The Best Blender

Welcome to F&W Gear Guides. We have several buyer’s guides to an essential pieces of kitchen gear based on real-world testing. Missed an installment?Find them all here。

Will it blend? Yes, every time, if you’ve got the right blender in your kitchen. After putting 11 models to the test, we found a few we loved. Read on for our full methodology.

• 一个超价的中价模型：Oster Versa Pro Series Blender, $155 atamazon.com
• A finely-tuned performance machine:Vitamix Ascent 3300 Blender, $450 atamazon.com
• A reasonably compact, robust, basic blender:Breville Hemisphere Control Blender，200美元williams-sonoma.comor the updated version:Breville Fresh & Furious Blender, $190 atamazon.com
• 预算，中等范围选项：Kitchenaid 5速搅拌机，75美元amazon.com

欢迎来到搅拌机的黄金时代。冰沙碗,frosé,1-Intredient Banana“冰淇淋"—the greatest hits of your Instagram feed wouldn't exist without an army of small appliances behind them, motors buzzing and blades whirring. Driven by the passion and spending power of food-savvy, "wellness"-conscious millennials (researchfrom the 2016 International Home and Housewares Show revealed that one in three millennials planned to buy a blender last year, twice the number of boomers or gen-xers), a device once used primarily by nutritionists, baby-food DIY-ers, and milkshake slingers has moved out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

In the process, the consumer blender landscape has been transformed. Once upon a time, most blenders cost less than $50; these days, in one of the fastest growing categories—high performance blenders like Vitamix, Blendtec, and Ninja—models routinely run upwards of $400. Shoppers can choose from handheld immersion blenders, personal blenders with grab-and-go attachments, blenders that cook soups, blenders that churn ice cream, blenders that mill grains. Which one is for you? Needless to say, when you're considering plunking down some serious change for a small appliance with the approximate horsepower of a vintage Volkswagon, it can be daunting to know where to begin.

With that dilemma in mind, over the past few weeks, I put a dozen new and popular blenders through their paces. To assemble the list of contenders—in both the high performance and conventional categories—I weighed reviews on Amazon and culinary and consumer websites likeConsumer Reports，Sweethome，Cooks插图，真正的简单和认真吃。对于专业的角度，我咨询了苔丝大师The Blender Girlblog and author ofThe Blender Girl食谱和完美的混合。Masters works with more than 50 testers around the world to stay continually abreast of the blender marketplace and estimates that at this point she's tested every single blender in the field.

While evaluating conventional blenders, I used two recipes—a thick frozen fruit smoothie, to assess liquefying and pulverizing power, and a hollandaise sauce, to test emulsifying capabilities. With high-performance blenders—generally speaking, any model with a horsepower of two or more—I repeated the smoothie and sauce tests and added an additional one: making peanut butter from scratch.

I admired a lot of things about a lot of the machines, but none passed every test with flying colors, and even the top models required a tradeoff in some area—design, performance, versatility or price. In other words, the dream—an $80 blender that performs with the nuance, versatility, and power of a $450+ blender—just doesn't exist. That said, there's no denying that as the competition between manufacturers heats up and the field keeps expanding, it's a buyer's market—and, if you're willing to settle for slightly less than perfection, you can find a blender to get excited about at every price point.

In the end, I zeroed in on three models—a high-performance option from a legacy brand that's an incredible value for its price; a industry-leading powerhouse that offers pro-level culinary performance; and a conventional blender with a build that's as powerful as it is attractive. Plunk any one of them on your countertop, and you'll be ready to blend with the best.

How does a blender actually混合？尽管营销标语可能会使您相信机器的强度仅在于其刀片或电动机的力量的清晰度，但这是一个过度的简化，并没有考虑到每次按您按下时都会开始工作的复杂物理。当机器的电动机开始转动时，首先将叶片切成成分，然后随着离心力的增加，食物的颗粒被扔向罐的侧面，并随着速度和力的增加而抛在罐的侧面，气泡的袋装形成并破裂，闪闪发光，闪闪发亮亚搏电竞并进一步粉碎内容。（如果您想真正打动食物极客朋友，那么此过程的技术术语是“偶然化”。）换句亚搏电竞话说：搅拌器叶片不需要做刀的工作，而实际上，唯一的鲜明敏锐度是在清理过程中意外伤害自己的可能性。

