Talking about blades, a blender’s set of blades is not particularly sharp as it happens with food processors, for example, because blenders are much more designed to crush than chop and cut. The design of blenders’ cups is projected to make the food flow intensively towards the blades, so they must be, foremost, strong to hit and smash anything. Is all about crushing, not specifically about cutting. All models we included in the list are thick stainless steel blades. Avoid thin layered blades that look like cheap aluminum foils, they must be thick and strong so the food gets smashed quite quickly and smoothly.
Best Blenders in Infographic
Summing Up
Like most appliances, the sturdier, fancier the model gets, the wider are the possibilities of usage, but that doesn’t mean you have to be looking for a do-it-all model or have to stick with it. As you can see, there are blenders out there for all kinds of usages and purposes. Just don’t forget to consider the capabilities of a model within its niche of performance. There are many sturdy models, not included of course on our list, that are as strong as the most demure KitchenAid standard sweetheart in the market, but they are still inferior to this popular standard for not offering a long lasting life span, varied set of speeds or ease replacements.
I believe I really did a great selection of brands and models here, there are no dark horses despite the less mainstream names because all these brands are respected and acknowledged. I specially recommend a visit to the official site of each one of these brands so you can know a bit more about their work and how serious they are. There are no obscure second-hand China brands, they are all dedicated to make quality products. Keep your standards up and happy shopping!
Abby Larson
