For the juiciest burgers, tastiest meatballs, or most flavorful sausages, there’s nothing like grinding your own meat. It’s like unlocking a secret flavor vault where you can mix and match different cuts and fat ratios to create blends that are uniquely yours. We’ve spent hours in the kitchen testing out a variety of grinders, from the hand-cranked ones to the big, heavy-duty machines made for serious meat lovers. Our top pick for most folks? The STX 3000 Turboforce. It’s a beast in the kitchen, handling everything you throw at it with ease.
But if you’re really serious about your home meat processing game, the LEM Big Bite might be more your speed. Don’t worry, though there are plenty of other great options out there, no matter your budget. So, let’s dive in and find the perfect meat grinder for you!
Best Meat Grinders
The STX-3000 grinder is a heavy-duty household machine that can bring a total of 1,200W to bear on any type of meat you feed into its funnel. You can grind up to 360 pounds of well-trimmed meat per hour, which is plenty enough for most people.
The advanced variable intake technology, or AVI, allows the grinder to safely and quickly accept large quantities of meat in short time spans. The grinder is a solid choice when you need to grind a lot of meat for a lot of people in a short time span
Even if you only want to grind a few pounds, it’s nice to be able to get it done quickly without your machine getting stopped up like some cheaper grinders are known to do.
Pros:
Excellent attachments: This grinder comes with a meat pusher attachment. This is really handy for getting larger amounts of meat into the funnel for grinding without getting your hands dirty. There’s also a Kubbe/Kibbe-making attachment, as well as three different sized sausage stuffing tubes.
Industrial construction quality: Internal components are made of either polished aluminum or stainless steel.
Speed selection/circuit breaker: Offers high and low speed settings. The addition of a circuit breaker makes this grinder a safer model to use than many other, cheaper kinds.
Can take a lot of food: This grinder features AVI or Advanced Variable Intake technology which allows for large quantities of meat in short periods.
Cons:
Loud: There’s no way around it; STX3000 is loud.
Auger pressure: Auger does not provide a perfectly tight seal, which can make filling sausage casing a bit of a challenge.
Struggles with larger cuts: The motor can stall when processing larger chunks of meat so for best results, you should cut up your meat beforehand.
LEM is big in the meat and game processing market, and their products reflect that Out of all the modes tested the LEM is the most capable, grinding through pounds of meat fast and efficiently.
The LEM Big Bite electric meat grinder has several motors to choose from. You can pick between 0.35 and 1.5 Hp depending on how much meat you plan on grinding. The higher horsepower motors allow for truly fantastic speed and capacity.
This is a great choice for hunters who need to process a lot of raw meat, or if you need to make your own dog food. It doesn’t slow down even with large chunks of meat or if you have some silverskin left untrimmed.
Pros:
- Excellent speed and capacity: The motor, rifling pattern in the head and extender auger all combine to churn meat through the grinder at a phenomenal rate.
- Grind strength: The LEM Big Bite handled any sinew and leftover silverskin that was left on the meat untrimmed without skipping a beat. Whereas other grinders start to slog at the blade, the Bit Bite cuts right through.
- Quiet when in use: With such a high-powered machine, you’d expect it to be relatively loud. But this grinder is relatively quiet and isn’t likely to disturb you once you’ve gotten used to the mild humming.
Cons:
- Expensive: This electric grinder is quite expensive compared to all of the other options we’ve reviewed. While it has an excellent motor and works amazingly well, it’s probably only worth it if you need to grind a lot of meat.
The ALTRA electric grinder is more affordable than many other electric models we’ve tested.
In fact, it’s closer in price to a manual grinder. Despite that fact, it remains a reliable low-volume meat grinder.
The electric motor can go up to 350W. Included with the purchase are two cutting blades, one sausage tube, a food pusher, and 2 Kibbeh attachments. These are used to simplify the preparation of Kibbeh, which is spiced lamb packed inside a wheat shell.
You also get three different cutting plates for varying consistencies or textures. These are roughly equivalent to coarse, medium or fine grinding.
