Straight to the Point
The KitchenAid KSMMGA Metal Food Grinder Attachment is our recommendation if you own a KitchenAid stand mixer. Its all-metal construction is sturdy and allows it to be pre-chilled.
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The best burgers and sausages are made with freshly ground meat. Serious Eats has been saying this for years and has run plenty of kitchen experiments to back up the claim. Burgers made from freshly ground beef have better texture and flavor than ones made with the pre-ground stuff available in most grocery stores. Plus, grinding meat at home gives you more control; you can dial in on a preferred lean meat-to-fat ratio and the texture of the grind, and you get to pick the quality and cut(s) of the meat.
A meat grinder isn&#;t an essential piece of equipment, but if you are looking to make the best meatballs, meatloaf, chorizo, or smash burgers, it&#;s a worthy and affordable investment. I tested eight grinders to find the best options for home cooks, from hand-cranked models and stand mixer attachments to countertop electric grinders.
The Winners, at a Glance
For people who already own a stand mixer, purchasing a food grinder attachment is the best option. This sturdy meat-grinding attachment takes advantage of a KitchenAid stand mixer&#;s powerful, variable-speed motor, and its large food tray makes it easier to grind bigger batches, satisfying the meat-grinding needs of most home cooks without taking up a lot of storage space.
This entry-level electric meat grinder features a compact design and delivers solid results at a very reasonable price. It has straightforward controls (including a reverse function), and can handle larger jobs with its moderately-sized meat tray despite how small it is.
This is a professional-quality grinder with multiple speeds and plenty of additional features, like an auto-reverse function. Of all the grinders I tested, this one produced the best, most consistent ground meat with an ideal texture. It's a great option for anyone who takes their meat grinding seriously, and its large food tray can accommodate enough sausage for the whole neighborhood.
A manual meat grinder is as old-school and no-frills as it gets. This model excels at its job and is built to last. Its smooth grinding action offers minimal resistance, and, without a motor, it's by far the quietest model I tested. It does require a counter overhang to be properly mounted, however, which is something to keep in mind before purchasing.
A Brief Overview of a Meat Grinder's Parts
All meat grinders have the same basic anatomy, made up of the following parts: the pusher and hopper, the screw, the blade and plate, and the cover. As we explain in depth here, these parts all work together.
- The pusher and hopper are the loading dock for the meat: It's where it sits before being fed into the grinding mechanism.
- The screw is the mechanical part of the grinder that actively pushes and draws meat downward, toward the blade.
- The blade and plate work in tandem to actually grind the meat. The blade has intersecting arms, that are sharp enough to chop the meat. The plate is a flat piece of metal perforated with holes&#;the size of the holes determines the meat's coarseness, so you want a grinder with at least a few.
- The cover sits over the plate, keeping it sturdy as the grinder works.
The Criteria: What to Look for in a Meat Grinder
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
A good meat grinder will work through pounds of meat in minutes, extruding uniform cylinders of ground meat that have clearly distinct bits of ground lean muscle and fat, at a steady clip. It should be easy to set up, use, and clean so that you look forward to using it.
All meat grinders come with the same basic parts, but to produce high-quality results, good meat grinders should have the following:
- Sturdy construction with a compact footprint. A grinder should be able to process pounds of meat easily, without causing the machine or the person operating it any undue stress. The grinder should run smoothly without being too loud. And because it&#;s a piece of equipment that home cooks won&#;t be using every day, it shouldn&#;t be so bulky that it eats up lots of storage and counter space, or be so cumbersome that it makes people think twice about pulling it out of their cabinets when they do have a chance to use it.
- Metal grinder parts. Keeping meat cold is of utmost importance during the grinding process, to avoid fat-smearing. A big part of the temperature control equation is ensuring that the main components of the grinder (the hopper, screw, blade, and plate) don&#;t overheat when operating, and this is easier to manage when the hopper and screw are made of metal rather than plastic. Metal parts can be chilled in the freezer prior to grinding (it is worth noting that famed butcher Pat La Frieda argues against this practice, claiming that over time it can make grinder pieces brittle, but I haven&#;t experienced this issue over the years), and they don&#;t get as slick as plastic ones when smudged with fat, so they are easier to take apart and clean.
- Reliable motor or hand-crank. Whether you're using a motorized or old-fashioned manual model, a good meat grinder should operate smoothly and at a steady clip as pieces of meat are worked through the machine. An electric motor or hand-crank is responsible for powering the screw, which pushes meat through the chamber toward the blade and plate, and therefore the speed of grinding. Strong motors and easy-to-operate hand cranks allow you to grind at a consistent speed and with fewer jamming issues, which in turn produces high-quality ground meat with a consistent grind size and no fat smear.
