The best kitchen gadgets for 2026
It’s hard to beat the Vitamix in this space. The high-performance blender brand makes machines that do more than just make smoothies, but can also make salad dressings, sauces, pastes, and soups. This is especially handy if you’re used to adding tougher ingredients to your recipes, like nuts, dried fruit, and frozen items. While other less powerful blenders may leave chunks behind once you introduce tougher ingredients, the Vitamix won’t, leaving you with a silky smooth final product.
Depending on the model you get, you can also purchase different accessories to get the most out of the blender’s powerful base. You can buy 64-ounce containers to make smoothies for your whole family at once or a “dry grain” container equipped with a blade specifically designed to grind things like whole grains so you can make your own flour.
Vitamix currently offers four blender series: the basic Vitamix One, which costs $250; the slightly more advanced Explorian series, which starts at $350 and is arguably best for most people; the Legacy series, starting at $400; and the advanced Ascent series, which will cost you at least $500. Yes, these are expensive machines, but worth the investment if you do a lot of mixing or like to experiment by creating things from scratch.
