We Tested 18 Immersion Blenders to Find the Best Ones for Silky Smooth Sauces and Soups

A great immersion blender—also known as a hand blender or stick blender—can complement a well-equipped kitchen, offering a convenient alternative to dragging out larger appliances for basic kitchen tasks, giving you similar performance at a fraction of the footprint. Although we wouldn’t want to live without a countertop blender, stand mixer, or food processor, it's nice not to have to break those things out just to blend a smoothie or make a homemade mayo.

We tested 18 immersion blenders and found several that did well no matter what we threw at them, putting them closer in quality to some of the best countertop blenders out there, though they're small enough to fit in a drawer. We also recently tested several newer models, comparing them to our top picks. We found a couple (including one from Vitamix) that deserved a spot on our winners list. And our previous top picks still came out on top. They're so good, in fact, they've stood up to about seven years of consistent evaluation.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Immersion Blender

All-Clad Stainless Steel Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $120 at Williams Sonoma

Through round after round of rigorous testing, the All-Clad revealed its impressive strength. This heavyweight doesn't come with many accessories, but it was among the fastest and most efficient at burrowing through burly ice cubes, transforming stubborn celery fibers into a luxurious purée, and emulsifying mayo in a blink. The sleek design tapers near the top, making it easy to grip and maneuver. With easy-to-read arrows illustrating which direction to turn to twist off the blending shaft, it's a cinch to handle and store.

The Best Immersion Blender with a Pan Guard

Vitamix Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $170 at Williams Sonoma $170 at Sur La Table

With a slightly higher wattage than the All-Clad model, this immersion blender from Vitamix is a wicked powerful option. It has five speeds, a wide blade guard, and big side vents, creating a powerful vortex when blending. It was also comfortable to hold, with an aggressive taper that lines your hand up neatly with the power button.

The Immersion Blender with the Best Accessories

Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $130 at Williams Sonoma $130 at Sur La Table

Breville's immersion blender doesn't skimp on accessories. With it, you get a whisk attachment, a quality blending jar, and a mini chopper; much of it nests together for efficient storage. Unlike many other immersion blenders, the Breville doesn't create a vortex to pull food toward the blades—it requires more of an up-and-down motion to complete its tasks. But when used properly, it's incredibly successful at everything you can think of. It can even purée dry, fibrous ingredients to make things like Thai curry pastes.

The Best Budget Immersion Blender

Hamilton Beach 2-Speed Hand Blender

View on Amazon $27 at Walmart $25 at Target

This unassuming model ended up being a sleeper hit, consistently doing in much pricier units and comfortably keeping up with our champ throughout rounds of testing. The Hamilton Beach's wide blade guard, with its large vents, creates a perfect vortex when blending. Despite being the smallest and lightest of the contenders, it also easily made whipped cream and perfect mayonnaise, and it aced crushing ice. It comes equipped with a mini chopper and whisk.

The Best Cordless Immersion Blender

All-Clad Cordless Rechargeable Stainless Steel Hand Blender

View on Amazon

All-Clad's cordless immersion blender is a good pick if you have enough countertop space to house the small charging unit. What you get in exchange is a blender that's always at the ready and, since it's unencumbered by a power cord, easy to use anywhere in your kitchen without concern for outlet availability. And, while it's not as powerful as its plug-in counterpart, it still managed to perform well in all our tests.

The Best Budget Cordless Immersion Blender

KitchenAid Go Cordless Hand Blender

View on Amazon $130 at Target $130 at Sur La Table

We were skeptical about this lightweight immersion blender, but it made excellent mayonnaise and pureed a very smooth pot of soup. It's less than half of the price of the cordless All-Clad.