- Sharp blade and plates. None of the qualities mentioned above matter much if the grinder&#;s blade and plates are dull; the smearing that you diligently worked to avoid is just delayed until the last second as meat is mashed into a paste by the dull blade and pushed through the die. As with chef knives, grinder blades should be sharp right out of the box, and with moderate use, they should need to be sharpened once a year at most. Most grinders come with at least two plates (also known as dies), for coarse and fine grinds.
What We Learned
The Differences Between Electric and Manual Meat Grinders
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
For this review, I tested both motorized and hand-cranked meat grinders. Electric grinders don&#;t require much effort on the part of the user: Turn on the machine, feed meat into the food tray and hopper, and other than having to coax more meat down through the hopper with a pusher, the motor takes care of the rest. Sure, if the meat isn&#;t well-trimmed before grinding, you may encounter the occasional jam if sinew gets caught on the screw or blade. But that&#;s generally an easy fix, especially for electric grinders that have a reverse function, which should undo a jam without you having to disassemble the grinder.
Because they don&#;t require any elbow grease to operate, electric grinders get the job done faster and at a more easily controlled speed than manual models, especially if you are grinding large batches (five pounds or more) at a time. They&#;re also the best option for anyone with limited mobility.
A motor takes care of most of the grunt work of meat grinding, but it also takes up space, draws power, and makes noise. Stand-alone electric grinders are bulky unitaskers that often end up gathering dust in the depths of above-refrigerator cabinets. Before purchasing a niche countertop kitchen appliance, it&#;s always worth making an honest assessment of your cooking needs. For this reason, I have long recommended the grinder attachment for people who already own a stand mixer; you get the core qualities of an electric grinder, without having to find room for a big, new piece of equipment.
However, hand-cranked grinders shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. With no motor to house, they have a much smaller footprint, and they're consequently easier to store when not in use; they are also much quieter when operating. They&#;re easy to set up&#;our favorite manual grinder uses a clamp mechanism similar to that of a manual pasta roller&#;and straightforward to use and clean. A good hand-cranked grinder doesn&#;t require much strength to use. Grinding meat for four burgers is a breeze, and can be done faster than with an electric grinder once you factor in set-up and cleanup time.
Does Motor Power Matter For Electric Meat Grinders?
Yes and no. On the one hand, a motor is only as good as the money you pay for it. Cheap electric grinders perform similarly to a stand mixer fitted with a grinding attachment, which is more than enough juice for the needs of most home cooks. The benefits of a more powerful and expensive machine really only pay off for dedicated hunters or charcuterie enthusiasts who do a lot of grinding frequently.
What About Adjustable Speeds and Reverse Functions?
Being able to adjust the speed of grinding is a plus, but not a must. For grinding, consistent speed is more important than variability. Multiple speeds are more helpful for sausage stuffing, which requires a good amount of force to push a mix into casings. A reverse function is useful for resolving minor jams during grinding, saving you time as you won&#;t have to disassemble the grinder every time a piece of troublesome meat gets caught on the blade. Most stand-alone electric grinders come with a reverse function, and with a hand-crank grinder, you can reverse course just by turning the crank in the opposite direction.
How Useful Are Sausage-Stuffing Attachments?
Meat grinders are made for grinding meat, not stuffing sausage. Grinders often come with sausage-stuffing attachments that work in a pinch but are far from ideal. You end up having to feed a seasoned ground sausage mix back through the hopper, and it gets pushed through the grinder by the screw and into a length of casing fitted over a plastic attachment that is fitted onto the mouth of the grinder in place of the blade and plate. Even for grinders with adjustable speeds, this process takes a lot longer than it would with a piston-based sausage stuffer. People who make a lot of cased sausages should invest in a sausage stuffer. The good news for everyone else is that uncased sausage patties taste just as good as links.
The Testing
Test 1: Grinding Beef Chuck
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
If given the choice of a single cut of beef to grind for burgers, chuck is the way to go. It&#;s affordable, has great flavor, and has a natural distribution of lean meat to fat that comes very close to the 80:20 gold standard ratio for juicy burgers.
For this test I cut chuck into two sizes for grinding: 1 1/2-inch cubes and 1- by 3-inch strips. The meat was chilled in the fridge and the grinder parts were chilled in the freezer for one hour prior to grinding. I then ran 1-pound batches of both the cubes and strips of beef through the medium plate of each grinder, noting speed and ease of operation, consistency of grind, and overall quality of the grind, paying particular attention to any fat smearing.
