Best Baby Food Makers 2019
Looking for a versatile, safe, easy to use, reliable, efficient, and reasonably priced baby food maker? Us too! We put over a dozen baby food makers to the test and came away with some excellent options. The best baby food makers combine a steamer and food processor all-in-one, include food storage options, are BPA-free, and withstand the test of time and repeated use. Below we list the top 5 baby food makers for the year, followed by our in-depth reviews of about 10 different options.Looking for a versatile, safe, easy to use, reliable, efficient, and reasonably priced baby food maker? Us too! We put over a dozen baby food makers to the test and came away with some excellent options. The best baby food makers combine a steamer and food processor all-in-one, include food storage options, are BPA-free, and withstand the test of time and repeated use. Below we list the top 5 baby food makers for the year, followed by our in-depth reviews of about 10 different options.
Model and Link to Amazon Our Rating#1. Beaba Babycook 5 star rating#2. Babymoov Duo 4 star rating#3. QOOC Mini Food Maker 4 star rating#4. Cuisinart BFM-1000 4 star rating#5. Hamilton Beach Bebe 3.5 star ratingBaby food makers are an excellent addition to the baby essentials list for new parents. Available since the early 1990's in Europe, and in the U.S. for just over a decade, baby food makers have saved millions of parents' time and energy when making fresh, wholesome purees. And the systems have gotten much better over the years, with higher reliability, ease and convenience, more powerful motors, and phthalate-free plastics. Carrots? Peas? Sweet potato? Got it. Fun and healthy dessert blends like banana blueberry puree? No problem. Once you get your hands on a good baby food maker you'll be inventing recipes like a professional chef! And your baby will love you for feeding them so many delicious fruits and vegetables. By the way, our favorite baby puree recipe book is 201 Organic Baby Purees! There are tons of great, healthy recipes in there to keep your baby happy and exploring new food textures and flavors.
Here are the Best Baby Food Makers of 2019!1. BEABA Babycook 4in1 Pro Baby Food Maker.best baby food maker beaba baby cookThe top-rated BEABA Babycook 4in1 baby food maker is well known for reliability, ease of use, safety, and efficiency. They are the best baby food makers on the market, and for good reason. Even though it is a bit more expensive than other options, we think it is worth the extra cost. The BEABA looks and works great. It uses a large 4.7-cup capacity so you can fit several servings of food in one batch. You can use it with only 1 hand, so you can hold your baby in one arm while steaming, pureeing, defrosting, or reheating your food. The water reservoir on the side that holds water for steaming is stainless steel rather than plastic, and all surfaces that come in contact with food are BPA, lead, and phthalate free. We found that it is easy to clean, easy to use, and highly reliable. We were impressed with how quiet the motor was when pureeing with the baby food blender, and how evenly the steaming seemed to work. To steam, you place your freshly cut fruits or veggies into the basket and simply press the steam button. When it's finished, about 13-15 minutes later, you simply dump the basket of freshly steamed food into the bottom of the bowl and turn the knob to begin making nice smooth purees. We thought the button and knob were really intuitive and easy to use. And we used it to make baby puree and blend some frozen fruits and veggies as well, to make ourselves a little smoothie. Worked pretty decently as a little blender. Note that with any baby food maker that includes steaming, if you use anything other than distilled water, your water reservoir will develop mineral deposits; as suggested by Beaba, we found that descaling with vinegar every few months was really helpful. If you do have an issue it comes with a 1-year warranty and the customer service is great. We found this baby food maker for about $150. Interested? You can check out the Beaba Babycook here. Need to cook more than one recipe at a time? Check out the double Beaba Babycook 4in1 Pro for about $50 more.
