Top 9 Blenders to Upgrade Your Smoothie Game

It’s a cult fave for a reason: Short of cleaning your kitchen there's nothing the showpiece Vitamix can't do. With pro-quality precision and control, it can make everything from perfectly smooth nut butters to hearty soups and more. The ultra powerful motor has 10 variable speed settings and its heavy duty base won't easily move on the counter when in use. The controls are intuitive and fuss-free and this machine excelled in every one of our Kitchen Appliances Lab tests, easily grinding coffee beans and whirling up milkshakes and margs in seconds. It's an investment, but you won't find a better-performing more durable pick at a fraction of the cost of other Vitamix models. It's only limitations are the steep price tag and the container is on the small side at just six cups.

This well-priced and high-powered blender comes with three jars: a 64-ounce pitcher for large batches, and two different personal-sized cups (32 ounces and 24 ounces with a handle.) Both cups have lids that make it easy to take your smoothie to-go. It features an “extract” button that blends smoothies in preprogrammed variable speeds. We blended kale smoothies in all three jars – there were no flecks to be tasted! It also blasted through frozen strawberries effortlessly to make a delicious, evenly processed daiquiri. The base is not much larger than previous NutriBullet bases and it has suction cups on the bottom that reliably prevent it from shifting around. Just remember to unscrew the personal blending cups from the base instead of the cups--it’s easy to accidentally make a mess.

The Oster My Blend blender is our top recommendation for making smoothies or protein shakes to take on the go. Drinks can be blended directly in the sport bottle, meaning no extra dishes to do. Simply fill the jar with ingredients, twist on to blend, replace the blade with the lid, and you're off. This machine is really limited to smoothies and protein shakes and it doesn't perform well with tough leafy greens. 

This highly popular Cuisinart blender/food processor combo has a low-profile 40-ounce glass jar, which has the benefit of not discoloring, scratching or absorbing food smells like a plastic jar may. This 500-watt blender is not the most high-powered. It features seven blending and processing options that are clearly marked and easy to use. We love that it comes with a compact food processor for chopping, stirring, and even shredding. All parts are dishwasher-safe.  

This is the blender for when you are tight on space, but don’t want to compromise on performance and options. In our tests, the rotary dial controls to be easy to use (for low, high, and pulse), the measurement markings are clear, and the jar is easy to grip and get on and off of the base. It features a 32-ounce jar and two 16-ounce travel cups with lids (one’s a single-wall, the other a double-wall, perfect for keeping your smoothie cold). It made great margaritas and milkshakes, but our smoothies had flecks of fruit and ice left behind. Keep in mind that getting the blade and off can be a little tricky — to twist on, turn left and to twist off, turn right. 

The Vitamix brand has a strong following and we were impressed too. This blender performed exceptionally well at grinding coffee beans and blending milkshakes and smoothies. It has a 64-ounce jar, one of the largest we evaluated and perfect for large batches. Best of all, it was both powerful and quiet at the same time. We found the touchscreen controls easy to use, the jar fits on the base nicely, the handle is comfortable to grip, and the lid comes on and off effortlessly. The jar is not dishwasher safe, but the lid, plug, and tamper are. It can also connect to an app on your phone wirelessly – the app provides 17(!) programs to make smoothies, baby food, and nut butters, and even for grinding, chopping, frothing, and cleaning. It comes with an impressive ten year standard warranty.  

This pretty blender claims to blend “even the toughest ingredients, from kale to almonds'' and it passed our test with flying colors – we couldn’t taste the kale in our smoothie, it crushed ice into snow-like consistency, and it even blended chia seeds smoothly. It features easy-to-use presets for crushing ice, smoothies, and icy drinks. Plus, a little soap and water added to the self-clean cycle makes sure no food bits are left behind in hard-to-reach spots. In our tests we noticed that the “Start” button is a little small and sometimes needed to be pressed several times to activate. We love its sleek design and lower price point compared to similar high-powered blenders. You can pick from a variety of fun colors.

Soup fans, look no further: Instant Pot's first foray into the blender category doesn't just pulverize fruit for smoothies: It's able to heat food inside the blender jar to temps upwards of 200°F, making it the ideal tool for processing foods like homemade soup, soy milk, or rice milk. It was able to get super hot when cooking and comes with pre-programmed settings for making ice cream, nut milk, purees, and more. It wasn't the best performer when crushing ice or hard foods like kale.

We love this smart combination appliance for blending or juicing! The juicer attachment works just like Breville’s popular centrifugal juicer that performed very well in our juicer test – it juiced apples, carrots, kale, and celery without any pulp. It aced our separation test in which we store the juice in the fridge for three days to see if and how much the juices separate. The blender is powerful and makes thick smoothies. In our tests, we had to experiment with the blender speed to achieve drinkable smoothies.