Testing blenders isn’t just about making smoothies and crushing ice. There are many other recipes that blenders work well for, and these tests highlight how capable each model is when it comes to dry, large, and chunky ingredients.
ICE
In a test of pure crushing power, we placed two ice cube cups in each blender. Counting the number of pulses it takes to reach fine and crushed ice gives a good indication of real-world cutting power. All three blenders we recommended above performed well.
Smoothies
A classic blender recipe, fruit smoothies were high on my list of recipes to try. This shouldn’t be a huge stress test for any good blender and so it really comes down to speed and durability. We used two cups of orange juice and one cup of frozen strawberries to make the test smoothies.
While many of these tests produced very similar results, some ran faster than others. Not all blenders come with presets, but those that do almost always offer a smoothie function. When possible, this is the method we used. If there was no smoothie blender function, we followed the blender’s manual recommendation for making smoothies. This was usually about a minute in height.
Smoothie testing begins with whole, frozen strawberries and orange juice.
This is a relatively easy test and most blenders handle frozen ingredients well. Some were more frothy and some more frothy, but only the Black & Decker model left large chunks of unstirred frozen strawberries.
Nut flour and butter
Blenders aren’t just about drinks. It has many other uses, including grinding dry ingredients. For our dry ingredients test, we put one cup of almond chunks (unroasted) in each blender and pulse until those chunks become a fine flour. A bit of a challenge for some blenders, but most were able to do this in about 10 to 20 pulses, with the Hamilton Beach model giving significantly coarser results.
Nut butter is a different story. Most blenders aren’t really designed for long run times and the level of processing needed to make a butter like almond or peanut butter. In fact, many recommend not using the blender for more than a few minutes at a time.
This nut flour is a bit thick.
Only one Vitamix model showed real signs of progressing toward almond butter in our testing with nut flours, and it tanked before reaching a good consistency. Most models simply rolled the dry ingredients up and into the crevices of their hard-to-wash lids. If you’re ready to make nut butters, we recommend a model like the Oster with an included processing kit or a separate food processor.
Cheese
Did you know that blenders can shred cheese? It is true; some blenders can. We placed an 8-ounce block of cheese in each blender and pulsed until the entire block was shredded. This brought to light some interesting design choices between several models. The Ninja, for example, lost the cheese roll because the multiple levels of the blender blade made it impossible to place the block of cheese in the blender. I had to cut it into pieces.
Blenders can shred cheese and this NutriBullet did it in record time; only four pulses.
Both Vitamix models had some issues with this particular test and punched holes in the block of cheese without actually mixing it, simultaneously melting what little cheese had crumbled as the machine heated up. Meanwhile, the NutriBullet, Ninja, Instant Pot, Breville Super Q, and Hurom Hexa handled shredding a block of cheese in less than five pulses.
Pancake batter
If you’ve seen our list of the best waffle makers, it should come as no surprise that pancake batter made an appearance in our blender test. While I was happy to fire up the pan and flip some cakes, mixing the batter is an important test. It measures how easy or difficult it is for the blender to blend wet and dry ingredients.