The Tests

• Pureeing Tests: We blended fibrous celery soup as well as whole chickpeas and blue food coloring using each blender—evaluating how smooth they were able to get them and how long this took.
• Ice-Crushing Test: We used each blender to crush one pint of ice with one cup of water. This is no small task for a stick blender!
• Emulsion Test: We used each blender to make a two-minute mayonnaise to see if it was able to make a smooth, emulsified mayo (or one that split).
• Whipped Cream Test: We processed one and a half cups of cream and dried berries, timing how long each model took to whip it and judging the final consistency and color.
• Smoothie Test: We used each stick blender to make a smoothie, seeing how well it was able to do so and looking at the drink's final consistency.
• Cleanup and Usability Tests: Throughout testing, we evaluated how easy the immersion blenders were to hold onto, operate, and clean. We paid close attention to whether or not the stick blender's head could be removed (and how).

What We Learned

Powerful Immersion Blenders Resulted in (Surprise!) Smoother Results

One of the most practical uses of a hand blender is blending soups until they're silky-smooth, right in the cooking pot. It lets you avoid the fuss of transferring a piping-hot liquid into a standing blender and minimizes the chance of ending up with soup on your ceiling (the steam generated by a lidded blender's vortex can be very, very powerful).

We chose to blend celery soup for our testing, and we intentionally left the fibrous celery unpeeled and in large chunks to really push these stick blenders to their limit. This proved to be a difficult challenge. After blending, we passed the soup through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as we could. We then weighed how much pulp was left behind. A few of the units—including the Breville and cordless All-Clad—left less than 20 grams of solids behind in the strainer, making them the clear top performers.

The All-Clad corded blender turned the soup into a fine and silky purée in a flash, but after lifting the blender out, we discovered some fibers trapped in its vents, leading to a total of 44 grams of remaining solids. Not a deal-breaker by any measure—you could fix this by cleaning the vents with a spatula periodically during the blending process. For comparison, losing stick blenders left over 100 grams (and sometimes more than 200 grams) of pulp. These units were clearly lower-powered and often had smaller blade guards, which seemed to impact their pureeing abilities (more on the blade guards below).

Immersion Blenders with Wider Blade Guards and Larger Vents Worked Better

We tested how each immersion blender performed at crushing one pint of ice with one cup of water. Some models struggled with consistency more than others, leaving big chunks behind. The All-Clad corded version blended the ice to the finest and most uniform consistency in about 20 seconds. The Breville had trouble when we used a plastic deli container as the vessel, but when we reran the test using Breville's provided container, it blasted the ice in just 11 seconds. Some models left unblended ice cubes behind, even after 45 seconds.

We were surprised to see that our budget pick from Hamilton Beach outperformed many of the more expensive models, though it did begin to feel very warm after just one round. To evaluate its durability, we put it through a stress test, blending round after round of ice—not something we'd ever recommend doing in real life. Aside from a faint electrical smell coming from the motor, this lightweight held its own, so we feel confident it can handle your next frozen daiquiri without much risk of breaking.

The biggest variation from one model to the next was an issue we hadn't thought about—mess. Units that had wider blade guards, with larger vents on the side, performed the best. Those models easily pulled the ice and water into a vortex, cleanly moving up and down in the containers as they churned. Meanwhile, the models with narrower blade guards had difficulty drawing water and ice to the blade; they required more up-and-down movement in the cups, resulting in excessive spilling and splatter.

Want an Immersion Blender for Whipped Cream? Pick Any

For a quick and easy whipped cream–like topping to finish a sundae, an immersion blender is the perfect tool. It's much faster than whipping cream the traditional way, and easier than setting up a stand mixer or handheld electric mixer. We wanted to test each immersion blender's competence at processing one and a half cups of cream, timing how long each model took to do it, and judging the final consistency of the product.

All the blenders were able to fully process the cream in well under a minute. Our winning corded All-Clad was once again the fastest, yielding an even texture after only 20 seconds, with the budget Hamilton Beach not far behind at 32 seconds. The slowest models took nearly a full minute, mostly following the trend we'd noticed—head shape matters above all else in immersion-blender performance. Once again, the models with wider head shapes and larger vents spun the cream within the container more evenly, resulting in better consistency in the final product.

