Best Blenders of 2022 – CNET
Testing a blender isn’t just about making smoothies and crushing ice. The blenders are also suitable for many other recipes, and these tests highlight each model’s ability to handle dry, chunky and coarse ingredients.
ice
In a pure test of crushing ability, we put two cups of ice cubes into each blender. Calculating the number of pulses required to obtain finely crushed ice can be a good indication of real-world cutting capabilities. The three blenders we recommended above performed well.
Smoothies
Fruit Smoothies are a classic blender recipe that are at the top of my list of recipes to test. This shouldn’t be a big stress test for any decent blender, so it really comes down to speed and consistency. We used two cups of orange juice and one cup of frozen strawberries to make a test smoothie.
While many of these tests produced very similar results, some were faster than others. Not all blenders come with presets, but a smoothie feature is almost always included. This is the pattern we use if possible. Without the smoothie blender feature, we followed the blender’s manual recommendations to make smoothies. This is usually about a minute high.
The smoothie test started with whole frozen strawberries and orange juice.
This is a relatively simple test, and most blenders handle frozen ingredients just fine. Some were frothy, some were slushy, but only the Black & Decker model left chunks of frozen strawberry unmixed.
Nut flour and butter
Blenders are not just for drinks. There are many other uses, including grinding dry ingredients. For our dry ingredient test, we placed a cup of flaked almonds (untoasted) in each blender and pulsed until the flaked almonds turned into a fine flour. This is a challenge for some blenders, but most can do this in about 10 to 20 pulses, with the Hamilton Beach model producing noticeably rougher results.
Nut butter is another story. Most blenders are not really designed for long runs and the level of processing required to make butters like almond butter or peanut butter. In fact, many people recommend not running the blender for more than a few minutes at a time.
This nut flour is a little chunky.
In our tests of nut flours, only one Vitamix model showed real signs of almond butter progress, and it plateaued before reaching a good consistency. Most models simply spin the dry ingredients up and into the hard-to-clean gaps in the lid. If you plan to make nut butter, we recommend using a model like the Oster that comes with a processing kit, or a standalone food processor.
cheese
Did you know that a blender can shred cheese? It’s true; some blenders can. We placed 8 ounces of cheese cubes in each blender and blended until the whole block was shredded. This reveals some interesting design choices in some models. For example, Ninja lost the cheese round because multiple blender blade levels made it impossible to get chunks of cheese into the blender. I had to cut it into pieces.
Blenders can shred cheese, and this NutriBullet does it in record time; in just four pulses.
Both Vitamix models had some trouble with this particular test, drilling holes in the block of cheese without actually blending it while melting the smaller cheeses that were shredded while the machine was heating. Meanwhile, the NutriBullet, Ninja, instant Pot, Breville Super Q, and Hurom Hexa can grate cheese cubes in less than 5 pulses.
pancake batter
If you have seen our List of the best waffle makersit’s no surprise that pancake batter showed up in our blender tests. While I’m happy to fire up the skillet and flip some cakes, mixing the batter is an important test. It measures how easily the blender combines wet and dry ingredients.
