The 3 Best Immersion Blenders for 2023
Once you start using one of the best immersion blenders out there, you'll be wondering why it took you so long to buy one.
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There are plenty of immersion blenders, so we tested several models to bring you a list of the absolute best immersion blenders for your kitchen. These handy gadgets are perfect for pureeing, whipping and mixing nearly any food you can think of. Even better, they can double as food processors. For serious soup makers, you'd be hard pressed to find a more useful kitchen tool than the immersion blender (though the Dutch oven makes a solid case).
If you're looking for a great hand blender on a budget, you might spring for the excellent $60 Cuisinart Smart Stick, which lands on this list as the best immersion blender for the money. For more-voracious soup, sauce and dip makers, however, I recommend the $120 Breville Control Grip immersion blender, since it combines big power and precision with a sturdy build and fantastic attachments.
After hours of blending, whipping and chopping (and a whole lot of leftover soup), I've landed on these three models as the absolute best immersion blenders to buy for 2023.
Best immersion blenders for 2023
Best overall immersion blender
Breville Control Grip BSB510XL
This was one of the pricier immersion blenders I tested but it gives a whole lot of bang for the buck. The Breville Control Grip is incredibly easy and intuitive to use and packs plenty of power, despite lower total wattage than some others on the list. It also has one of my favorite handles, which is both sturdy and comfortable. This hand blender weighs a manageable 3.8 pounds and has good balance. I also like the rubber protectors on the bottom of the blade guard, which prevent it from scratching a pot or Dutch oven.
For $129, you'll get the mighty Breville stick blender and four handy accessories: a wire whisk, food chopper bowl, large jug for mixing and an ice crusher attachment you can screw into the jug for making mixed drinks and smoothies. All of the attachments are made from extremely high-grade plastic and feel particularly durable. If you're looking for an immersion blender that can do far more than puree soups and sauces, this is the one to buy.
Best cordless immersion blender
KitchenAid Cordless Blender KHBBV53BM
If a corded immersion blender feels restrictive, KitchenAid's cordless hand blender is another excellent option. It has adjustable variable speeds and plenty of power to whip potatoes, blend veggies and emulsify pesto and salad dressings with ease.
The KitchenAid was one of the easiest to attach and operate with a comfortably placed safety switch on the backside of the handle. I also love the look and feel of this stick blender with its durable matte-plastic build. It has great weight distribution and is a true pleasure to use. This basic cordless immersion blender with mixing cup can be had for $100. It will run you closer to $160 if you choose the bundle with a whisk, food chopper attachment and blending cup.
Worth noting that you can't use this model if it's uncharged, since it can only be plugged in while the blade is detached. It takes 20 minutes or so to achieve a full charge, which gives you two hours of use. In a pinch, you can certainly charge it for five or 10 minutes and still get enough battery life for most hand blender tasks.
Best value immersion blender
Cuisinart Smart Stick CSB-179
You can purchase this formidable hand blender along with a whisk, chopper and mixing cup in two different colors on a budget. Considering its excellent performance in the tests I ran, that makes it an easy pick for the best value immersion blender of the bunch. The Cuisinart sports 300 watts of power (even more than our top pick) and an easy speed control dial on top of the handle for precision blending and whipping.
If I had one complaint about this budget-friendly model, it's the placement of the safety button. It's located directly above the power button and it can be a bit awkward to hold both down at once. Compare that to the KitchenAid, which has its safety button on the back so you can use your natural grip to hold it down. For what it's worth, the Cuisinart's safety button is probably safer, since it's almost impossible to press it by accident.
Other immersion blenders I tested
Vitamix Immersion Blender 067991: This excellent $125 hand blender is a bit too pricey to land on the top of our list. But for power users and those looking for an immersion blender with loads of pop, the Vitamix Immersion Blender packs a whopping 625 watts. It's comfortable in the hand and performed exceedingly well in all the tests I ran on it.
Braun MQ7025X: This powerful immersion blender passed every test with flying colors and nearly landed on my list as the best immersion blender overall. It also comes with useful attachments including a food chopper and whisk. What kept it from being a top pick is its weight. At over 5 pounds, it's the heaviest stick blender I tested and was hefty enough to cause some fatigue in my arm.
All-Clad KZ800D51: All-Clad is best known for its top-of-the-line cookware, including our favorite set for 2023. The brand also makes small kitchen appliances, and All-Clad's hand blender is as powerful as they get. The sleek, cordless hand blender has a monster 220-volt battery and whipped the heck out of everything I put in its way. But at $180 for the blender alone (no attachments), it's just too pricey for us to recommend for most people.
Beautiful Hand Blender: Of the cheap immersion blenders I tested, this $30 2-speed model performed the best, and it's a solid choice if you're seeking a true budget buy. While the all-plastic build wasn't my favorite, the blade attached securely and the device blended well, especially when compared to some of the other stick blenders under $40.
Homgeek Hand Blender H32275US (Update: Currently out of stock): I had high hopes for this inexpensive hand blender since it had a sturdier build than the Beautiful Hand Blender and variable speed control for precision work. But it underperformed when it came to the basic function of pureeing cooked vegetables, leaving too many chunks for my liking after two minutes of work
Bella Immersion Blender 14460: This budget hand blender felt cheap and flimsy when I held it and the blade attachment had some worrisome wiggle when mounted. It performed acceptably, but the soup I pureed was still markedly chunkier after two minutes than with most other models.
My only complaint with Cuisinart's budget-friendly immersion blender is the slightly awkward placement of the safety button.
How we test immersion blenders
In testing to find the best immersion blender for 2023, I ran several tests on each model over the course of a week and took note of how well each performed. I also took into account other attributes like size, weight, sturdiness, how easy the blender was to clean and the various modes and number of speeds at which it ran.