Different Blending Styles Excelled at Varying Tasks

There were two prevailing styles we tested: vortex and, well, not vortex. Immersion blenders that create a vortex (like the All-Clad), pull foods and liquids down into the blades before ejecting them again. They're powerful and quick. However, they must have enough liquid to make the flow of the vortex possible and will not do well with drier ingredients.

Non-vortex immersion blenders—like the Breville—act more like a hammer, requiring more of a manual up-and-down motion that plunges it in and out of the food until its job is done. Because of this, it will still do an impressive job at drier tasks, like making curry paste.

Look for Immersion Blenders with Detachable Heads

Have you ever tried to clean an immersion blender without a detachable head? Highly annoying. For that reason, all of our winners have detachable blending wands, making them easy to wash without fear of getting water in the motor housing.

Should You Buy a Cordless Immersion Blender?

A cordless immersion blender may not sound like much, but it's quite a nice feature. Anyone who's ever switched from a plug-in drill or screw gun to a battery-powered one knows what we're talking about—being free to wield the tool without having to be tethered to the wall or worry about what obstacles a cord might get snagged on is a significant improvement. Given that kitchens are filled with flames and hot liquids and other accidents waiting to happen, eliminating that cord is more than just a convenience; it's a safety feature. This all being said, cordless immersion blenders are generally less powerful than their corded siblings. You also have to remember to charge them.

What Do You Use an Immersion Blender For?

If this entire review hasn't quite convinced you of an immersion blender's versatility, here's as brief list of what you could (and maybe shouldn't) use one for:

Dos

• Pureed soups
• Sauces
• Mayonnaise
• Salad dressing
• Whipped cream
• Smoothies
• Frothing milk
  

Donts

• Milling grains
• Grinding spices (or coffee)
• Making nut butter
• Kneading dough
  
• Mashed potatoes

The Criteria: What to Look for in an Immersion Blender

The most important quality of an immersion blender is its ability to blend things. In a perfect world, an immersion blender would be able to execute the same tasks as a full-sized blender, from silky cauliflower purée to smooth nut butter. The most powerful, efficient ones had wider blade guards and larger vents.

We also looked for immersion blenders that were comfortable to hold and operate. Since an immersion blender is not stabilized, like similar blending and puréeing tools, it needs to be easy to grip and operate with one hand. We took note of the design of the trigger, as well as the circumference of the shaft: Models with wider shafts were unwieldy, while those with tapered grip designs were easier to hold for testers of all hand sizes. An immersion blender also needs to be easy to clean, too, and we favored ones with detachable heads for this reason..

Our Favorite Immersion Blenders

The Best Immersion Blender

All-Clad Stainless Steel Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $120 at Williams Sonoma

What we liked: The All-Clad produced results comparable to those of a countertop blender. It easily demolished tough celery for soup, though it did leave a few stray fibers trapped in its vents. It accomplished lightweight tasks, like processing the whipped cream and making mayonnaise, almost instantly, but difficult jobs, like ice-crushing and puréeing beans, were done nearly as fast.

This model had one of the widest blade guards of all the models we tested, with a diameter of three inches, resulting in a readily exposed blade that's capable of easily chopping and blending thick or tough items. It also has large vents, which produce a vortex while blending liquids. It comes equipped with an extra-long, five-foot power cord, giving you room to maneuver in your kitchen. There's an easy-to-use dial at the top for adjusting the speed, and even a turbo button if you need to kick it into high gear. Its tapered grip was easy to hold, too.

What we didn't like: Once removed, the blender wand is, in fact, hollow. The manufacturer warns against water entering the wand, so extra careful washing is necessary. (Through long-term use, we've discovered just how stinky it can become if you do get dirty water in there.) This model does not come with any attachments, but a whisk attachment is available for purchase separately.

