A blender is typically built with features that make them work best with a lot of liquid, like soups, purees, smoothies and more. They are a necessary tool for your kitchen to make any exquisite cuisine. Blended foods like smoothies are packed with fibres, and it doesn’t make your blood sugar level spike. Besides, the high-end blender can also handle thicker food items, such as butter and dough.
What is a blender?
Some of you might not know that a blender in British English is called a Liquidiser! It is called a liquidiser because it is used to emulsify, mix and purée food into a liquid form.
A basic blender would consist of a blender jar which also doubles up as a collecting jar, at the bottom. At the bottom jar will be a powerful rotating metal blade, connecting to a handle to the top where all the controlling buttons are. The rotating blades when activated would swirl, cut and whip the food contained in the jar.
Why do you need a blender?
You could have a blender in your home already for many years and it could be outdated by now. Many years ago these appliances could only make milkshakes, smoothies and some mixtures but the latest blender can do lots more, such as piping-hot soups. From frozen treats to mixing batters, you’ll find some use to it. A healthy lifestyle, that’s most of us are striving for, a blender will provide you with all the opportunities a way to create exciting, tasty and healthy foods without the hassle and effortlessly.
Benefits of what a blender can do for you
1) Blending saves time
A juicer can make a concentrated liquid from vegetables and fruits. But the preparation and especially the clean up makes people put off. Unlike a juicer, a blender is super easy to use. Just add all the ingredients to the blender’s cup or jar and let it take a bit of whirl and within seconds you can have a jugful of goodies and there’s no wastage at all. Whereas in the juicer, after extraction of the ingredients, the pulp is considered waste and is thrown away.
Just throw the fruit or vegetables into a blender, add the amount of water and in a matter of seconds, you can enjoy healthy smoothies or fruit juices. It’s fast and convenient, you don’t need to be an expert.
Blending Superfoods
You can blend chlorella, cacao, maca, cocoa, mushroom powders, spirulina and blue algae too. These superfoods are extremely easy to make nutrients supplement for your diet.
Easy cleaning
Cleaning up the blenders are easy, you’ve got only the jug to wash and the motor blades to flush it with water.
2) Nothing is wasted when you blend
Everything is left intact when you blend. Unlike a juicer machine which extracts only the juice from fruits and vegetables, a blender would retain all the nutrients of the ingredients by retaining the pulp. In the case of the juicer machine, the pulp is usually discarded as waste.
The fibre content in food is intact
A quality blender machine will not destroy the fibre found in vegetables and fruits instead, it breaks down all the fibre and blends together with all the other nutrients. A daily healthy food intakes need fibre content to help in our digestion system. It helps in regulating your blood pressure and lowers the risk of several chronic diseases.
This way, the food that you blended will not consume in parts but wholly, making it a holistic meal.
3) Blended food prevents hunger pangs
You know that fibre gives you fullness after a meal. People on a diet to lose weight shall consume food which contains fibre. This fibre will suppress the urge to have pre-meals then you’ll eat considerably less in your next meal. That is why blended smoothies are very filling and nutritious at the same time.
4) Adding More Ingredients At Once
You can make your food more healthy, as with any type of blender, and add any ingredients to make the drink more tasty and nutritious. Dried fruits, milk, herbs, syrups, yoghurt, and spices can be added.
Non-juice ingredients like spinach, papayas, avocados, and bananas, which are difficult in a juicer machine, can be blended. For toddlers who are very picky in their eating habits, parents sometimes use to blend the food in order to mask its flavour.
5) Watch your calories
If you are looking for a way to lose weight, blended milkshakes and smoothies are great for those who are calorie-conscious. The smoothie’s diet with plenty of vegetables and fruits is essentially a form of a healthy diet and is low in calories. With a smoothie diet, you don’t have to be wary about counting your calorie every time you sit down for a meal.
6) Grind beans and nuts
A blender can double up as a food processor, that is if you don’t have one. You can grind the nuts to your desired size according to how crunchy you wanted to be. Coffee beans can be ground just like a coffee maker. Learn more
Grind coffee too
Just like a coffee grinder, a blender could also grind coffee beans. Make sure you check out the User’s Manual to ensure there will be no overheating occurring as you’re going to “blend” it in top speed for a few seconds. Depending on the texture of the coffee required to make an espresso or a drip coffee, you’ll have to blend a few more times or less to have the finesses and coarseness you desired.