According to Tess Masters, it is actually a trinity of factors, working in concert, that make a blender function well: the power of the motor, the construction of the blade, and the size and shape of the container. The power of the motor can be described in terms of horsepower or in watts; most high performance blenders boast approximately two-horsepower motors, though that is apeak测量以及大部分时间将在其下方略低。在考虑刀片构造时，是尺寸和设计而不是清晰度，而不是清晰度。如果刀片太小，并且在其尖端和罐的侧面之间留出太多的缝隙，则颗粒可能会被困在拐角处，在那里它们不能被刀片触摸。结果，搅拌机将无法产生有效的涡旋 - 强大的旋转力，将内容不断地推向罐子的侧面，然后绕叶片围绕着刀片。一个凹槽和脊的罐可以通过添加表面积以使内容物添加表面积来增加粉碎功率，但它也提出了更多的清洁挑战。（我在制作所有花生酱时很难学到这一点。）高大的狭窄罐子通常在任务方面更好，在这些任务中，强大的涡流是关键的 - 例如生成超滑的冰沙和丝滑汤，而宽阔的棚户罐有较宽的棚屋使用较厚的项目（例如坚果黄油，鹰嘴豆泥和铣削谷物）时的优势。从实际的角度来看，较短的罐子还具有在大多数厨柜下轻松安装的优势，这意味着您可以将搅拌机放在柜台上，并在冲动罢工时伸手去拿。（根据Masters的说法，这是保持混合的最佳邀请，也是确保机器赚取的最可靠方法。）

As I worked my way through the tests and began to pick favorites, a few things became clear. For starters: While not everyone needs a blender designed to cook hot soups and churn butter, at a minimum, a good machine should be capable of processing tough, fibrous, and icy materials—like leafy greens, frozen fruit and ice cubes—into a smooth puree. It should also have strength and stamina, with a build quality that doesn't crack or leak under repeated use and a motor powerful enough that it won't smoke or sputter out at the first challenge.

铃声和whistles-like预设程序进行slushie drinks, smoothies, soups, and more—can be enticing, especially for chronic multitaskers who like the idea of loading up a canister with fixings, pressing a button and walking away. But over a few weeks of daily use, I rarely found myself reaching for presets and ultimately preferred the greater control of a simple on/off/pulse switch and variable-speed dial. When I consulted Tess Masters, she agreed, calling the current craze for pre-programmed settings "something of a gimmick"—while acknowledging that might be a minority opinion. "I'm a professional cook and a control freak," she explained. "But, also, it's impossible for an engineer to predict every ingredient that might be going into your blender, so those settings are always going to be approximations."

确实被证明是必不可少的一个附加组件是篡改：一种类似俱乐部的塑料警棍，可以插入搅拌机中，以高速工作或混合厚或粘糊糊的材料时，会破坏叶片周围形成的空气口袋。（还记得偶然吗？）我认为的高性能搅拌机大约有一半是带有烧烤剂的 - 其他人声称不需要它们。但是我发现在制作坚果黄油时对性能至关重要的烤肉剂，并且通常赞赏他们使我有任何任务的控制越来越大。因此，早期，我决定取消任何无篡改的高性能搅拌机作为决赛选手的资格。

If you're determined to eliminate plastics from your home, finding a blender may be problematic. BPA-free canisters were the norm on the models I tested, with Tritan copolyester—an especially strong and resilient plastic—standard on many higher-end machines including the Vitamix, the Breville Boss and Hemisphere, and the Oster Versa. Only one of the blenders I considered—the Waring Pro—offers an optional stainless steel canister, and adding it to the kit dramatically increases the price, from $372 to $647. Masters says this is an area of design to watch with interest—and to expect consumer demand to drive engineers towards big changes in the immediate future. "Europeans don't want to touch plastic," she explained. "Glass containers are heavy, which makes shipping them expensive. And they can be dangerous to use at high speeds. So, stainless steel may be the answer. The problem is that with stainless, you can't see what's in the blender. So that is going to require a shift in consumer expectation and experience."

A blender may perform like a dream, but if flaws like an overcomplicated base or a canister with hard-to-clean crevices make it difficult to clean, using it will feel like a chore—and eventually lead to icky stains and odors. Many of the models I tested claimed to be dishwasher safe—though, as a general rule, Masters said subjecting any plastic canisters to the high heat of a dishwasher will spell trouble in the long run, causing cracks in the polycarbonate or warping lids so that they won't fit snugly. That sort of breakdown over time is also why it's important to pay attention to warranties. Most of the high-performance blenders I tested were fully guaranteed for between 6 to 10 years—but, needless to say, if you are going to plunk down hundreds of dollars for one of these gizmos, you should take advantage of all the protections you can.