Blending cooked vegetables for soup
Blending soups and sauces out of cooked vegetables and other ingredients is by far the most popular use for an immersion blender. I blended four cups of cooked vegetables and broth in a saucepan on the highest setting and recorded how well each one blended the ingredients after one minute, and again after an additional minute.
The $30 Homgeek hand blender did OK in the soup test but left far more unblended vegetables than many of its counterparts.
With the exception of the cheap blenders under $40, all of the models I tested had no trouble pureeing the veggies into soup within a few minutes, but some created a slightly smoother soup in less time. The best of them not only pureed the vegetables in two minutes but even began frothing the liquid toward the end of the allotted time. Some of the cheaper models required more than two minutes to get all the chunks pureed.
Making whipped cream
Not all the immersion blenders I tested offered attachments like a whisk or chopping bowl. For those with a whisk, I made a batch of this popular dessert topping using one-half a cup of whipping cream and noted how each batch looked after one minute of whipping and again after two. Here, I was looking for the blender to make dense-yet-fluffy whipped cream as quickly as possible.
For any hand blender with a whisk attachment, I made a batch of whipped cream. The Cuisinart made the fluffy stuff in under two minutes.
Food chopper test
Several of the models in our test range also include a food-processor attachment. For those that did, I chopped one cup of carrots and celery, diced into roughly one-inch chunks. After 10 seconds of chopping, I photographed the resulting pile of chopped carrots and noted which delivered the smallest and most uniform results. Most of the stick blenders with food processor cups fared well in this test, including the $34 Beautiful Hand Blender, but some did the job a few seconds faster.
The $34 Beautiful hand blender did an excellent job pulverizing a cup of carrots and celery in under 10 seconds.
Touch and feel
This test is more subjective than the others, but I made sure to handle each immersion blender for several minutes noting the overall weight, balance and sturdiness of the stick blenders. I did the same as I was using them in the various tests.
The more expensive models including the KitchenAid, Braun, Breville and Vitamix all felt well-balanced and solid, giving me confidence that they wouldn't break or become loose with regular use. The cheaper models didn't elicit quite the same confidence, and some felt as if one tumble off the counter to the kitchen floor might spell an early demise.
Budget hand blenders under $40, including the Bella, lose something in the way of performance and sturdy build.
Immersion blender specs
| Model | Power | Weight (lbs.) | Accessories | Speeds | Cordless | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-Clad Cordless Hand Blender KZ800D51 | 600W | 2.97 | none | 5 | Y | $230 |
| Vitamix Immersion Blender 067991 | 625W | 2.83 | none | 5 | N | $150 |
| Breville Control Grip BSB510XL | 280W | 3.8 | whisk, chopping cup, mixing cup | variable | N | $120 |
| Braun MultiQuick MQ7025X | 500W | 5.41 | whisk, chopping cup, mixing cup | variable | N | $100 |
| KitchenAid Cordless Hand Blender KHBBV53BM | 198W | 2.42 | mixing cup | 7 | Y | $90 |
| Cuisinart Smart Stick CSB-179 | 300W | 3.3 | whisk, chopping cup, mixing cup | variable | N | $60 |
| Beautiful Hand Blender | 400W | 2.5 | whisk, chopping cup, mixing cup | 2 | N | $34 |
| Homgeek Hand Blender H32275US | 500W | 2 | whisk, chopping cup, mixing cup, frother | 6 | N | $29 |
| Bella Immersion Blender 14460 | 250W | 2.83 | whisk | 2 | N | $30 |
Immersion blender buying guide: What to look for
Hand blender accessories
While additional attachments aren't necessary, to get the most out of your immersion blender, a few key extras are great to have. A whisk attachment will allow you to easily make whipped cream and meringue, while a food chopper will enable your hand blender to do the work of a food processor. One model I tested includes a milk frother, too, for crafting lattes and cappuccinos at home.
The $120 Breville performed as well as any hand blender of the bunch. It also comes with four excellent attachments.
Power
You don't necessarily need the most powerful motor to blend cooked vegetables, canned tomatoes, herbs and other classic soup and sauce ingredients. The Breville Control Grip, for instance, has only 280 watts (less than half of the ultrapowerful All-Clad) but still managed to ace every test I gave it. That said, an immersion blender with fewer than 250 watts may struggle to give you smooth results or take longer to do a blending job.
Handle comfort and build
All immersion blenders feature steel blade attachments but the handle is typically what separates the great from the not-so-great. Those built with steel or high-grade plastic were the models I liked best. Some of the cheaper stick blenders we tested were constructed using cheap plastic in the handle and they, unsurprisingly, felt a bit chintzy and prone to breakage.
There is something to be said for choosing a cordless hand blender such as KitchenAid's excellent offering.
Weight and balance
Hand blenders run the gamut in weight from light-as-air models under three pounds all the way up to bigger blenders that weigh more than five. Somewhere in the 2.5- to 4-pound range felt most comfortable for me. A little bit of weight helps you control the blender from spinning away, but too much heft can make an immersion blender a chore to handle deftly or use for long periods.
The $100 Braun has power in spades and comes with excellent attachments but was noticeably heavier than the rest of the field.
Cost and value
Because this is a tool you might not use as regularly as others, factoring in price is important. Spending more than $120 will get you a super-premium hand blender that performs at the top of the class, but you likely don't need to spend that much to net great results. Go too cheap, and I found you lose out on hand blender performance as well as the quality of the build.
The $230 All-Clad cordless hand blender is sleek, sturdy, lightweight and ultrapowerful. But, ultimately, the cost is just too high for most people.