7) Making hot soup
You never knew your blender could make soup? Hot piping that is. But you got to invest in a good blender – A Vitamix blender. If you like vegetable soup, add in all your chopped ingredients plus your favourite flavour soup stock. Don’t forget to add a considerable amount of water and you are set to go. Let the first few grinds to let the ingredients settle down the jar a bit and then hit the button for about a few minutes until you can feel the warmth in the jar.
Heat by friction
The Vitamix blender makes use of the friction of the rotating blades to heat up the ingredients. There are no heating elements involved in the heating. There you have a hot and nutritious home-cooked soup all done in a matter of minutes. No need to transfer it to another pot for heating it up and it is all ready to be served.
Great for your children who are in college and who like to cook a quick and nutritious soup, but don’t have a lot of kitchen utensils in the dormitory. Working mum will find it time-saving and at the same time cook a decent soup for the family after a day’s work. Vitamix Ascent Variable Speed Blender Black (A2300) Shop at Walmart
Three program settings (for smoothies, hot soups, and frozen desserts) automatically adjust to the container size you’ve selected, process your recipes, and stop the blender when complete.
8) Frozen Desserts within seconds
If it is hot outside and you’re seeking for something cold and refreshing to cool you down. You can use a Vitamix blender to make yourself frozen treats just as delicious as you’ll find in any fine restaurant in 30 seconds. Vitamix 5200 Blender Super Package Red Shop at Walmart
Our responsive controls create a full range of textures, from chunky salsas to more than 5x smoother smoothies, letting you adjust each blend to your own taste buds.
Speedy treats
You may like frozen yoghurt with strawberry dessert. Put in your frozen yoghurt and some frozen strawberries in the blender. You can add in some sweeteners of your choice if you prefer a little extra flavour. Start on the lowest speed and quickly increase to top speed and use a tamper to push and guide the ingredients into the rotating blades until all the ingredients are fully mixed. You’ll know when it’s ready when you see four mounds form at the top of the mixture.
9) Mix Batters and Dough
You can make and enjoy pizza in the comfort of your home. Making your own pizza cannot be easier if you invest in a good quality blender – a Ninja Ultra Prep Food Blender. It has a specially designed dough blade which runs at a specific speed to ensure your dough is thoroughly kneaded and mixed. Ninja Precision Processor with Auto-Spiralizer – Red (NN310R) Shop at Walmart
Dough blade – Use to create homemade dough for pizza, cookies, pies, and more.
Dough-simple
Activate a packet of yeast in warm water with sugar. Then add the dry ingredients together with cooking oil and after adding in the rest of the wet ingredients, you can flip to start the blender. You will know that your dough is ready when it forms a simple dough ball.
This simple recipe can be the base for making pizza very quickly without having to sweat and get your hands dirtied. Just remember to turn to the dough disc setting before you start your blender.
10) Smooth Purées
A purée is cooked food, usually, fruits and vegetables that have been pressed, and blended into a creamy paste. Pureed food is smoother and it needs very little or no chewing at all. They are basically food that is sieved.
If you’re making a tomato puree why not invest in a high performer, the Ninja Auto-IQ Total Boost Kitchen Nutri Blender System? Ninja Kitchen System with Auto-iQ Boost Shop at Walmart
Includes a 40 oz. Blend & Prep Bowl with precision processing for even chopping, smooth purees, and perfect dough consistencies
11) Create a Cocktail
You will be surprised to know that a blender can make frozen cocktail drinks. Normally, we see a bartender make cocktails with a bit of acrobatic juggling of a jar and a bottle of spirits in mid-air in nerve-wracking precision. Well, you don’t need to acquire such skills in order to make your homemade cocktail drinks.
If you making a fruit cocktail, simply chop some fruits and put it in the blender. You can add anything, such as coconut juice or milk or any type of sweetener to enhance the flavours. Next, you add your favourite spirits and crush ice and blend it for several seconds.
You can start out with an equal amount of crushed ice and liquid, but you balance off later to add in more ice or fruits to achieve a richer and thicker consistency. If you want to dilute it simply add more coconut water. Ninja Performance 1000-Watt Blender – BL710WM Shop at Walmart
Ninja® Total Crushing® Blades gives you true ice-to-snow crushing, blending, pureeing, and controlled processing.