An $80 blender that performs like a $400 one may be a pipe dream, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you're willing to spend just a bit more—say, around $175—you can get a machine that will, if not match the spendy luxury brands, sure give them a run for their money. Easy to use, with intuitive manual controls and a generous roster of presets, the Oster Versa Pro outperformed similarly priced competitors in almost every test, whizzing smoothies into silky purees and pulverizing a pile of nuts into butter while barely breaking a sweat. It comes with a helpful (if bizarrely-shaped) tamper and the low-profile body and canister are short enough to tuck under most kitchen upper cabinets.

尽管Versa缺乏Vitamix和KitchenAid Pro系列的一些细微差别和控制，而且其低速并不是特别低（在荷兰燃料过程中引起了混乱的飞溅和吐痰），但最终使任务完成了。该机器具有7年的保修，基本上与Vitamix和Blendtec一致，并带有一对内容丰富的食谱，其中包含汤，调味料，冰沙，电源等的技巧和食谱。无论您将其切成薄片，这种搅拌机都是一个很大的价值 - 我并不是唯一一个这样认为的人：它也排在Sweethome的测试中，并被Bon Appetit和数百个积极的现实生活中的亚马逊评论推荐。如果您进行了很多混合（例如：每天）或顽固的厨师或食品极客，您可能会发现升级到更精细的模型的正当性。亚搏电竞但是，如果您要追求的中端主力军，那么您将做得更好。

首先,一些背景:most consumers’ minds, the name Vitamix is synonymous with high-performance blending the way Kleenex is synonymous with bath tissue, and for good reason—the venerable American company, which has been operating out of Ohio for the last 95 years, more or less invented the concept. Until about a decade ago, Vitamix machines were mostly an industry secret, the whirring workhorses inside four-star prep kitchens and countless Starbucks and Jamba Juices. Expensive (the base model begins around $400) and almost absurdly powerful, they might seem like overkill for the average home cook—but, as their incredible popularity evidences (Vitamix sales increased 52 percent in 2012 alone), after you experience their strength and versatility, it's hard to go back to a two-speed jalopy. The reason companies like Oster and Waring and KitchenAid have all roused their engineers and come barreling head first into the high-performance blender marketplace? Yup, that's Vitamix.

When I spoke to colleagues and researched reviews to assemble the lineup for these tests, Vitamix blenders were on everyone's lips. In the end, I decided to test 2 models—the 5200 and the A3300 from the Ascent series (I also happened to have the Pro 750 model in my home kitchen, so I factored in my anecdotal experience with that, too).

The 5200 is Vitamix's basic model and is distinguished by a tall blender jar and simple variable speed dial, which runs from truly calm, quiet, low settings to rip-roaring high speeds with remarkable subtlety. The A3300 has similar controls, though they're accessed through a flat-front digital interface rather than a physical dial—an upgrade which the luddite in me didn't like at first, but which I warmed to after realizing how easy it was to wipe clean. The A3300 also had the advantage of a shorter blender jar—a small design tweak which I've nonetheless come to see as essential, given that a taller jar makes countertop storage awkward if not impossible.

Though both machines lack preset settings, in day-to-day use I didn't miss them, and overall both were a joy to use—blending smoothies to fine, silky sippability, pulverizing nut butters without strain and quietly emulsifying velvety sauces. They were also among the only models designed to mill grains—an option which wasn't part of my tests, but would certainly be an appealing feature for adventurous bakers or anyone dealing with gluten restrictions. The A3300 also comes with a drop-dead gorgeous cookbook, filled with Instagram-worthy recipes, helpful tips and inspiration.

Though the price is significantly more than that of the Oster, if you're a serious cook or are committed to using your machine frequently—by which I mean multiple times a week—the precision and versatility offered by a Vitamix may justify the expense. From a performance standpoint, the 5200 and the A3300 are well matched, but ultimately the A3200 edged ahead in my rankings thanks to a few canny design tweaks, like the shorter canister, the easy-to-clean digital interface and the removeable cap on the top of the lid that also doubles as a two-ounce jigger/liquid measure. But the A3300 is also slightly more expensive—and if that $50 is a dealbreaker for you, I'd have no qualms recommending the 5200, too.