Every single grinder performed acceptably here, producing ground beef that I'd be happy to use for burgers, meatballs, or meatloaf, but some grinders were much more pleasant to use than others. The Sausage Maker had the most consistent grind, easily cranking through the pound and putting out ground beef that looked like it came from a well-run meat counter. The hand-cranked Chop-Rite produced ground beef that was charmingly rustic in comparison (turns out there&#;s no standard diameter for the holes on a medium plate), but took only a minute longer than The Sausage Maker to grind from start to finish. Meanwhile, the LEM #8 575 Watt Countertop Grinder (a contender but not a final pick) was serviceable in this test but loud and clunky in a manner that didn&#;t encourage future meat-grinding sessions.
Test 2: Grinding Pork Butt
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Pork butt is another well-marbled cut of meat, with an approximate 75:25 lean meat-to-fat ratio that makes it a popular choice for grinding for fresh and cured sausages. It also features a good amount of connective tissue and sinew, both of which can cause jams during the grinding process if they wind themselves around the blade or auger. Basically, it&#;s the perfect cut for testing the mettle of a meat grinder.
As with the beef chuck, I trimmed the meat into 1 1/2-inch cubes and 1-by-3-inch strips and chilled them in the fridge. Grinder parts were chilled in the freezer for one hour.
This test separated the contenders from the pretenders. A few grinders struggled with speed and jammed during this test, which led to the dreaded fat smear. The heat from the friction of the jammed grinder caused fat to render, producing a soft, squishy paste rather than the ground meat we were looking for. Along with these poor results, the jams that couldn&#;t be resolved by hitting a reverse button also forced us to take apart the grinders, in order to pick out the offending bits of sinew and then put them back together. This is a messy and frustrating process that could easily turn people off from grinding their own meat.
Test 3: Grinding Mirepoix
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
While grinders are essentially unitaskers, they can be used to grind more than just meat (they&#;re often marketed as &#;food grinders&#;). They can be used to grind sourdough into breadcrumbs, chickpeas for falafel, or mirepoix for soffrito. In light of these other uses, I ran a vegetable grinding test, passing onions, carrots, and celery through each grinder, using all the available sizes of grinding plates.
Fibrous vegetables gave some of the grinders a heavy workout, but none of them jammed. This test was easier to carry out with electric grinders with food trays that don&#;t require you to constantly feed ingredients into the hopper by hand. The logistics of this test proved more difficult with hand-cranked grinders that keep both of your hands occupied at all times, making it harder to troubleshoot any issues during the grinding process.
If you need to have a lot of finely chopped mirepoix and your grinder is handy, it makes quick work of the task, so you can do things like grind veg and meat for classic ragù alla bolognese in one shot. Even so, this is a bonus use, not a selling point. Vegetarians or people who don&#;t have an interest in grinding meat at home are better off investing in a food processor, which is a more versatile appliance.
Test 4: Stuffing Sausages
Finally, I tested the sausage-stuffing attachments for the models that came with them. As mentioned earlier, meat grinders are not going to blow you away with their sausage-stuffing capabilities. Models with variable speeds did perform better than those with just one-speed setting. Pushing sausage farce into casings requires a good deal of force, and single-speed grinders take forever to get the job done, which increases the likelihood of fat breaking and renderings as the farce gets pushed through the chamber by the screw.
Our Favorite Meat Grinders
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What we liked: If you already own a stand mixer, purchasing a grinder attachment is most likely your best and simplest choice, especially if you are tight on storage space. It allows you to take advantage of the powerful motor of an appliance you already have and means you won&#;t need to find a home for another bulky piece of equipment in the depths of your kitchen cabinets. You&#;re stuck buying attachments for the brand of stand mixer you have, but if you own our favorite stand mixer, then this metal grinder attachment is the one you want to get.
This grinder produced textbook ground beef and pork, and it also performed well in the vegetable grinding test. The one caveat I had about vegetable grinding is that it can get messy when grinding juicy ingredients; the attachment fixes to the top of the stand mixer, so food comes out of the grinder mouth a good six inches higher up from the counter compared to other electric grinder models.
I highly recommend this metal attachment option over the cheaper plastic model. The parts are sturdier and can be more thoroughly chilled before use. The blade on this model is far better than the one that comes with the KitchenAid plastic meat grinding attachment.
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we didn't like: Over and over, this grinder&#;s major drawback was its height. Once you attach the grinder to the mixer and place it on a kitchen counter, the machine operates at an awkward height, which gives the grinding process a disjointed flow. I&#;m 5&#;7&#;, so this would be even more of an issue for someone shorter. The high profile of the grinder also makes it hard to fit on countertops with overhanging cabinets.
