How do meat grinders work?

A meat grinder works by using a rotating screw to push meat against a spinning blade that cuts it as it is forced through the holes of a perforated metal plate, producing ground meat. You feed chunks of meat into a hopper and down into the grinder’s body, where a turning auger (a screw-shaped shaft) carries the meat forward and compresses it toward the front, pressing it against a cutting blade that spins against a fixed plate with holes in it. As the blade turns across the plate, it slices the meat, and the pressure pushes the cut meat out through the holes as strands of ground meat, with the size of the holes in the plate determining how coarse or fine the grind is. Whether hand-cranked or motor-driven, this is the same basic mechanism, screw, blade and plate, that every meat grinder uses to turn chunks of meat into mince. Our Best Meat Grinders compares five of them.

The main parts

A meat grinder has a few key parts that work together. There is a hopper or tray at the top where you load the meat, leading into the grinder body (a tube). Inside the body is the auger (also called the screw or worm), a spiral shaft that turns to move the meat forward. At the front is the cutting assembly: a blade (a cross-shaped or four-point knife) that spins, and behind it a grinding plate (a round metal disc with holes), held in place by a ring that screws onto the front. A handle (on a manual grinder) or a motor (on an electric one) drives the auger.

Each part has a role: the hopper and body hold and guide the meat, the auger moves and compresses it, the blade cuts it, and the plate both backs the blade and shapes the output through its holes. Understanding these parts, screw, blade, plate, ring, driven by hand or motor, is the key to understanding how the grinder works, because grinding is simply the meat passing through this sequence: in at the top, forward by the screw, cut by the blade against the plate, and out through the holes as grounds. The whole mechanism is designed to feed, cut and extrude the meat in one continuous action.

The grinding action step by step

Step by step, grinding works like this. You cut the meat into chunks small enough to fit the hopper and feed them in (using a pusher, not your fingers, to guide them down). The turning auger catches the meat and conveys it forward along the body, compressing it as the space narrows toward the front. At the front, the meat is pressed against the spinning blade, which sits just in front of the grinding plate.

The blade, rotating against the stationary plate, slices the meat into small pieces, and the continued pressure from the auger forces those pieces out through the holes in the plate, where they emerge as strands of ground meat that you collect. This happens continuously as you keep feeding meat and turning the handle or running the motor, so a steady stream of mince comes out. The blade and plate must sit snugly together (held by the ring) for clean cutting, if they are loose or dull, the meat smears rather than cutting cleanly. So the action is a continuous feed-compress-cut-extrude cycle, driven by the auger, with the blade-and-plate pair doing the actual grinding.

Plates, coarseness and the blade

The grinding plate is what sets the texture of the ground meat, because the meat is shaped by being forced through its holes. A plate with larger holes produces a coarser grind (bigger strands), while a plate with smaller holes produces a finer grind, so most grinders come with two or more plates of different hole sizes, and you choose the plate for the coarseness you want, coarse for chili or sausage, fine for burgers or pate, for example. Swapping the plate is how you control the grind, and you can grind twice (coarse then fine) for a finer result.

The blade works together with the plate: it must be sharp and seated correctly against the plate so it cuts the meat cleanly right at the plate’s surface before the meat is pushed through the holes. A sharp blade and a matching plate, held firmly by the ring, give clean, efficient grinding, whereas a dull blade or a gap between blade and plate causes the meat to be crushed and smeared, producing a mushy, poor grind and clogging. So the plate (via hole size) determines the grind’s coarseness and the blade (sharp and snug against the plate) does the cutting, and together they are the heart of how the grinder turns meat into properly ground meat of the texture you want.

Manual vs electric, and using one

Meat grinders are either manual or electric, but the grinding mechanism is the same, only the power source differs. A manual grinder has a handle you crank to turn the auger, and often clamps to a table; an electric grinder has a motor that drives the auger, letting you grind faster and in larger quantities with less effort. Some stand mixers also have grinder attachments that use the mixer’s motor. In every case, the auger-blade-plate system does the work, so understanding one explains them all.

To use a grinder, you assemble it (auger in the body, then blade, then plate, secured by the ring, making sure the blade faces the right way against the plate), fit it with the plate for your desired coarseness, feed in chilled meat cut to size using the pusher, and crank or run the motor to produce the grounds. Keeping the meat (and ideally the parts) cold helps it cut cleanly rather than smear, and a sharp blade and correct assembly are essential for good results. Afterward it is taken apart and cleaned. So a meat grinder works by this simple, effective mechanism of screw, blade and plate, whether driven by hand or motor, turning chunks of meat into ground meat of a chosen texture.

The short answer

A meat grinder works by using a rotating screw (the auger) to push meat against a spinning blade that cuts it as it is forced through the holes of a perforated plate, producing ground meat. You feed chunks of meat into the hopper and down into the body, where the turning auger carries them forward and compresses them toward the front, pressing them against the blade, which spins against a fixed grinding plate. The blade slices the meat and the auger’s pressure forces the pieces out through the plate’s holes as strands of mince, continuously as you keep feeding and cranking or running the motor. The size of the plate’s holes sets the coarseness, larger holes for a coarse grind, smaller for fine, so you swap plates to choose the texture, and the blade must be sharp and seated snugly against the plate (held by the ring) for clean cutting rather than smearing. Manual grinders use a hand crank and electric ones a motor, but the auger-blade-plate mechanism is identical. Keeping the meat cold and the blade sharp gives the best grind.