最佳基本搅拌器：Breville Hemisphere Control Blender ($200 atwilliams-sonoma.comor updated version, $190 atamazon.com)

Tess Masters称这台光滑，结构良好的机器为“血腥的中端搅拌机”，在将其通过冰沙和荷兰菜的测试以及在我的家庭厨房中使用了两周的轶事（这是一堆冰沙，这是一堆冰沙，这是一堆轶事，我全心全意地同意面糊和冷冻饮料）。（奖励积分：该模型在食品和葡萄酒测试厨房中也一直是最喜欢的，并被库克斯在最近的试验中被认为是最佳价值。亚搏电竞亚搏电竞精心设计的五速接口和令人印象深刻的构建质量。不含BPA的Tritan Copolyester塑料罐在底座上感觉稳定，坐在手里舒适，有一个定义，干净的喷口，并容易洗净。内部是一种创新的宽阔刀片设计，使处理所有基本的搅拌机任务（冰上冰，混合饮料，乳化调味料），并且也足够强大，可以从事一些更雄心勃勃的工作，例如磨燕麦和切碎的莎莎酱。（虽然我没有将半球接受花生酱测试，但reviewerson Amazon have reported making nut butter with favorable results. My guess is that doing so may require occasional pausing to keep the motor from getting over-taxed and scraping down the sides to discourage air pockets from forming, and the results might not be as silky smooth as those you'd get from a high-performance Vitamix-type blender—but would likely still satisfy most occasional users.) When assembled, the blender has a modern, sophisticated look and fits easily and unobtrusively underneath most kitchen cabinets.

My one qualm in choosing it was the price: Depending on where you buy the Hemisphere, and the discounts available, it may end up costing the same, if not a bit more, than our overall best-value pick, the Oster Versa—even though the Versa offers more of the high performance functions of a Vitamix. (If budget is a big deciding factor, theKitchenAid 5 Speed Classic Blender, another mid-range model I liked, though not quite as much, may be a better fit.) But, ultimately, if you want a reliable, attractive blender that will stand up ably to occasional use, but don't want to surrender too much kitchen real estate to the device, the Hemisphere won't disappoint.

KitchenAid's foray into the high performance blender space is one seriously sexy beast. The well-proportioned, double-walled "thermal control jar" sits in an indented pad for added stability and was shockingly easy to clean after even the messiest tasks. And the massive, matte gunmetal gray die-cast base felt like it would last a lifetime (though, admittedly, moving it from one end of the counter also felt akin to doing a CrossFit workout). If you are the kind of person who cares about these sorts of things, this machine would look very nice indeed parked next to a KitchenAid stand mixer on your island, and you'd probably use it constantly. But all that bling comes at a big price. With a suggested retail price of $600, the KitchenAid Pro was the most expensive blender I tested, and while it performed very well (and sure was pretty), I don't think the differences between it and the Vitamix are enough to justify the splurge for the average user.

乍一看，这台机器是Vitamix 5200的近亲，具有相似的可变速度拨盘，脉冲和电源开关，并且在我的测试中表现出色。但是，毫不奇怪，鉴于价格较低，其构建质量更加脆弱 - 特别是塑料罐，这使我担心长期使用的潜在泄漏或裂缝。另外，与Vitamix 5200一样，罐子的高度也很烦人，因此很难将其藏在我的厨房橱柜下。对于相同的钱，反之亦然，是一个更具用户友好的选择。

There's a ton to love about this machine. It feels great right out of the box, with a sturdy, attractive silver base and a well-proportioned, easy-to clean Tritan plastic canister. Its interface looks luxe, with a manual dial and a host of presets—including a smoothie setting that does all the work for you, alternating between speeds and pulses to create silky smooth results every time. But ultimately, the Boss's performance was not significantly better than the Oster Versa Pro to be able to recommend it at twice the price.

如果你致力于消除塑料从your kitchen, this might be the blender for you. It was the only model I tested that was available with an optional stainless steel canister—though the addition brings a sharp markup in price. The orange lettering on the base is a little cheesy. And also, while the machine is very powerful and yields silky smoothies and fine-grained frozen drinks, it does not come with a tamper that would give greater control over heartier tasks like hummus and nut butters.

让我们追逐：“它会融合吗？”的问题答案。是是的。凭借3马力的峰值电动机，这台机器背后有很多魅力，并在亚马逊上进行了评论，以证明数百名满意的客户。但是，由于缺乏篡改，它的多功能性极大地阻碍了它，因此我在测试初期就消除了它。

为了制作冰沙和冷冻饮料，这是一种有能力的，有能力的搅拌机，并有成千上万的亚马逊评论，反映了许多快乐的用户。但是，构建质量感觉很奇特，缺乏篡改极大地限制了它可以做的事情的范围。

An attractive conventional blender that's easy to use and powerful enough to produce silky smoothies, batters, and frozen drinks, this was a close runner up to the Breville Hemisphere Control. If your budget is limited, it's a great buy for around $100.

This inexpensive blender has no bells and whistles—just an on and an off. But it's mightily powerful for the price and is a classic for a reason. Though it won't mill grain or make soup, Tess Masters says "if you don't want to spend more than $60, no one else can touch it."