Key Specs

• Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Material: Stainless steel
• Speeds: Variable
• Wattage: 600 watts
• Accessories: None
• Pulse option: Yes
• Dishwasher-safe head: No
• Care instructions: Hand-wash
• Warranty: Limited lifetime warranty
  

The Best Immersion Blender with a Pan Guard

Vitamix Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $170 at Williams Sonoma $170 at Sur La Table

What we liked: The Vitamix Immersion Blender was so powerful that, at its highest setting, it pureed the celery soup almost entirely, leaving less than three grams of solids in the strainer. It created deep vortexes that drew food in quickly and made short work of incorporating food dye into the chickpeas. We really liked the plastic-tipped blade guard, which made it safe to use in more types of containers without fear of scratching nonstick or enameled cast iron cookware. We also appreciated how easy it was to swap between all five different speeds by pressing a single button, which was helpful when blending smaller volumes. When on its highest setting, we found it was able to fully purée soups while still in the pot, cutting out the need to blend in batches. 

What we didn’t like: At times, the vortex this immersion blender produced was too powerful, causing the soup to sputter and spit as it was dragged down below the blade guard. That was easily rectified by just blending larger amounts at a time. We also found that it shredded the ice into snow so fast that it blocked up the blade guard and took a little muscling to crush everything. Additionally, fibrous ingredients can block this blade guard's vents.

Key Specs

• Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Material: Stainless steel, plastic
• Wattage: 625 watts
• Speeds: 5
• Accessories: None
• Pulse option: Yes
• Dishwasher-safe head: No
• Care instructions: Hand-wash
• Warranty: 3-year full warranty

The Immersion Blender with the Best Accessories

Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender

View on Amazon $130 at Williams Sonoma $130 at Sur La Table

What we liked: We're fans of a lot of the Breville gear we test, and the Control Grip Immersion Blender is no exception. It's rugged and has a nicely designed ergonomic grip and an easy clip-on blending shaft. It also comes with a boatload of accessories, making the price seem reasonable in comparison with our other top picks. Not only do you get the blender itself, but you also get a whisk attachment, a mini chopper, and a spacious blending jar. The mini chopper nests neatly inside the blending jar for storage, while the lid does double duty as a nonslip base during blending.

Unlike other immersion blenders that create a vortex to suck the ingredients down into the spinning blades (just as a countertop blender does), the Breville is designed to not make a vortex. This eliminates one of the more annoying features of stick blenders, which is that they suction themselves stubbornly to the bottom of the vessel. To blend properly with the Breville, you have to move it all around, and up and down. That's not particularly difficult to do, especially since you don't have to fight against those suction forces.

What we didn't like: If you're short on space, all those accessories could be more of a nuisance than a perk.

Key Specs

• Weight: 2 pounds
• Material: Stainless steel
• Wattage: 280 watts
• Speeds: 15
• Accessories: 25-ounce chopper bowl, 42-ounce jug with lid and anti-slip mat, whisk attachment
• Pulse option: Yes
• Dishwasher-safe head: Yes
• Care instructions: Hand-wash
• Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

The Best Budget Immersion Blender

Hamilton Beach 2-Speed Hand Blender

View on Amazon $27 at Walmart $25 at Target

What we liked: At just over one and a half pounds, the lightweight Hamilton Beach stick blender held its own next to much more expensive models in multiple rounds of testing.

The two-and-a-half-inch-wide blade guard, coupled with large vents, created a considerable vortex, making quick work of purées, whipped cream, and even ice. It blended soup as well as some other serious contenders, but at a fraction of the cost. Its petite design and nonslip grip make it comfortable to hold. The Hamilton Beach also comes equipped with a whisk attachment for batters and egg whites, and a three-cup chopper attachment perfect for nuts and garlic. The attachments and the blending wand are top-shelf dishwasher-safe. The blending wand is eight inches long, allowing you to reach deep into various containers.

What we didn't like: The twist-off blending wand never felt particularly secure, and it doesn't click into place or provide any other indication that it's been properly attached.

