Smoothies are a fantastic way to pack your kids full of fruits and veggies, but finding a blender that can handle crushing ice and fruit on a daily basis can be a real challenge. This month we begin our search for the best blender.
When looking for the best blender, we examined the following: price, durability, functionality, and overall performance:
Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender ($34.99)
Girmi ($79.99)
Hamilton Beach Wave Maker 10 speed blender ($29.99)
Oster Digital Control Blender ($79.99)
Vitamix Total Nutrition Center 3 ($679.00 plus $99.00 for the dry blade container)
Finding the Best Blender
Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender – This multi purpose hand blender is perhaps one of the most used tools in our kitchen. The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is excellent at making quick purees (which is especially handy for making their baby food), and is also wonderful when making other meals like soups. It’s even great for getting your mashed potatoes extra-smooth. The fact that it is held and operated with one hand means you have a free hand to hold onto whatever container you are blending in (or to hold a baby while cooking)! It is also incredibly easy to clean by just pressing the release button, the lower section pops off and can be washed clean. As it is just a hand blender, it also takes up very little storage space. Dana has had this in her kitchen for over 4 years and it still works as if it were brand new. This is the best low-cost blender we have found so far!
Hamilton Beach Wake Maker 10 speed – If you only plan to use your blender a couple times per year and don’t intend to make anything with ice or frozen fruit, then this cheap blender is an okay choice. Although it claims to be able to crush ice, it really can’t. Nicole found that this Hamilton Beach blender worked well the first few times, then slowly went downhill. She had to replace it within a few months. Definitely not the best blender.
Girimi – The Girimi blender looks nice, and has some great features including, 400-watt blender with 5 speeds, plus 3 special functions for beating, anti-dispersion, and auto-pulse; it has a wide-mouth jar and offers extra-large 42-ounce capacity; graduated measuring marks, and a generous handle and a filler cap which is supposed to allow for easy addition of ingredients. It claims to be leak proof and easy to clean. However, in actuality, the blender leaks from numerous locations (top and bottom), it is tricky to clean and it almost always looks dirty no matter how much scrubbing. Granted Dana has had this blender for a number of years now, but it has never impressed her in the slightest. Also not the best blender.
Oster 18 Speed Digital Control Blender – The Oster Digital Control Blender worked reasonably well for about 6 months (it was used every few days) before it began to break down. Like the Hamilton Beach blender, the ice crush setting seemed to be very taxing on the blender. Cleaning was a bit of a pain (the bottom needed to be unscrewed, and a rubber ring and the blades needed to be detached). Plus, like the Girmi, the bottom piece was prone to leaking, especially past the six month mark. Nicole felt like this blender was a bit of a rip-off given the $79.99 price tag.
Vitamix Total Nutrition Center 3 – For a blender comparison to be meaningful, at least one top-of-the-line blender should be included. We put the well-known Vitamix to the test (many people claim that it is the best blender they have ever tried), to see if it really was worth hundreds of dollars more than the other blenders described above. The answer is yes. If making smoothies is a regular part of your routine, a Vitamix blender is worth every single penny.
While making a thick smoothie using frozen fruit puts strain on a typical blender, Vitamix blenders are designed for this sort of task. Making a thick, frozen smoothie is practically effortless and takes less than two minutes. The Vitamix Total Nutrition Center 3 also comes with a damper that allows you to push food down as you blend, without touching the blades.
The Vitamix containers do not unscrew at the bottom, completely eliminating leaks. To clean the Vitamix container, add a drop of dish soap and water into the Vitamix container and blend on high for about 30 seconds to clean the container. Easy peasy.
Finally, the Vitamix does so much more than smoothies. You can make sorbet, hot soup, whole food juices, salsas, batters, nut butters, flours and so much more. (Note: a dry container with special blades needs to be purchased separately for grinding dry ingredients, kneading dough, and making nut/seed butters.) The Vitamix Total Nurtition Center 3 also comes with a 7 year warranty.
Overall Rating
Vitamix: 5 stars
Cuisinart Hand Blender: 4.5 stars
Oster: 2.5 stars
Hamilton Beach: 1 star
Girimi: 0 stars
If you’re on a tight budget, the Cuisinart Hand Blender is the best blender to purchase. If you can afford more bells and whistles, definitely try a Vitamix!
Tell us: What is the best blender that you’ve tried?
Disclosure: This article is unsponsored.
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