The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender (CSB-175) is an immersion blender meant for processing hot ingredients directly in a pot or pan. It's small, which makes it a good compact option if you don't need to blend in deep pots very often. Unlike some cordless immersion blenders from Cuisinart, including the Cuisinart Smart Stick Cordless Hand Blender, it doesn't come with a whisk.
Our Verdict
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is mediocre for multi-purpose use. It's well-suited for processing smaller batches of fibrous ingredients and can make a fairly smooth blend when blending a bigger batch for something like broccoli soup. However, it struggles more with tough blends like making nut butter or crushing ice, even for an immersion blender. It's also not very well-built and doesn't come with any accessories aside from a 24oz beaker.
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Easy to clean.
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Safe for hot blending.
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Produces decent quality crushed ice.
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Only two speed settings.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is alright for single-serve smoothies. It does a great job blending small batches of common smoothie additions like leafy greens and fruit. However, like most immersion blenders, it takes a while to blend a smoothie, and it's not the easiest to use since you need to hold onto the blender. It also struggles to crush ice cubes, so it's not ideal if you use ice cubes or big chunks of frozen fruit like strawberries. On the plus side, the 24oz beaker is a good size for smoothies, and it's very easy to clean by hand.
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Easy to clean.
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Produces decent quality crushed ice.
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Only two speed settings.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is adequate for multiple servings for smoothies. You're not limited by the capacity of the used beaker for blending since it's an immersion blender. It makes a fairly smooth blend with bigger batches of fibrous ingredients. It's easy to rinse clean after making something like a smoothie. However, it struggles to crush ice, so it's not ideal for recipes with ice cubes or frozen fruit like strawberries.
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Only two speed settings.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender isn't suitable for crushing ice. Like many immersion blenders, you need to put a lot of effort into trying to get the blades to crush ice cubes. Even if you move the blending arm around and angle it to catch the cubes, it struggles to fully crush any of them.
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Produces decent quality crushed ice.
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Only two speed settings.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is fantastic for soups. Since it's an immersion blender, it can hot blend directly in a pot or pan, so you don't need to transfer your ingredients to a blending pitcher. It makes a fairly smooth blend with tough ingredients like broccoli and does a better job with smaller batches. It's also very easy to clean. However, it's loud and not very well-built. The handle is a bit bulky, which makes it a little more tiring to hold onto than some immersion blenders.
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Easy to clean.
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Safe for hot blending.
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Relatively long blending shaft.
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Only two speed settings.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender is decent for professional use. It doesn't feel very sturdy, so it may not stand up to daily use very well. Still, it's a solid choice for blending soups, sauces, and purees from hot ingredients. It can also produce a well-blended single-serve smoothie. It's easy to clean by hand, but the blending arm isn't dishwasher-safe. It's unfortunately quite loud when it's running.
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Easy to clean.
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Produces decent quality crushed ice.
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Only two speed settings.
- 6.4 Multi-Purpose
- 6.6 Smoothies (Single Serving)
- 6.8 Smoothies (Multiple Servings)
- 4.9 Ice Crushing
- 9.0 Soups
- 7.0 Professional Use
- Updated Apr 06, 2023: Updated text to match Test Bench 1.0. The score for build quality has changed from 5.5 to 6.5 because we didn't experience the motor burning or smoking during retests for TB 1.0.
- Updated Sep 02, 2022: Converted to Test Bench 1.0.
- Updated Sep 08, 2020: Review published.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is available in a few different colors, including 'Cool Grey,' 'White', 'Silver', 'Red', and 'Turquoise Blue'. It's sometimes sold with a food processor bowl, which likely produces different results from the blending arm; we haven't tested it, though. There's a similar model that was released a year earlier in 2017 (CSB-75BC), but its motor isn't as powerful, so it likely performs differently.
Compared To Other Blenders
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is a simple immersion blender with two speed settings. It's well-suited for processing fibrous fruits and vegetables into soups and sauces. However, it's not very well-built, quite loud, and doesn't stand out from better-built, similarly-priced options like the NutriBullet Immersion Blender or the KitchenAid Variable Speed Corded Hand Blender.
If you're looking for other options, try our recommendations for the best immersion blenders, the best personal blenders, and the best blenders.
The Braun MultiQuick 5 is better for most purposes than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender. The Braun is much sturdier and quieter and comes with a whisk attachment for making whipped cream or salad dressing. The Cuisinart isn't well-built, but it can make a smoother blend with fibrous ingredients, especially in smaller batches, which you might care about if you plan to make smoothies.
The Breville Control Grip is better than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender. The Breville is better built and has a better blending performance for most uses, especially for tougher tasks like ice crushing or making nut butter. It's also quieter when it's running. However, the Cuisinart is just as good at processing fibrous ingredients for smooth soups and sauces, and it's lighter, so it's less tiring to hold.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender and the KitchenAid KHBBV53 have different strengths. The KitchenAid is a battery-powered blender that makes a smoother blend with big batches of fibrous ingredients. It has a longer arm that makes it better for blending in deep pots, and it's much quieter when it's running. On the other hand, the Cuisinart is a plug-in blender, so you're not limited by battery life. It's lighter and makes a smoother blend with small batches of ingredients like kale, so you might prefer it for recipes like single-serve smoothies.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is better than the GE Appliances Immersion 2-Speed. The Cuisinart makes a smoother blend with fibrous ingredients like kale, especially when working with smaller batches. It also comes with a beaker you can use for blending. However, the GE is significantly quieter when it's running and has a longer blending arm, which is important for blending in deep pots.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is a bit better than the Vitamix Immersion Blender. The Cuisinart makes a smoother blend with fibrous fruits and vegetables, which is important for smooth pureed soups and sauces. It comes with a beaker for blending, which is nice if you want to blend something like a smoothie. However, it's not very well-built, and the Vitamix is sturdier, as well as much quieter when it's running.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender has a better blending performance than the Cuisinart EvolutionX RHB-100, so it can make smoother soups or smoothies with fibrous ingredients. However, the EvolutionX is battery-powered, which you might find more convenient. It comes with a whisk attachment, and it's quieter when it's running.