2. Babymoov Duo Meal Station Baby Food Maker.best baby food maker babymoovThis is new for this year, and we got our hands on it in early January for some in-depth testing. It's a truly awesome and versatile top-rated baby food maker, with some serious functionality. The Babymoov Duo Meal Station is the only baby food maker on this list that can support simultaneous and separate steaming and blending, which allows you to start steaming another food (or keep steaming one tray of food) while blending another. We found this super helpful when steaming two foods that take different times to steam. For instance, we steamed a tray of green peas while steaming a tray of sweet potatoes: the peas took about 4 minutes, but the sweet potatoes took about 10 minutes (once the steam started). So, this system allowed us to start blending the peas while finishing steaming the sweet potatoes. That's great flexibility for a busy kitchen. It's also very high capacity, the largest on this list of best baby food makers, allowing us to prepare up to 9 cups of food at once! That's like 25 meals for a baby, so that's a big deal. If you don't need to make something that large, you can use just a single layer tray for one food type (or two that have the same cook times), or you can stack the trays up to separate two different types of food. It worked really well for smaller and larger jobs. The steamer was powerful and easy you use: add some water to the bottom until the light turns off, set the timer and you're ready to go. The baby food blender was powerful and the blade was sharp and durable, and the blender itself had three speed settings. The two things that distinguish this from the Babymoov Nutribaby (below) are the ability to steam and blend simultaneously, and the three-speed blender. And the fancy LED screen and interface, which we thought was intuitive and easy to use. The steamer and blender parts are all BPA free (and lead and phthalate free) and dishwasher friendly, making clean-up a breeze. So why isn't it #1 on our list? It might be next year, but first, it needs to pass the test of time. Also, it's quite big, so people will smaller kitchens or otherwise restricted counter space might find it too large for their space. Coming in at about the same price as the Beaba Babycook, if you have the space, this is a must-have. Overall, this is an excellent baby food maker that we highly recommend! Interested? You can check out this Babymoov Duo here!
3. QOOC Mini Baby Food Maker.best baby food maker qoocThis baby food maker is brand new to the U.S. market, and is making some waves! It is a small-footprint and small-capacity unit, making it perfect for smaller kitchens, smaller batches of food, and less clutter on the countertop. Its size is matched by its simplicity. It is technically a 4-in1 baby food maker, which means that it does the usual steaming and blending, but it also can reheat and defrost, which is basically just the steaming function used for two other purposes. Convenient, but not any different from most others on this list. The capacity is relatively small, about 300 grams or 2 cups, making it the smallest of the bunch. Its look and feel, and functionality, are very similar to the Beaba Babycook, with a sleek and low-profile shape, and a large and easy to use button right up front and center. We found it very easy to use with only one hand: you simply turn the button to steam or blend and push the button to start. The lid, container, steamer basket, and blade are all dishwasher safe, and the blade pops out of the container for more thorough cleaning. All components that come into contact with food are also BPA free and do not contain lead or phthalates. Some other things we appreciated were the quiet motor, how easy it was to refill the water reservoir, and how little space it took up on our (already cramped) kitchen counter! Because this is a newcomer to the baby food maker category, we do not have extensive experience with it. In our limited testing for about a week, we found it quite capable and a great new competitor for this segment. It's small, but if that's what you're looking for, this is definitely a great option. Over the next 6-12 months we'll keep using this model and report back on its reliability; if things keep going like this, it's very likely to creep up higher on our list! Overall, a great option, and we found it for about $90. Interested? You can check out the QOOC Mini here.
4. Cuisinart BFM-1000 Baby Food Maker.best baby food maker cuisinart bfm-1000This fantastic Cuisinart BFM1000 baby food maker sells for about $50 less than the Beaba Babycook Pro. There are a lot of great features here, all in a sleek system that doesn't take up too much counter space. It does the steaming, chopping, and pureeing, but it also has an added bottle warmer feature on the back. Pop your bottle in for a couple minutes and it's a great temperature for your baby. Nice touch. In our tests we found the motor to be very powerful, the steamer very effective, and overall the unit was quiet and efficient. The blades were sharp and strong, and we thought it was super easy to clean. Unlike the Beaba, the transition from steam to puree is a bit easier given that there is no steaming basket to remove and empty into the bowl. But we do think the Beaba actually does a slightly better job with steaming the food, maybe because of the basket that keeps the food from resting against edges. Just like the Beaba, it is also BPA free on all surfaces that contact food. Cons? Well, the Cuisinart's baby food maker bowl is a bit smaller than the Beaba, coming in at 4 cups capacity. And we're not convinced that the bottle warmer feature is really necessary; maybe defrost and reheating features would be more convenient. In any event, this is an excellent baby food maker, and we highly suggest it. We found it for about $120. Interested? You can check out the Cuisinart Baby BFM1000 here.
