Testing blenders isn't just about making smoothies and crushing ice. There are many other recipes that blenders work well for and these tests show how capable each model is when it comes to dry, large and coarse ingredients.
Ice
In a test of pure crushing power, we put two cups of ice cubes in each blender. Counting the number of pulses it takes to achieve fine, crushed ice gives a good indication of real-world chopping power. The three blenders we recommended above performed well.
A smoothie
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 decent blender and so it really comes down to speed and consistency. To make the test smoothies, we used two cups of orange juice and one cup of frozen strawberries.
While many of these tests produced very similar results, a few ran faster than others. Not all blenders come with presets, but those that do almost always include a smoothie function. When possible, this is the mode we used. If it didn't have a smoothie blender function, we followed the blender's manual recommendation for making smoothies. This was usually about a minute on high.
Smoothie testing begins with whole, frozen strawberries and orange juice.
This is a relatively easy test and most blenders do well with frozen ingredients. Some were foamy and some were more frothy, but only the Black & Decker model left large chunks of frozen strawberries unstirred.
Nut flour and butter
Blenders aren't just for drinks. It has many other uses, including grinding dry ingredients. To test the dry ingredients, place a cup of almond slivers (unroasted) in each blender and pulse until the slivers are reduced to a fine flour. A bit of a challenge for some blenders, but most were able to do it with about 10 to 20 pulses, with the Hamilton Beach model producing significantly coarser results.
Nut butter is another story. Most blenders aren't really designed for long run times and the level of processing required to make a butter like almond butter or peanut butter. In fact, many recommend not running the blender for more than a few minutes at a time.
This nut flour is a bit coarse.
Only one Vitamix model showed any real signs of progressing toward almond butter in our testing with the nut flour, and it lifted before a good consistency was achieved. Most models simply swirled the dry ingredients up and into the crevices of the hard-to-wash lids. If you're ready to make nut butter, 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 designs among some models. Ninja, for example, lost the round of cheese 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 problems with this particular test, and opened holes in the block of cheese without actually mixing it, while also melting what little cheese was grated as the machine heated up. Meanwhile, the NutriBullet, Ninja, Instant Pot, Breville Super Q, and Hurom Hexa handled grating a block of cheese in less than five pulses.
Batter for pancakes
If you have seen our list of best waffle makersit should come as no surprise that pancake batter made an appearance in our blender testing. While I was happy to fire up the griddle and flip cakes, mixing batter is an important test. It measures how easy or difficult it is for the blender to mix wet and dry ingredients.