Keep in mind the motor of this grinder varies depending on the model of KitchenAid you attach it to. They&#;re all easily strong enough to do the job, but it can be tricky to find the ideal speed; at times the screw was spinning rapidly in the chamber and the meat itself was struggling to keep up.
This grinder attachment does work well for making sausage, but not stuffing them. You can easily grind meat directly into the stand mixer bowl, then add seasonings, pop the bowl onto the mixer with the paddle attachment, and work the mix until tacky (a key part of sausage-making). But when it comes to stuffing the mix into casings, the elevated height makes it difficult to manage feeding uncased sausage into the hopper with one hand while controlling the casing process at the other end. However, the multiple speeds built into the stand mixer are a boon for sausage stuffing. It comes with the sausage funnel accessory, three grinding plates (coarse, medium, and fine), a very useful cleaning brush, and a case for easy storage.
Key Specs
- Weight: 2.5 pounds
- Materials: Steel
- Included accessories: Removable food tray, fine grinding plate, medium grinding plate, coarse grinding plate, cleaning brush, food pusher, sausage stuff tubes, sausage stuffer plate
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we liked: If you want a reasonably priced electric grinder for grinding meat on a regular basis, this trusty Weston model is a little workhorse. It&#;s got a simple and compact design, it works quickly and efficiently, and it&#;s easy to assemble and clean.
It ground both pork and beef with no issues whatsoever. The meat looked like standard-issue quality ground meat and cooked up the same way. The main drawback of this model is its lack of finesse; it has a single, somewhat aggressive speed, and it&#;s very loud. But if you&#;re just grinding meat for a few burgers the process will be over quickly, the noise will be gone, and you can move on with your life. Foods go into the hopper with no fuss (the food tray can hold about a pound of meat at a time). If the grinder does jam up (it happens sometimes with any grinder), there&#;s a reverse button, which can help resolve some issues without the inconvenience of taking the grinder apart.
This grinder comes with two stainless steel grinding plates, fine and coarse. Meat ground well on both, with no fat smear. The tray jiggles just a bit, but everything happens swiftly enough that it&#;s not much of an issue.
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we didn't like: This Weston model does come with a sausage funnel, but it proved tricky to use because the single speed made the sausage-stuffing process hard to control. I recommend this grinder primarily for basic meat and food grinding.
Key Specs
- Weight: 2 pounds
- Materials: Steel; plastic
- Wattage: 500 watts
- Included accessories: Fine grinding plate, coarse grinding plate, sausage stuffing funnel
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we liked: If you&#;re looking for a pull-out-all-the-stops electric meat grinder, this is the one. You get a lot with the grinder for the price. Of all the grinders I tested, this one produced the best ground meat, and it was effortless. After initial testing, I went and got more meat to grind for this model, just because it&#;s so pleasurable to use. The ground meat had a remarkably consistent texture that looked like it could have been ground to order at a specialty butcher shop. Instead of being extruded out of the plate in long, worm-like stands, the meat comes out of the grinder in short cylinders.
It features variable speeds, which is an asset when stuffing sausage and comes with an auto-reverse that helps resolve any troublesome jams. The buttons were easy to operate, even with messy fingers, and the motor switched between speeds with ease.
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we didn't like: The main drawback of this grinder is its size. It takes up lots of countertop real estate and eats up a lot of storage space when not in use. If you only grind meat occasionally, it&#;s best to consider another grinder. This is a grinder for hunters and serious sausage-makers. It comes with a stomper and three grinding plates. Sausage-stuffing attachments are sold separately, and you can also add on juicer and slicer attachments if you want a grinder that can shed its unitasker label.
Key Specs
- Weight: 45 pounds
- Materials: Metal; plastic
- Wattage: 550 watts
- Included accessories: Fine grinding plate, medium-coarse grinding plate, 3 plastic stuffing tubes, accessory tray, deep tray
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we liked: If you&#;re a hands-on type and enjoy getting a little exercise in the kitchen, the Chop-Rite manual grinder may be the one for you. Can you develop a crush on a meat grinder? I did. The Chop-Rite was so fun to use, I made up excuses to bust it out when testing was completed. Setting it up and cleaning it is easy enough to make you want to use it on a whim.
This hand-crank grinder is not cheap, but its quality craftsmanship is evident from the moment you start using it. It requires very little effort to operate the crank, and it grinds meat with surprisingly little resistance. It&#;s a smooth operator, especially compared to the other manual grinders I tested. I ground five pounds of food in less than five minutes without tiring out.