5. Hamilton Beach Bebe Baby Food Maker.best baby food maker hamilton beachHamilton Beach is known for making good quality household small appliances for a reasonable price, including blenders, toasters, irons, and coffee makers. Anyone who has purchased a Hamilton Beach product probably realizes that they got pretty good bang for the buck, though there might be some small quality control issues with some products. This is the first year that we tested and reviewed a Hamilton Beach baby food maker, and we were pleasantly surprised! This particular baby food maker is surprisingly versatile given its price under about $60. It can steam veggies and fruits, chop them, slice them, shred them, and puree them until they are silky smooth. It starts with a steamer basket that holds about 3 cups of food. You fill up the bottom reservoir with up to 2/3rd cup of water, screw on the bowl, drop in the steamer basket with food, and then put on the lid. If you're steaming a full basket of food and using the full 2/3rd cup of water, it will take about 20-25 minutes to steam. With less water the steaming takes less time, there is no steam timer the system just shuts off after it steams all of its water. To puree, you pull out the steamer basket (it has a nice handle to keep your hand clear from the steam), attach the blade, and dump the contents of the steamer basket into the bowl. Put on the lid and you're good to go. In our testing, we found everything very logical to figure out and use, from opening the box to getting something steaming only took about 20 minutes. So, this is definitely one of the easier to use baby food makers on our list. Once you figure out how much water to use, the steaming function worked pretty well, and the puree blade was plenty sharp to get things pureed quickly. We only tried the chopping/shredding blade once (to chop some steamed carrots), and it worked just fine, as well as any of the other ones on this list. I personally prefer just chopping with a knife at that point to have more control over sizes. When we were done steaming and pureeing, we threw it all in the top shelf of our dishwasher. This made cleaning a breeze. We did have some challenges cleaning some areas of the system, especially the reservoir where water is kept (we cleaned it with vinegar and a straw brush), and the channel that directs the steam through the bowl was basically impossible to clean. So that got a little nasty after a couple weeks of use. If you have hard water you will probably have a bigger problem, with scaling in the water reservoir and deposits in the steam channel. Probably harmless, but worth mentioning. Another more serious downfall with this baby food machine is that the blade isn't well secured into place during puree mode. Though it never happened to us, parents have told us that the blade can pop up and spin against the bowl, causing it to scratch or badly damage the insides of the bowl. Another parent said that one of the metal puree blades completely broke off, which sounds pretty scary. Again, it never happened to us in our testing, but it's worth mentioning. Overall, this is a pretty good baby food maker that is offered at a very good price point. Interested? You check out the Hamilton Beach Bebe here.
6. Babymoov Nutribaby Food Maker.best baby food maker babymoov singleThis unit does everything that the BEABA does for about $50 less expensive, but not quite as easily. With a dozen different parts that require two hands to assemble and use, it is a very involved product. It takes a bit of time to figure out, and it takes even more time since you have to manually dump steamed food into the food processor side. In our tests, we appreciated that it had two steam baskets that allowed us to steam fruits and veggies without mixing flavors. We liked the large capacity steaming area, holding over 6 cups of food, but thought that the baby food blender bowl could be a bit larger. It has a 2.5 cup capacity, which means that if you're steaming 3 cups of food in one layer of the steamer, you will need to mash the food down a bit into the blender to make it fit. We weren't really bothered by that, just wanted to point out that you can't steam a full 6 cups and blend it all at once. We also liked the little digital display that let us see the status. The other baby food makers involve a bit more guess work trying to figure out what is going on at any given time. Like the others, the parts contacting food are BPA free and dishwasher friendly. Overall, we thought this was a nice little unit once you get used to it. We also liked that it doesn't use the typical water reservoir which has been associated with scaling and some mildew/mold growth without proper cleaning. We found the steaming evenly done and the food processing quite powerful. While it had a lot of plusses, it's further down our list because it's a bit time consuming to learn, and there are a lot of parts to wash. We much prefer the one-handed operation of the BEABA and Cuisinart. Also, we found the baby food blender portion left a little to be desired, especially with smaller batches of food, which didn't blend very well: the larger the batch (up to 2.5 cups, which is still kind of small overall), the better it blended the food. But even with those small negatives this baby food maker does have some great things going for it, and we found it for about $100.
