15 blenders to whip your food into shape

Whether you need to blend, juice, process, pulverize or stir, these 15 machines offer enough variety of size, shape, and power to handle almost anything.

A 1,560-watt blender that lives up to the hype of its "Will it Blend?" videos, the Blendtec Designer Series Wildside Blender has enough power to shred almost anything, including your wallet with its $454 price point.

Is there such a thing as too powerful? Turns out -- yep. Blendtec put more juice into the Blendtec Designer 725 than its build could handle. The result -- it tends to shred the rubber gasket at the base of the jar during intense blends, making this a blender to avoid.

With 750 watts and a well-designed jar, the $200 Breville Hemisphere Control Blender makes a smart midrange buy. It kept up with the top-tier Vitamix and Blendtec models on stress tests and gains extra points for how quietly it runs.

A less-impressive midrange model, the $200 Cuisinart PowerEdge 1,000 Watt Blender boasts more power than the similarly priced Breville, but it doesn't use that extra wattage well as it falls well short of the Breville on performance.

If you have simple needs for your blender, a budget machine like the $40 Hamilton Beach MultiBlend can make smoothies just as well as $400 and $500 models from Vitamix and Blendtec. That said, the MultiBlend proved the least impressive of the three Hamilton Beach blenders we reviewed.

This fine budget blender changed our perception of what you can expect for $40. With 700 watts and a sizeable 48-ounce jar, look no further than the Hamilton Beach Smoothie Smart Blender for a simple, sturdy smoothie maker that can handle the basics well.

Like the other Hamilton Beach blenders, the $40 Hamilton Beach Stay or Go does just fine with simple blending tasks like smoothies and milkshakes, and it includes a grinding cup for peppercorns and two 16-ounce travel-ready jars, along with a larger 32-ounce container.

Rugged, stylish, and surprisingly powerful, the $150 KitchenAid 5-Speed Diamond Blender stands tall as a fine option for midrange blending. It's a little short on features, but its well-designed jar makes great use of its power for top-of-the-heap blending performance.

The 1,500-watt Ninja Ultima is a powerhouse. Complete with a 72-ounce pitcher, a 40-ounce processing bowl and two single-serve cups, it's a well-rounded steal for $260.

For $90, the Nutri Ninja makes a mean smoothie quickly. It won't multitask as a food processor like some high-end machines, but it's more than capable as a single-serve-focused blender.

The NutriBullet out-accessorizes the Nutri Ninja, but doesn't outperform it, making its $130 price point a little too steep.

A less competent budget model, the $60 Oster Beehive Blender gets food stuck in the corners of the jar and proves frustrating to use. Look past this one to Hamilton Beach or the Nutri Ninja for efficient low-cost blending.

Thankfully, the Oster Versa fared much better in our tests than the Oster Beehive. It's still a pain to use, but it packs in just about every blender accessory imaginable for a reasonable $150. It's not a top performer, but it's capable and versatile.

A number of midrange models on this list prove you don't need to break the bank to get blending excellence. That said, the $530 Vitamix 7500 lives up to the company's premium reputation. It has muscle to spare and certainly brings the show-off factor to your kitchen counter.

The $410 single-serve-focused Vitamix S30 proved less than impressive. By trimming down for convenience, the S30 loses some potency and struggles to outperform much cheaper competitors.