Homemade tomatoes purée
Homemade tomato puree is not that hard to make. If tomatoes are easily available why not use fresh ones? To make tomato puree, cut off the stem and cut across at the bottom. Boil them for 3 or 4 mins, then remove them and soak them in ice water. Remove the skins, puree the tomatoes in a blender, and strain out the seeds.
Other common purées include plums, apples and other fruits smashed for their juices. Vegetables are often served as purées such as carrots, peas, pumpkin, pineapples and avocado. Hamilton Beach Smoothie Electric Blender with 10 Speeds, 56 oz. BPA Shop at Walmart
The Wave~Action System has a unique container and blade system which is designed to continually force the mixture down into the blades for perfectly smooth results every time.
Different Types of Blenders
Blenders are not for blending anymore. There is an abundance of blenders out there, each has its own specialities functionalities and, most importantly, it caters to what the consumers want it for.
They perform a vast variety of functions which includes grinding, chopping, dicing, mixing, crushing ice, juicing, making soups and much more. Most blenders can perform more or a combination of these functions. It’s important to understand the blender’s strength before making a purchase. Blendtec Classic 575 Blender Shop at Walmart
No chopping prep: save time and never a need to chop, slice or dice in advance of blending.
1) Hand Blender
The portable hand blender, by far, this simple kitchen tool, is the most easier to use among all the other blenders. Better known as the “stick” or “immersion” blenders, there is a long handle on one end, where all the controls are located, and rotating blades at the other end. The base, mostly is bell-shaped, with internal ribbing to reduce the suction for efficient blending and control. Ovente Multi Purpose Immersion Hand Blender Set 500 Watts with 6 Speeds Shop at Walmart
STRONG BLENDING POWER – Equipped with a high-speed 500-watt motor that can quickly and seamlessly blend ingredients together to make delicious and healthy smoothies, pureed soups, marinades, sauces, and juices.
Cuisinart Smart Stick Variable Speed Cordless Hand Blender With Electric Shop at Walmart
Blend, whip, chop, whisk, and now carve with the powerful Cuisinart Smart Stick Variable Speed Cordless Rechargeable Hand Blender with Electric Knife.
Rather than lug out your full-sized blender to purée a little bit of sauce, the hand blender is equally good at doing the job well without the hassle.
They are used for blending liquids such as hot soup and smoothies and small-sized fruits. Higher-priced ones come with multiple attachments for blending different varieties of food and ingredients.
The handle of the multi-attachment blender bear similarities to the single-attachment hand blender, but it offers different speed mode and parts. That’s why they’re best suited for food chopping and whisking. This is the must-have blender for baking or making sauces. breville bsb530xl the all in one processing station Shop at Walmart
The breville bsb530xl all an one processing station with a control grip. smooth blending. variable mashing. even chopping. adjustable slicing. how do you control the blend, mash, chop & slice all in one station
Chord vs Chordless
Moving it around a crowded kitchen would be convenient if you have a cordless one. On the other hand, having a chord has its advantages in that the blender need not be charged. You don’t have to worry about remembering to charge its batteries every time you require to use it.
Fit the cup
Some hand blenders come with rotating blades that fit nicely to the cup. This makes it very easy to blend eggs for scrambled eggs, make smoothies, soup or sauces and make whipped cream without spilling. Pastry chefs would love these gadgets and they find them very handy when they blend a small number of ingredients.
Ever wonder, this gadget besides its simplicity to use, they are also easy to clean after use. Simply blend it in hot soapy water in the sink, dried it and store it away for use again. Due to its compactness, a hand blender doesn’t take much up storage space.
2) Single-Serve Blender
Unlike the handheld blender, the single-serve blender has a lid that can be screwed to the blender cup itself. Smaller than the regular blender, you may use it to make quick chopping of vegetables and grind beans and nuts to prepare for your cooking. It whips up smoothies and frappes too. Hamilton Beach Single-Serve Blender with Travel Lid Model# 51101B Shop at Walmart
Blend & drink from the jar
Drink from the cup
After blending your favourite drink, you can drink straight out of the blending cup. Tighten up the lid and you can bring it along with you all day long. Great for making smoothies for a single cup.