Safety 1st Sounds 'n Lights Discovery Walker
Usually about $50. This is a much more traditionally-styled baby walker with all the bells and whistles, including the bright colors and noisy toys. But it also includes the non-skid safety catches on the bottom to reduce the chances of rolling down the stairs, so it's a bit of an old-meets-new style baby walker. Out of the box, we thought that it folds down into a good-sized package that can slide right under a normal bed, so that was great for storage. Once it's popped up, it has 3 adjustable height settings to accommodate your growing baby. We did find that at the lowest setting it's most appropriate for babies who are probably around 10-months old or over like 28" height, otherwise they probably wont be able to reach the floor (note that it has a 31-pound weight limit). It's like this one is too high, but the Joovy option is too low. We've yet to find the perfect-height baby walker that also meets all the other criteria we care about. Anyway, back to our review. About the toys - it has a lot of them, some with music and lights, some with crinkle-noises, and some relatively simple cause-effect options. We'd like to be able to tell you what type of batteries these toys use, but we couldn't find that information anywhere and couldn't find a battery door anywhere on the walker! We didn't go through batteries after about 2 months of testing, but it's worth pointing out that we have no idea where they are hidden, what size they are, or if they are replaceable in the first place. Back to the positives. We liked that there were the toys, but they could also be swiveled out of the way (to the side) to expose two snack trays. They don't have washable trays, but they were good sizes for simple snacks. Speaking of washing, the seat cover is removable and machine washable, so that's a nice feature. So overall, we liked this activity walker, and it's worth inclusion on this list. It seemed durable, rolled well on hard floors and rugs, and our test babies seemed to really love the toys. But if the batteries die you're both out of luck! Strange. Note that Safety 1st also makes two additional baby walkers: first, the Safety 1st Ready Set Walk baby walker that is very similar to this one, and also doesn't have a replaceable battery. Second, the Safety 1st Disney Music and Lights baby walker, which is also very similar to this one but has super pink Disney styling and, wait for it, you can replace the batteries! Though assembly and battery replacement were both a major pain.
5. Bright Starts Walk-a-bout Baby Walker.best baby walker bright starts walk-a-bout
Usually about $45. This top-rated Bright Starts walker has a lot of great things going for it. Out of the box, just like all the other baby walkers, it was a bit of a pain to assemble. None of the baby activity walkers are easy to assemble, unless it's just a push walker (like the VTech or Cossy). But one of the things we loved after we assembled it is the tall seat back height, which was fantastic for supporting shoulders and heads of especially young babies. It was definitely a taller seat back than any other walker in this buying guide. Other than that, it is overall pretty similar to the Safety 1st baby walker models. It has 3 adjustable heights to support babies from about 6 to 12 months of age (or 15-26 pounds). In our tests, it worked just fine for even older babies, though we were probably pushing the weight limits a bit. We measured from the bottom of the seat to the floor and it was about 6" at the lowest height, and 9" at the highest height; so it's adjustable, but not really over a dramatic range. The bigger size restriction we bumped into was with babies with chubby thighs, since the leg holes are surprisingly narrow making it hard to move baby in and out of the seat. The activity center part of the walker was pretty cute: it's a little safari-themed steering wheel with music, sounds, and lights. One of the nice things is that it has adjustable volume control so you can make it low enough to entertain baby without giving mom a headache! One of the random things is that it has these somewhat pointy leaves on the sides, our test babies didn't hurt themselves or anything, but it seemed like a strange decision for Bright Starts. We also didn't think the seat was very comfy, made of very thin fabric, and though we thought it was nice to have the higher-back seat, it made it impossible for us to fold up and slide under our bed (it just didn't fold up small enough to do that). Anyway, this is a great overall baby activity walker with some good features, and an excellent price that might make up for some limitations. Oh, did we mention that you can replace the batteries!? It was a pain because you need to remove the toy entirely, but it's nice to have the possibility.
6. Cossy Classic Wooden Baby Walker.best baby walker cossy wooden
Usually about $75. We're suckers for super cute wooden toys that are well-constructed and durable, like the awesome line of wooden toys by Melissa and Doug and Hape. This Cossy baby walker is no exception. It's got bright primary colors, wooden construction, an adorable look, non-toxic paint, and good craftsmanship. When we pulled this out of the box, there was some minor assembly required, which took us about 5 minutes. Easy-peesy. There were several features that stood out to us, like the rubber trim on the wooden wheels to help protect your floors and prevent sideways sliding, and the adorable xylophone for making music. To be fair, the xylophone doesn't sound so great, but you need to remember it's just a toy! The wooden wheels don't have preset adjustments like the VTech, instead you can tighten or loosen the screws to make it easier or harder to push around. The height was great for a baby around 12-18 months of age, and we liked the little storage basket on the back where you can put the xylophone stick and the included wooden shape blocks that fit into slots on the side of the walker. The toys were overall well-executed and high quality, and kept babies busy for a good amount of time. On the side you can wind cars and a stop sign around on a road-like track, and on the front there are balls on rails that your baby will love sliding around. So overall this is a really adorable baby walker that has some fun toys and features while maintaining a style suitable for the more discerning parents out there! The only downfall we found with this walker was the wheels: it was hard to get them all to equal tightness, and then over time they would loosen and spin faster than you might desire. For handy parents this might not be an issue, as you could put on some teflon washers and use them to change the friction; but for most other parents it will prove a bit of a pain in the rear. So this is an excellent activity walker with only one detractor.
