The Best Baby Food Makers

Babymoov Duo Meal Station

Two foods can be steamed at once with the Babymoov Duo Meal Station.

In addition, the steamer unit and blending unit can be operated at the same time. The blender can also be removed completely from the unit and used separately.

Setting up this baby food maker has a learning curve. The manual is confusing to understand and features more art depictions than wording. A “how-to” video had to be watched to figure out how to properly stack the steaming baskets and to see where the water needed to be poured in.

Operating the food maker takes a few minutes to get the hang of. Unlabeled buttons must be deciphered and a blinking timer causes some confusion on whether or not the food maker will start.

Steaming performance is great and multiple foods are cooked thoroughly when stacked on top of one another. Smaller amounts of baby food get pushed to the sides of the blender when in use.

Cleaning is simple as the steamer baskets easily dissemble. Babymoov recommends descaling the water tank every 50 uses. A descaling reminder CALC light comes on after every 50 uses.

Why You Should Trust Us

Each baby food maker was tested and written about by fellow mom and Editor, Morgan French. We also asked for input from Philia Kelnhofer, Owner of SweetPhi.com and Author of the Baby Food Maker Cookbook. Given her expertise on baby food makers, we were curious to know her thoughts on what the most important factor is in choosing a great baby food maker. She replied:

The most important features to look for are something that’s easy to use and easy to clean. (…) And then you want something that is dishwasher safe so you’re not sitting there trying to hand wash crazy parts.

Philia Kelnhofer

Anjali Shah, Author of the Super Easy Baby Food Cookbook and behind pickyeaterblog.com, also said that ease of cleaning is the most important feature to look for when choosing a baby food maker. She said:

When you’ve got a baby, easy cleanup is key!

Anjali Shah

We did end up ranking baby food makers by ease of cleaning and ease of use, among other categories.

After reviewing customer feedback, ratings, and popularity on various baby food makers, we narrowed our product list down to 8 food makers and purchased one of each to personally review and test.

Based on our experience using and testing each baby food maker, we determined that the below categories were the most important to factor in before purchasing a baby food maker:

• Ease of Use (15% weighting)
• Ease of Cleaning (15% weighting)
• Performance (25% weighting)
• Safety (15% weighting)
• Puree Quality (30% weighting)

Who Should Get This

A baby food maker is convenient for parents who want control of the ingredients in their baby’s food. Making homemade baby purees allows parents to decide what their baby eats, how thick the food is, and what foods they want to blend together.

Baby food makers are also great for those who are wanting to blend quality food (e.g. organic) without spending too much money. Whereas jarred organic sweet potatoes at the grocery store may cost around $1.29 per 4 ounces, buying raw organic sweet potatoes can cost $1.69 per pound, which breaks down to only $0.43 per 4 ounces.

Finally, baby food makers with multiple steaming baskets are wonderful for moms who like to cook a variety of food at once and/or have multiple little ones to make baby food for. These food makers, like the Babymoov Duo, save on time and are convenient.

How We Tested

When choosing what baby food makers to test, we chose products that were high-selling and had 4.5 to 5-star reviews including recent positive reviews. Baby food makers that ranked high overall but had negative recent reviews regarding reliability issues or horrible customer service claims were not considered for testing.

When using and testing the baby food makers, we considered these four categories:

• Ease of use
• Ease of cleaning
• Safety
• Performance

For ease of use, we wanted to be able to understand the manual easily so that setup time would be minimal. Did we have to pause setting up or using the food maker to refer back to the manual often?

For ease of cleaning, we looked at how large the water tank/reservoir was. Could an average-sized hand fit in the tank easily for cleaning? Were the food maker parts easily to clean or did food get stuck in grooves?

Safety is all about locking mechanisms. Does the blender bowl lock before blending? Are blades locked or do they spin loosely in the bowl?

Finally, performance was considered across various functionalities. Does the steam function soften the food well? Does the blender blend the food without pushing it to the sides of the bowl?

