After spending 20 hours researching two dozen personal blenders and testing ten models with an expert in our test kitchen, we think the NutriBullet Pro 900 Series offers the best balance of power, simplicity, convenience, and price for most people. We pureed almost 25 pounds of frozen fruit, hearty kale, fibrous ginger, gooey peanut butter, and sticky dates into thick smoothies to come to this conclusion.
The best personal blender for most people
NutriBullet Pro 900 Series
Powerful, easy and convenient to use, this personal blender will save time in the morning so you can get on your way.
The NutriBullet won us over with its blending abilities, ease of use, and price. The powerful motor didn’t strain blending thick mixtures, and it pureed tough kale and frozen fruit into a satisfying drinkable consistency. The blending quality is on par with midrange full-sized blenders without the bulk of a large machine. If you regularly buy a smoothie on your way to the office or class, the NutriBullet Pro, at around $100, will pay for itself within a month.
We like the Tribest PB-150 because it’s durable and offers the smallest footprint of all our picks. Although the Tribest isn’t the most powerful machine on paper—it has a weaker motor and the smallest cups of all our picks—it blends really well for most food prep tasks you’d need it for. Compared to the NutriBullet and Breville Boss To Go, smoothies from the Tribest are thinner due to the extra liquid needed to get a consistent blend. But it’s built to last and a solid performer if you don’t mind slightly thinner smoothies.
The Breville blends thick mixtures easily without straining. The Breville Boss To Go offers smoother blending, sleeker design, and a better travel lid than our top pick. The Boss To Go blended kale the finest, and berry seeds were the smallest of all our picks. The stainless steel housing and sleeker design will look good on your countertop, and the travel lid has the largest opening of all the blenders we tested for easier drinking.
Why you should trust us
I’ve been cooking professionally for almost 20 years, and I’ve been testing blenders and hand blenders at The Sweethome for three years. For this guide, we brought Matt Shook, founder of Juiceland, into our test kitchen to get his hands-on opinion, and we interviewed superfood chef Julie Morris, who uses both a full-size and personal blender for home and work. We also scoured editorial reviews from sources like America’s Test Kitchen and Consumer Reports and read many customer reviews.
Who should buy a personal blender
A personal blender is a convenience item for the dedicated smoothie lover who’s short on time in the morning. If you want to quickly make a morning smoothie and run out the door without having to wash a blender pitcher and lid, a personal blender is for you.
Even if you’re not drinking smoothies daily, or you’re happy with your full-sized blender, a personal blender can do small batches of sauces and dressings with less cleanup. Think of a personal blender as a complement to your regular blender, the way a mini chopper is to a food processor.
Personal blenders are good for small jobs like smoothies, but their motors aren’t as powerful as the ones found in our picks for full-size blender. This means you’ll need to use more liquid and cut fruit smaller. Personal blenders also aren’t made for crushing large chunks of ice or blending hot liquids. If you want an all-around kitchen workhorse that can puree soups, sauces, and make multiple rounds of frozen margaritas, you should consider getting a full-size blender.
How we picked
The perfect personal blender is powerful, hands-free, and simple to use. We looked for blenders with a small footprint to accommodate small apartments and dorms or people who don’t want a lot of countertop clutter. A sturdy cup with secure travel lid is a major plus, especially for commuters. Finally, we scoured user reviews to get a read on durability and long-term reliability.
Most importantly, a personal blender needs to make relatively smooth purees in about a minute. In our testing, we found more powerful blenders could puree thick mixtures and blend faster. Smaller machines got hot and smelled of burning after making thick smoothies. Smaller blenders needed up to ¾ cup more liquid than the more powerful models to make a continuous vortex, which resulted in thin, watery smoothies.
All the models we brought in to test except for one were hands-free: once the cup was locked into place, you could take your hands off the machine. This is a superior design to cups that need to be held in place, as a minute can seem like a long time when you can’t step away. While you shouldn’t leave the blender running unattended, you can still multitask while making your smoothie.