The Bamix Mono M133 and the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender have different strengths. The Cuisinart can make a much smoother blend with stubborn fibrous elements like broccoli or leafy greens, so it's better for smooth soups and well-blended smoothies. Its blending arm is detachable, which helps make it easier to clean by hand. However, it's not very well-built. The Bamix is much sturdier and much quieter when it's running.
The All-Clad KZ750DGT is better than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender. The All-Clad makes a smoother blend with bigger batches of fibrous ingredients and is more capable of tough tasks like making nut butter or crushing ice. It has a much wider range of speed settings. On the other hand, the Cuisinart is much lighter, so it's less tiring to hold into for a few minutes of blending. It makes a silkier blend with smaller batches of ingredients like kale or blueberries and also comes with a beaker, so it's a little better for single-serve smoothies.
The Braun MultiQuick 7 is a better immersion blender than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender. The Braun is much sturdier, quieter, and more capable of blending thick mixtures like nut butter. It comes with several accessories, like a food processor and a whisk. The Cuisinart isn't well-built, but it does a better job of blending small batches of fibrous ingredients, so you might prefer it for small servings of soup or personal smoothies.
The Braun MultiQuick 9 is better for soups than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender. The Braun has a significantly better build quality and a longer blending shaft. It has more speed settings, and it's easier to clean. It also comes with whisk and masher attachments, although we don't test them currently. On the other hand, the Cuisinart makes crushed ice with a better texture.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is better than the Cuisinart Smart Stick Cordless Hand Blender. The Two-Speed makes a much smoother blender with fibrous elements like kale and broccoli in smoothies and soups, and it's easier to clean by hand. On the other hand, you might prefer the Cordless Blender's battery-powered design. It also comes with a whisk attachment, which helps make whipped cream or homemade mayonnaise.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is better than the Mueller Ultra-Stick Hand Blender. Neither model is well-built, but the Cuisinart is more sturdy and can crush ice and make almond butter. On the other hand, the Mueller makes better-blended smoothies, but its fragile build quality can be a safety issue.
Test Results
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender is compact. The blending shaft is a bit on the shorter side compared to other hand blenders, but it'll be long enough to reach the bottom of most pots and pitchers. It's compact, even compared to other immersion blenders, so it's easy to keep in a drawer or cupboard. You can also detach the blending arm for easier storage.
The build quality is okay. The motor body and gear assembly are made of plastic but feel reasonably sturdy and can survive drops and bumps without much damage. Overall, its build feels similar to the Cuisinart Smart Stick Cordless Hand Blender. However, its overall build quality is lower because the motor body gets very hot if you use it for tough blends like nut butter.
You can use this immersion blender with your own pot or pitcher, so it doesn't have a maximum capacity. There's a 24-ounce beaker included that you can also use for blending. The rim has a spout for easier pouring, and it has measuring marks in oz, mL, and cups.
The beaker is made of plastic, and you can clean it on the top rack of your dishwasher.
The detachable blending arm has a pair of sharp blades, which is common for immersion blenders. These s-shaped blade assemblies tend to have an easier time grabbing onto big chunks of ingredients like ice cubes compared to star-shaped blade assemblies like the Vitamix Immersion Blender's. However, immersion blenders aren't usually very good at crushing ice either way, and both designs can perform well for soups and smoothies.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender doesn't come with any lids.
The power cord is quite long, and the blender comes with a small plastic tie to keep the cord from getting tangled when in storage. If you're looking for a cordless immersion blender, try the Cuisinart EvolutionX RHB-100.
It's decent for making single-serve batches of fibrous ingredients. It takes a few minutes of blending at max speed to make something like a single-serve smoothie with kale. It can be tiring since you need to move the blending arm constantly. However, it does a great job of processing the ingredients, so the result only has some very small unprocessed grains leftover.
It's mediocre for processing big batches of fibrous ingredients. If you're blending larger volumes in a deep pot, it takes a long time to produce the best results, even at max speed, which can be tiring for your hand. With bigger batches, it struggles to make a completely smooth blend, so soups with kale or broccoli turn out somewhat grainy.
It's not suitable for crushing ice. The blades struggle to grab onto the ice cubes to process them, even if you spend a few minutes moving the blending arm and angling it to try and crush the cubes. It manages to partly crush some ice cubes but isn't suitable for making batches of crushed ice for cocktails or frozen drinks like slushies.
It's poor for making nut butter. It takes a long time to process the ingredients, and you need to work the blending arm up and down and twist it to keep the ingredients moving. You'll need to stop a few times to scrape away any nut butter that has accumulated on top of the blade guard. It produces an okay result but struggles to completely process all of the nuts, and the motor heats up a lot by the end.
It's loud for an immersion blender, especially considering its motor isn't very powerful. Models like the Kitchenaid Variable Speed Corded Hand Blender are much quieter, so the noise will be less irritating, especially when you're blending for a few minutes.
Like its name suggests, this blender has two speed settings. There's not a huge difference between the low and high speeds, and the higher speed is helpful for most purposes. You can't fine-tune the speed to suit your recipe as much as you can with immersion blenders that have more speed settings, like the Breville Control Grip.
The Cuisinart Smart Stick Two-Speed Hand Blender doesn't have any blending programs, like most immersion blenders. There's a button for each of the speed settings, and you need to hold down one of the buttons to blend. You can also simulate a pulse mode by pressing and releasing one of the buttons in short intervals.