Product Ratings and Specs

	Editor's Choice	Upgrade Choice		Most Portable				Budget Choice
	EVLA's Baby Food Maker	Babymoov Duo Meal Station	WHALELOVE Baby Food Maker	Sage Spoonfuls Baby Food Maker	Homia 8 in 1 Baby Food Maker	BEABA Babycook® Solo 4 in 1	QOOC Baby Food Maker	OXO Tot Food Masher
	Amazon	Amazon Walmart	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon	Amazon Walmart	Amazon
Test Lab Score	98	91	89	83	80	79	79	62
Ease of Use	99	63	89	81	67	100	84	85
Ease of Cleaning	94	99	98	100	38	39	38	100
Performance	100	85	97	59	100	75	85	30
Safety	95	100	45	75	60	100	65	100
Puree Quality	100	100	100	100	100	80	100	40
Specifications
Removable blade	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A
Size	‎12.52" x 12.44" x 5.08"	8" x 10" x 14"	10.5" x 7.12" x 8.89"	‎5" x 5" x 13"	12.5" x 6.5" x 9.5"	9.4" x 7.1" x 9.4"	10.3" x 9.3" x 7.8"	‎5.2‎5.2" x 5.8" x 8.2"
Dishwasher-safe	Yes	Yes	Yes	Processor bowl	Yes	Yes	Yes	Top rack
Cooking Complete Sound	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	No	N/A
Capabilities	Steam, blend, sterilize, clean	Steam, blend, purée, warm, defrost, sterilize	Steam, blend, steam-blend, warm, self-clean	Blend	Steam, sterilize, cook, juice, warm, defrost, puree and chop	Steam, blend, reheat, defrost	Steam, blend, reheat, defrost	Mash
Bowl Material	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic	Plastic
BPA-free	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Recipe Book Included	No	Cooking guide only	No	No	Yes	12 Recipes	Cooking guide only	No
Number of Steam Baskets	1	3	1	0	3	0	1	0
Number of Speeds	1	3	1	2	1	1	1	0
Includes Spatula	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes

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Value

When considering the best baby food makers, we looked for products that were reasonably priced up to $150 or so. Any baby food maker that was priced much higher than $150 was not considered for testing, in order to test baby food makers that are within the price range of most buyers.

For a quality blender (without steam function), the Sage Spoonfuls Baby Food Maker blends well and is easily portable for under $50. On the other hand, the Babymoov Duo Meal Station offers much more capability (multi-food steaming, blending, warming, etc.) and is one of our highest-priced products, slightly over $150.

The Editor’s Choice product, Evla’s Baby Food Maker, has a higher price yet cannot steam multiple foods at once like the Babymoov. Even so, we believe it is priced accordingly for its user-friendly interface and overall quality.

Finally, we love that the OXO Tot Food Masher is very low priced and able to cut up food for toddlers or baby-led-weaning babies on the go.

Product Price Performance

Ease of Use

To test how easy it is to use each baby food maker, we paid special attention to the below factors:

• How long it takes to set up the food maker
• How many buttons there are
• If there is an audible alert upon completion of food making
• How easy or difficult the owner’s manual is to read
• Overall feel (Was it easy? Irritating? Confusing?)

Here are a couple of tests that stood out:

Prep Time Rating

The baby food makers with the fewest of parts were by far, the easiest to set up because they are essentially ready to be used right out of the box. Food makers with multiple steaming baskets, like the Babymoov Duo and Homia have a longer setup time as steaming trays must be stacked correctly before use.

Number of Buttons

Food makers with a lot of buttons to push take more time to learn and understand, especially if the buttons are not labeled. The Homia has many buttons but they are labeled well, whereas the Babymoov buttons are not.

Ease of Cleaning

Ease of cleaning was tested by getting answers to the following questions:

• Can a hand fit inside the water tank for optimal cleaning?
• Can the blades be removed from the blender?
• Are the food maker parts dishwasher-safe?
• Are the descaling instructions simple?

Thankfully, blades from every blender we tested can be easily removed before cleaning. Descaling instructions were all similar and fairly simple to perform.

The size of the water tank and whether or not the parts are dishwasher-safe are the most important factors we considered.