Some additional information:
The baby walker is a transitional development toy for supporting the transition from standing to walking, helping to get your baby confident and ready for independent walking. While there is no convincing scientific data that baby walkers help your baby learn to walk (in fact they might do the opposite), there is no denying that they are super fun activity centers that give you some control over their mobility. Baby walkers come in two primary styles: first is the classic sit-in walker that is half exersaucer, half walker. Second is the push-walker that baby can hold onto and push around the house, usually doubling as an activity walker on one side. Neither provide any reliable developmental advantage: they probably won't make your baby walk sooner or better, and definitely won't guarantee they are track stars when they grow up. Instead, think of them as entertainment for your baby until they learn to walk, just like a bounce bounce exersaucer, activity jumper, or activity center.
We don't want to freak you out, but the traditional sit-in roll-around baby walkers were pretty dangerous. So dangerous that Canada banned them a few years ago, and the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling for a similar ban in the USA. Babies in the classic type of walker could reach higher and more dangerous things around the house (they can roll right up and grab something off the counter!), roll down a staircase, or even roll into a pool. Babies move really fast in a walker, and one little mistake (like forgetting to close the basement door) can lead to disaster. So pay attention, and don't take your eyes off a baby in a walker; baby care is serious business. So take the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and don't accept an old second-hand walker from a cousin, be sure to buy a new one with modern safety features.
In the past few years, several improvements have been made to increase safety of sit-in baby walkers. Most mdels now include lower rails that (in theory) will catch on a stair edge and use friction to stop momentum before a disaster happens. Think of it like a super low-rider car: any little pot-hole and you will be scraping the bottom of your car when your tire drops into the hole. New baby walkers operate on the same principle, using bottom edge friction to bring slow the walker down and bring it to a stop when it drops off any ledge over about half an inch deep. So this reduces the risk of your baby careening down the stairs or off any ledge. One of the baby walkers we tested, the Delta Children Deluxe Lil Drive Baby Activity Walker, did not have the lower rails. Though the Lil Drive walker was a lot of fun and babies loved the race car walker styling, we didn't think it met our safety standards. Newer designs will also increase the width of the tray area surrounding the baby, making it harder for them to reach beyond the width of the walker pushing up against a kitchen counter (and also making it harder for them to pinch fingers when bumping into a wall or furniture). In fact, our best-rated baby walker does both of those things, and does them really well. Even though baby walkers are safer than ever before, please be sure that your house is baby-proofed before you let your baby loose in a new walker! If you're interested in an exersaucer that doesn't roll around, you can see our reviews of those here!
Regarding our test procedures, we had 4 babies give each walker a try in their own homes. The test babies ranged in age from 7 to 22 months, and the households varied quite a bit - some had all hardwood, some wall-to-wall carpet, and some with a mix. We unboxed and assembled each model, and then turned them over to the parents. Parents reported back to us about each product they tested, giving us honest feedback about the performance of each. And they were really honest! After we got them back from the parents, we tested them out ourselves and tried to confirm or disconfirm all of the positives and negatives reported by the parents. Then, we compiled parents' reviews with our own and put together a ranked set of the best walkers. Note that 6 of the walkers we tested are not on this list: one came broken out of the box, a couple broke a random part during use, and a few more received overall poor reviews and were not worth including here. Regarding the stairs test, we only subjected the Joovy and Safety 1st models to that test. It made us really nervous when we tried it, but it was worth it for our peace of mind. Overall we found that the Joovy performed a bit better than the Safety 1st in the edge-of-stairs test, presumably due to the configuration of the Joovy base and its nice anti-slip surface on the bottom rails. Of course it's just one test and your situation might differ, so always watch your baby carefully and make sure your home is safe before using any baby walker. The top rated baby walkers on our list can get pretty expensive. If you're not willing to max out your credit cards on a fancy walker, and you can't find any random gift cards left over from your baby shower, then there are some excellent cheap options like the VTech Sit to Stand. Just like with all of our articles, as we receive and test additional baby gear, we will continue to update this list throughout the year. We hope all of our hard work pays off, and helps you find the perfect baby walker for your situation!