Key Specs

• Material: Stainless steel
• Weight: 1.75 pounds
• Speeds: 2
• Wattage: 225 watts
• Accessories: Blending wand, whisk, 3-cup chopping bowl
• Pulse option: Yes
• Dishwasher-safe head: Yes
• Care instructions: Dishwasher-safe attachments
• Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

The Best Cordless Immersion Blender

All-Clad Cordless Rechargeable Stainless Steel Hand Blender

View on Amazon

What we liked: The All-Clad's performed beyond our expectations. When we first powered it up, we weren't all that impressed; it seemed weak, especially compared with its plug-in counterpart. But when put to the test, it excelled, keeping pace with the other top picks. It made a nicely smooth and silky soup well within the two-minute time limit, crushed ice in 25 seconds, and thoroughly puréed the beans with food coloring in a mere 17 seconds.

Its charging base requires a permanent spot on your countertop, which may not be ideal for smaller kitchens, but if you do have the space, it's great to have a blender always at the ready. As convenient as immersion blenders are compared with countertop ones, most still require being dug out of a drawer or cabinet, and the power cord unwound and plugged in before you can use it. With All-Clad's cordless blender, you can just grab it, clip the blending shaft on, and go. We also liked the cordless All-Clad's safety lock, which requires you to tap the top button before pressing the trigger; if you don't hit the trigger soon after unlocking the blender, the unit will lock itself again, and the trigger won't work. This is an important precaution on a cordless blender since you can't just unplug it for safety's sake before you start monkeying around near the blades. An accidental trigger press is even more of a risk with a cordless blender, and All-Clad has dealt with that risk well.

What we didn't like: Like the plug-in All-Clad, the cordless one doesn't come with any accessories, which, given the price, is disappointing. And speaking of price, this thing isn't cheap. Without a window into what it costs to manufacture it, we're not questioning whether the price is fair, but given how much more affordable some of our other picks are, this is an expense that will be hard to justify for some people.

Key Specs

• Material: Stainless steel
• Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Speeds: 5
• Wattage: 600 watts
• Accessories: None
• Pulse option: Yes
• Dishwasher-safe head: No
• Care instructions: Hand-wash
• Warranty: 2-year limited warranty

The Best Budget Cordless Immersion Blender

KitchenAid Go Cordless Hand Blender

View on Amazon $130 at Target $130 at Sur La Table

What we liked: This immersion blender is lighter and cordless, which made it unassuming amongst the souped-up picks. However, it still performed well, yielding smooth, emulsified mayonnaise, creamy soup, and a sippable smoothie. Its blending shaft detaches for easy cleaning and it comes with a removable pan guard. The charging base is easy to pop on and off and the blender can stand on its base upright.

What we didn't like: It took longer to accomplish our tests than our other winners. During operation, the power button must be pressed down the entire time, which is annoying.

Key Specs

• Material: Plastic and stainless steel
• Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Speeds: Variable
• Accessories: Blending canister; detachable pan guard
• Pulse option: No
• Dishwasher-safe head: No
• Care instructions: Hand-wash
• Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