Size of Water Tank

In order to sufficiently clean a baby food maker, there needs to be enough space for your hand to clean in, out, and all around the various parts. For the non-steaming baby food makers (OXO and Sage Spoonfuls) and some steamers (Evla’s, Babymoov, WHALELOVE), size is no issue for cleaning.

On the other hand, some of the baby food makers that steam have a very small water tank opening for cleaning (Homia, BEABA, and QOOC). Although the manufacturer recommends cleaning the water tank by descaling, we find it’s necessary to be able to wipe down the water tank and not only rely on a liquid solution to thoroughly clean the area.

Dishwasher-safe Parts

Thankfully, the detachable parts from each baby food maker are dishwasher-safe. Not only that but steaming basket parts and blades from the blenders can be taken apart so they can fit easily into the dishwasher.

Safety

To test how safe each baby food maker is, we looked at the below factors:

• What’s the risk of being burned from steam?
• Does the blender have a locking mechanism?
• Do blades freely move inside the blender (risk of being cut)?

We found that each blender we tested has a locking mechanism on it to safely secure the blender bowl to the machine and the blender lid to the bowl. Below are the results for the other two factors we tested for:

Limited Burn Risk

When testing for burn risk, we gave higher scores to baby food makers that had handles on the side of the steaming baskets.

We also gave higher scores to baby food makers that came with a spatula that can safely lift the steaming basket.

Even though the Homia and WHALELOVE food makers each have a handle for lifting the steaming basket, the handle (and so your hand) is placed right above hot steam from the steaming basket.

Loose Blades

To help prevent cuts, it’s important that the blades in the blender are not loose (don’t easily spin). Most baby food maker blades are locked into the blender bowl so that they don’t spin freely and will not fall out of the bowl. This was the case for most of the baby food makers except for the WHALELOVE, Sage Spoonfuls, and QOOC.

Performance

When evaluating baby food makers, the performance of steaming and blending is clearly one of the most important factors to consider. While some food makers had multiple functions other than steaming and blending (e.g. sanitizing), we paid the most attention to the functions below when using each food maker:

• How does the steaming function perform?
• Does the blender lag or seem to lack power?
• Does the food maker require any intervention during steaming or blending?

Steaming and Blending

We were impressed to find that 7 out of 8 of our baby food makers steamed and blended food quite well. The steaming functions worked as expected without any issues. The blenders were powerful and strong, not lagging at all.

The only thing that stuck out to us was that the BEABA didn’t steam the food as well as we expected. Unlike the other baby food makers that produced soft and tender steamed foods, the food in the BEABA steamer came out slightly firm.

Intervention Required

We did find that smaller quantities of steamed food would get pushed to the sides of some of the blenders (BEABA, Babymoov, QOOC) and we would have to push the food down in order for it to be blended.

There also was some slight intervention needed when using the Sage Spoonfuls Baby Food Maker. We found the food processor attachment to be handy but we had to be careful about how fast and long we blended because liquids would splash up out of the bowl.

Puree Quality

More than likely, parents are purchasing baby food makers to make homemade purees. With this in mind, we wanted to test how well each baby food maker steamed and blended together for a smooth and thorough puree.

Smooth & Thorough Purees

It was great to see most of our baby food makers making smooth and thorough purees without lumps. The steaming functions produced soft foods and the blenders would take steamed foods and turn them into a puree within seconds.

Our only disappointments were with the OXO Tot Food Masher and the BEABA. With the OXO Tot, it took quite a bit of effort to mash food down into a puree (unless the food was steamed beforehand). Because the food masher doesn’t steam on its own and is a portable food maker, we expected it to mash small diced foods (e.g. apples) better than it did.

With the BEABA, we wanted to see really soft steamed food go into a blender for a perfect puree. With the steaming function not working as well as the others and the blender pushing food to the sides, we don’t feel confident that the BEABA can produce smooth and thorough purees every time.

Can I use a regular blender instead of a baby blender?

It may seem like the better choice to use a general blender for baby food rather than purchase a baby food maker. With a regular blender, the whole family can use it and you can blend up quite a bit more food at one time. On the other hand, if you want to easily steam and blend baby food with one product, a baby food maker is more convenient. Baby food makers also tend to take up less room than a full-sized traditional blender.