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See why.The Best Inexpensive Blenders
Our winning midpriced and high-end blenders are excellent—but expensive. Could we get great performance while paying less?
By Published Jan. 15, 2021
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What You Need To Know
If you have a great blender, it’s easy to whip up smoothies, milkshakes, frozen drinks, sauces, dips, and dressings, and you can even grind nut butters from scratch. You toss in the ingredients, push a button or two, and it’s done—at least in theory. While we’ve found excellent midpriced and high-end blenders, which cost about $200 or more, we wanted to find out if we could match their performance while spending less.
Setting a cap of $100, we bought seven models, all priced from about $29 to about $99. (That’s what we paid, but we’ve seen blender prices fluctuate. More on that later.) Their design and features varied, with jars made of plastic or glass, capacities ranging from 4 to 8 cups, and blades that were either permanently attached or removable for cleaning. The controls of the models ranged from simple to complex, with some including timers and programmed settings; one model even cooks. Some blenders had no accessories, while others were equipped with everything from travel cups to a chopping jar to a bag for straining nut milk.
We put all the models through a battery of tests that we’ve used to evaluate blenders many times, including pureeing raw kale and frozen fruit into smoothies, crushing ice, emulsifying mayonnaise, and grinding almonds into nut butter. We measured noise levels and stain and odor retention. We compared them with our favorite midpriced blender, the Breville Fresh & Furious (about $200), rating their performance as well as how easy they were to operate, handle, and clean.
Where Inexpensive Blenders Fall Short
The best blenders have a powerful motor, sharp blades, and a jar shape that helps ingredients keep moving. Ideally, as the blades whirl, food is drawn to the bottom of the jar, chopped, and spun upward again, moving in a vortex that circulates ingredients until they reach the precise texture you want.
Our biggest problem? These were not the best blenders. Five of our seven models simply couldn’t keep ingredients moving. They’d start with a roar, but within seconds everything would stop. The blades would be whirling away inside an air pocket.
Over and over, we had to turn off the power, remove the lid, scrape down the sides of the jar, burst the “bubble” of ingredients, and try again. Everything would move for a few seconds more and then stop as the bubble reformed. Even high-end blenders, such as our test kitchen favorite, the Vitamix 5200, sometimes form these bubbles when processing thick ingredients such as hummus or nut butter, so they include tools called tampers. While the machine is running, you stick the blunt, rod-shaped tamper through the lid opening—by design, ...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 1 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 3 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 3 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 3 stars out of 3.
Tall and lightweight, with a generous 8-cup capacity, a comfortable handle, and very basic controls (Low, Medium, High, and Pulse), this powerful blender aced every challenge except for mayonnaise, where its low speed was simply too fast. It was a bit noisy, but it got the job done.
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 3 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 3 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Usually hands-off and with useful preset programs, this excellent blender powered through every task. Its heavy glass jar (which weighs about 5½ pounds) and locking lid are solidly built. The only drawback is that the electronics in the jar base can’t be submerged in water. However, the jar and lid were easy to wash by hand. This model also contains a heating element to cook soups, and it can do so without pureeing the ingredients, so you can determine the soup’s final texture. You can delay heating for up to 12 hours, and you can keep foods warm for up to 2 hours. Unfortunately, the blender’s price rose significantly above $100 after we purchased it, disqualifying it as our winner, but if you see it for less than $100, it’s a worthwhile choice.
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 2 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 2 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 3 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 3 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 2.5 stars out of 3.
Solidly built, with a glass jar, this blender performed acceptably across the board, but it took time and effort because we had to stop and scrape to get results—it wasn’t hands-off. Its lowest speed was almost too fast to make mayonnaise, but it did manage. It was powerful enough to grind nut butter with a bit of effort on our part. The controls were slightly complicated but manageable.
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Recommended with reservations
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 2 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 2 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 2 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 2 stars out of 3.
This blender performed adequately, though extremely loudly, and only after a good deal of intervention on our part (stopping and scraping the jar and restarting). Its controls are overly complex, and its jar held on to the scent of garlic and chipotles. Once we’d scraped it down many times, it did finally make good almond butter and a decent smoothie.
Not Recommended
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 1 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 2 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 2 stars out of 3.
This attractive blender was a heartbreaker. It looked great, but it couldn’t do much except make mayonnaise. Its jar held on to the scent of garlic and chipotles even after three washes. It eventually made nut butter, with a lot of extra stopping and scraping, while emitting an ominous burning smell that bodes ill for its durability. The dial control was simple, but it didn’t feel like it had much impact on the blender’s operation, since ingredients usually got stuck just out of reach of the spinning blades.
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 1 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 3 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 0 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 2 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 3 stars out of 3.
We loved the look, feel, and light weight of this compact blender, but we wish its power lived up to its “hurricane” name. It constantly created a cavity around the blades, leaving ingredients stuck out of reach unless we stopped and scraped down the jar (or shook it in frustration while it ran). It could not process nut butter except in tiny batches in its chopping jar, and even then the motor overheated. It held on to scents and flopped at almost every task, except mayonnaise. The “juicing” in its name is never explained in the manual except for a mention that you can puree fresh fruit and manually strain out the solids with a sieve.
- Blending and Ice Crushing: 1 stars out of 3.
- Mayonnaise: 2 stars out of 3.
- Almond Butter: 0 stars out of 3.
- Noise Level: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleaning and Handling: 2 stars out of 3.
- Controls and Operation: 2 stars out of 3.
This model struggled at nearly every task. It eventually made acceptable smoothies, but it did so only after more than 6 minutes of hard work on our part, compared with about 60 seconds for higher-ranked blenders. Mayonnaise almost didn’t emulsify and ended up looser than ideal. Even chopping soft chipotle chiles in adobo sauce took much longer than with other models, and we gave up on almonds, which didn’t process beyond a rough chop even after 10 minutes of constant scraping and restarting. You must press its plastic lid very firmly into the glass jar to seal or it creeps up when the motor runs.
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Lisa McManus
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.
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