The body of the grinder is cast iron that's treated with a nonstick coating to keep it from corroding and rusting. It produced ground meat that was a little coarser and more rustic than the meat ground by other grinders, but the meat certainly wasn't overworked and produced a mighty fine burger. And with no motor, it&#;s got a very compact footprint and operates very quietly.
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
What we didn't like: The biggest drawback of the Chop-Rite is that you need a table or counter with a good amount of overhang clearance to clamp it down. The clearance between the mouth of the grinder and the counter is also very small, so only a small bowl (no more than 2 1/2 inches high) can fit under the grinder mouth to catch food. (For those who&#;d like a permanent relationship with a grinder, there are Chop-Rite models that mount onto tabletops with screws.) In terms of accessories, it&#;s as bare-bones as it gets; it comes with only a medium grinding plate and no sausage-stuffing attachments. You can order other size plates separately, but that seems like a stretch for an already expensive piece of equipment.
Key Specs
- Materials: Steel, Xylon coating
- Weight: 7 pounds
- Included accessories: None
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
The Competition
- LEM #8 575 Watt Countertop Grinder: This model did a good job of grinding meat, but it was unpleasantly loud, and the opening to feed meat into the grinder was narrow enough that it made the grinding process fussy.
- LEM #10 Stainless Steel Clamp On Hand Grinder: This handsome stainless steel grinder was utterly serviceable in grinding meat, but it didn&#;t operate as smoothly as the Chop-Rite, and made grinding by hand feel more like work.
- KitchenAid KSMFGA Food Grinder Attachment: Don&#;t think of this as a more affordable plastic version of the metal KitchenAid grinder we endorse above; the blade is cheaper and not nearly as sharp. I&#;ve owned one for years and have learned the hard way it clogs every single time you grind any meat that&#;s not lean beef. Sadly, that&#;s still the case.
- Guideon Hand Crank Manual Meat Grinder: A few years ago, Serious Eats recommended this grinder as a budget pick, but I found it frustratingly prone to jamming. It is also difficult to secure to a counter, so it tends to move around when in use.
FAQs
Is it cheaper to grind your own meat?
It's not necessarily cheaper, but the flavor's a whole lot better and you have more control over grind size.
Are Weston grinders any good?
Yes! In fact, our favorite electric meat grinder is from Weston.
Can you clean a meat grinder in the dishwasher?
We recommend checking the manufacturer's care instructions. And, when in doubt, just hand-washing with hot, soapy water. You can find our more in-depth guide to caring for a meat grinder here.
Which is better: An electric or manual meat grinder?
There are pros and cons to both, but in the end, it depends on your needs. A quality electric meat grinder takes the elbow grease out of grinding meat and can be great for those with limited mobility (or if you don't feel like cranking a manual one). However, they are often larger and take up more counter space than manual meat grinders. And manual meat grinders, while they require more physical effort, can also do a great job. In the end, it depends on your preferences and if you frequently find yourself grinding meat.
Are meat grinders worth it?
While investing in a meat grinder might not save you much money in the long run, meat grinders give you more control over the size of the grind and the freshness of the meat. We recommend a variety of meat grinders at different price points and think there's a good choice for anyone interested in making their own sausage or grinding their own meat for burgers.
Can you run potatoes through a meat grinder?
Just like with our mirepoix testing, meat grinders can be used to process potatoes as well. It's a handy way to break down potatoes for different types of dough and sometimes can be used as a replacement for a potato ricer.
Do you need to lubricate your meat grinder?
Not every meat grinder is the same, so we recommend checking the manufacturer's instructions for any ongoing maintenance needs. In general, most meat grinders should be lubricated with mineral oil, but where and when to apply can vary by model.
Can you sharpen a meat grinder's blades?
You can. Like any blade, you'll want to keep it sharp. Annual sharpening (some people use sandpaper, or you can have them professionally sharpened) is adequate for most cooks. Or, you can just buy replacement blades.
Why We're the Experts
- Sara Bir is a CIA-trained chef and writer. She currently works as the senior editor at Simply Recipes.
- We have been using meat grinders for years, both in restaurant kitchens and in the Serious Eats test kitchen. We&#;ve come up with various methods for grinding meat at home, from using food processors to chopping meat by hand. We&#;ve run experiments with meat grinders, developed recipes with them, and written extensively about their virtues.
- For this review, we tested eight meat grinders, grinding pounds and pounds of beef chuck, pork butt, and mirepoix and stuffing sausages. We also closely evaluated how easy they were to assemble, dissemble, and clean.
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