Pros:
- Easy to disassemble for quick cleaning: Thankfully, this grinder is easy to take apart so that you can clean each major piece individually. Putting everything back together is easy as well. To make things even more convenient, all of the blades, plates and other meat-touching parts can be thrown in the dishwasher.
- Good durability: Most of the grinder is made from high-quality materials such as stainless steel or aluminum alloy. The fact that it comes with a reverse switch should allow you to clean it more easily as well.
- Storage box: The grinder comes with a concealed storage box that you can use to store all of the parts you aren’t using. You can also store any other accessories that you frequently use with your meat grinder.
- Affordable: Compared to many other electric meat grinders, this model is very affordable.
Cons:
- Loading tray and pushing handle are weak: The loading tray for pushing meat into the actual grinding mechanism is a little short and flimsy. It can feel unstable when you’re trying to feed meat into the machine. You’ll have to go a little slower to ensure that everything works properly. In addition, the pushing handle is made of a thin plastic cylinder that isn’t quite tough enough to push meat with any real force. Using another tool or implement is recommended if you need to add some extra force.
- Gets bogged down easily: If you overload the auger or pack down a bunch of meat with the stomper, the engine bogs down and it doesn’t grind effectively.
If you do a lot of meat processing and like full control of sourcing and handling your food, then consider the grinders from Meat! Your Maker.
The .5HP grinder comes with both coarse and fine stainless steel grinding plates and a stainless steel stuffing plate with three stuffing tubes for sausage. Underneath the unit is an accessory drawer for easy organization.
The .5HP grinder is priced accurately if you process the majority of your own meat throughout the seasons, but can be overkill if you only grind casually a few times a year. Meat! also offers a dialed back 500W grinder for slightly less, and 1.5HP grinder if you plan to process massive amounts of meat regularly.
Pros:
- High Quality: The Meat! Grinder is a premium product that not only performs at a high level, but is also very well built.
- As fast as advertised: Meat! claims that the .5HP grinder can go through roughly 5.5 pounds of meat per minute, and my tests confirmed that capability. This thing is for bulk processing over the long haul.
- Quiet Power: The Meat! .5HP grinder was very quiet in comparison to the lower powered grinders we tested. The engine noise never flared up due to too much meat intake or clogged plate.
Cons:
- Demand: I suppose if I have to get nitpicky, it’s that demand is exceeding supply. Some products have a longer lead time due to low stock. That’s a testament to the quality of the products.
The LEM Products #10 manual grinder is a better choice for occasional or experimental grinding.
It’s much more affordable than electric models but is still built to last.
It boasts a heavy-duty stainless steel construction that makes it both easy to clean and resistant to rust damage.
It comes with a coarse 3/8″ and fine 3/16″ steel plates plus stainless steel knife and three different stuffing tubes, as well as a stuffing star. This helps you get meat through the grinder and onto your plate faster.
The handle turns very smoothly, which helps reduce the muscle fatigue you’ll feel as you grind your meat into the consistency you desire.
Pros:
- Stainless Steel Everywhere: All of it is made with stainless steel: the plates, the outside, the handle. Only the very edge of the handle, where your hand grips it to crank, is made of wood. This ensures that it’ll last for quite some time. It also lets you store it practically anywhere without having to worry about its function or durability degrading. The grinding plates and holes themselves will remain sharp, so your meat can be ground just as well in a few years as when you just bought it.
- Wide Mounting Clamp: The grinder uses a mounting clamp that’s been sized for wide surfaces. This allows you to place the grinder on most countertops or tables so you can maintain stability while you turn the crank.
- Good Accessories: The grinder comes with two choices of stainless steel plates, coarse or fine. It also has a stainless steel knife, three stuffing tubes, and a stuffing star. All of these are included despite the low asking price. This is fantastic value for money; you get a lot of value and functionality in this manual grinder.
Cons:
- Clamp Isn’t Deep: While the mounting clamp is fairly wide, especially compared to other manual meat grinders, it’s not very deep. This limits the kinds of services you can safely mount this unit on since the table or countertop needs to be thin enough to be secured.