The Competition

• Braun MultiQuick 7 Immersion Hand Blender: This is a newer version of an immersion blender we already tested for this review, but it has some notable new features and performed well, doing an especially good job at pureeing celery soup. It can go from low to high power depending on how hard you hold down its power button. And when you press the blender into something, like the bottom of a pot or a pile of ice, the base moves up and down, which keeps solids from getting trapped underneath the blade. However, it was less powerful than the All-Clad corded model and took longer to get the job done.
• KitchenAid Variable Speed Immersion Hand Blender: This wasn’t nearly as fast at crushing ice as our top pick and pureed beans turned out gritty. The plastic removable pan guard for the blade cover was hard to get on and off and seemed likely to eventually get lost in a drawer. It does come in some fun colors though, and is reasonably priced.
• Nutribullet Immersion Blender: This blender costs just $30 and also includes a whisk attachment. But, it took too long to puree beans and had a lot of trouble crushing ice. It did do a good job pureeing soup, but created an alarmingly strong suction, making the blender unwieldy.
• Dash Chef Series Immersion Blender: Like the Nutribullet, this under $50 immersion blender also comes with a whisk attachment. But the motor is extremely loud and it didn't do a good job pureeing or crushing ice. Alarmingly, after a minute of pureeing soup, the motor emitted a slight burning odor.
• KitchenAid 5-Speed Hand Blender: This was nearly the same price as the winning All-Clad corded model, but it trailed in testing, with results similar to the much less expensive Hamilton Beach 2-Speed. It appears to now be discontinued.
• Mueller Ultra-Stick: This model didn't last long in our testing: As soon as we plunged it into a container of ice water for the ice-blending test, the blade got ripped off. We strongly advise not buying this one, for safety reasons.
• Cuisinart Smart Stick 2-Speed Hand Blender and the Cuisinart Smart Stick Variable-Speed Hand Blender: These were comparable to our budget pick, the Hamilton Beach 2-Speed Hand Blender, and the winning corded All-Clad, respectively. They were neck-and-neck with the winners in every test, but we found the safety feature—a theoretically great idea—to be too cumbersome: You have to press and hold down an unlock button while pressing the power button, but the placement of those buttons made it an awkward two-handed operation for just about everyone who tried it. These also appear to now be discontinued.
• Bamix 2-Speed 3-Blade Hand Blender: We were very eager to test the Bamix, which is prevalent in many commercial kitchens (it's the original immersion blender). To our surprise, though this model was the most expensive, it repeatedly scored at the bottom of all of our tests. It struggled to purée soup and beans, crush ice, and even make whipped cream. This appears to now be discontinued.
• Braun Multiquick Hand Blender: This has a well-designed safety feature, along with several useful attachments. However, the narrow head shape and small vents meant it required long blend times to complete our tests.
• ProMix by Philips: This performed well in our tests, but not better than the All-Clad or Breville; given how close it is in price to those two, we recommend them instead. It seems to be discontinued as well.
• Smeg Retro Hand Blender: We liked this model, but it's really expensive. Given the price of our other corded winners, it's hard to justify it.

FAQs

How do you use an immersion blender?

To use an immersion blender, hold the container with one hand and the blender in the other, insert the blade end of the wand into the food, and then press the power button. Usually, a vortex is created just as it is in a regular blender, but often you will also need to slowly move the device up and down or side to side to aid in blending.

What's the difference between an immersion blender and a blender?

Regular countertop blenders have a container with a blade at the bottom, while immersion blenders work the other way around: they’re like a blending stick that can be used in a plastic deli container, tall measuring cup, Dutch oven, stock pot...you get the idea. An immersion blender is especially useful when blending hot items, like soup, right in their cooking pot and without having to blend in batches as you likely would with a standard blender. They’re also much lower in profile and can often be stored in a drawer.

What's the best way to clean an immersion blender?

Some immersion blenders have dishwasher-safe heads, but we recommend hand-washing for a better clean. Immersion blenders can get food trapped around the blade, so washing with warm, soapy water is the best way to clear any leftover bits. Some shafts also can trap water, so be sure not to fully submerge the entire shaft and head.

Why We're the Experts

• To find the best immersion blenders, we tested 18 of them. We used them to puree, whip, and even crush ice.
• Sohla El-Waylly has worked for some of New York City's best restaurants and is a cookbook author, social media star, video personality, and recipe developer for NYT Cooking. Sohla has written many equipment-related stories and recipes for Serious Eats, including reviews of ice cream makers and immersion blenders.
• Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm is the associate editorial director at Serious Eats. She's been with the site since 2021 and has been testing gear professionally for more than six years. She previously worked at America's Test Kitchen
• Jesse Raub was a writer for Serious Eats. He joined in the summer of 2022 with a focus on testing coffee equipment and other kitchen gadgets. He helped to update this review by testing the Vitamix Immersion Blender.
• Danielle Centoni is an award-winning food writer. For this review, she helped to test new immersion blenders.