3) Full-Sized Blender
Probably when you’re shopping for a blender, the first one that comes to mind is the full-sized blender or it is known as Countertop blenders. Not surprisingly, these are common sizes that everyone would use in their home. The full-sized blender has a powerful base that houses the motor and the blades where the pitcher sits.
They are bulkier and heavier and they remain in a stationary position. All your ingredients are dropped in the jar and the machine takes over the chopping, grinding and pureeing. They not only blend liquids and softer foods but they can handle harder ones like harder vegetables and ice. BLACK+DECKER Countertop Blender with 5-Cup Glass Jar, Black, BL2010BG Shop at Walmart
10 Speed Settings with Pulse – Find the right consistency for everything you make with a range of blending speeds and a 550-watt motor.
More Powerful
The bigger model comes in a larger cup to provide a larger capacity and more powerful blending power that can handle most types of applications. Large simple knobs and buttons for easy controls, with different levels and easy-to-navigate setup processes.
Most full-sized blender comes with a permanent blade at the bottom of the jar or may have the option to change blades for different blending.
Special blending functionality
It’s important to make buy the right choice of blender that you need. Different types of preparation of ingredients for cooking required different blending requirements. Making soup requires a certain special blender just as kneading dough requires some special functionality.
Cleaning doesn’t come easily unless you’d have removable blades. The huge jar coupled with the residue sticking to the blades makes cleaning difficult.
4) Chef Blender
Certainly, it’s a dream machine for all chefs because, with its extra power and a slightly larger make, this makes them the preferred choice, if power and efficiency are what they are looking for. A good chef works with precision and accuracy in their cooking and the “speciality” blenders help them to craft their masterpiece. Their demanding high standards in the preparation of food require nothing less than a good performer in a blender.
More operations mode
Its jar, which is larger than a typical household full-sized blender is a boon to a chef who has to blend a large amount of stuff. A chef blender usually has several more levels and blending modes to handle more kinds of operations. In a restaurant, a chef needs to blend ingredients in large amounts and the larger jar and powerful machine ensure everything that’s inside the jar is blended completely quickly.
Self-clean
Cleaning up the large blender shouldn’t be a problem but cleaning behind the blades to clean the residual stuck into it takes a bit of scrubbing. But some have the functionality to self-clean themselves.
5) Heavy Duty Blender
Some use a 3-HP motor and a multi-blade configuration for wet and dried ingredients with variable muti-speeds. With its powerful motor and speed control, it can blend almost anything. This heavy-duty blender is perfect for restaurants, hotels, cafes, bars, spas and coffee shops where ingredients are blended in large quantities and speedily. Blendtec Commercial STEALTH 885 Blender – With Two FourSide Jars Shop at Walmart
CUSTOMIZABLE PREPROGRAMMED CYCLES: comes equipped with 42 preprogrammed cycles and unlimited customized blend cycles using the online BlendWizard
Quiet Operations
Where everything is focused on a relaxing, customer-friendly experience, not surprising these machines are made with the same materials used in aircraft windshields and fighter jet canopies, to reduce blender noise. They are made from high-quality materials and they come with a higher price tag than expected.
Shop one that has advanced self-cleaning technology that makes cleaning much easier for you.
Briefs on the Best Blenders Of Various Functionalities At Your Finger Tip:
Best Blender
- Vitamix Professional Series 750 Blender, Professional-Grade Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Automated Blending: Five pre-programmed settings ensure simple cleaning, walk-away convenience, and consistent results for smoothie, frozen dessert, soup, and purée recipes.
- You’re in Control: Variable Speed Control and Pulse feature let you manually fine-tune the texture of any recipe; Cord: 6 ft
Ninja’s Best
2) Ninja Mega Kitchen System (BL770) Blender Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Crushing Power: 72 oz Total crushing pitcher pulverizes ice to snow in seconds for creamy frozen drinks and smoothies 2 Horsepower
- Dough Perfect: 8 Cup food processor bowl provides perfect, even chopping and makes up to 2 lbs Of dough in 30 seconds
- Takeaway: Two 16 oz Nutri Ninja cups with to-go lids are perfect for creating personalized, nutrient-rich drinks to take on the go
Best Small Blender Category
3) NutriBullet NBR-1201 12-Piece High-Speed Blender/Mixer System Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Health Train: The Nutribullet is the fastest, easiest solution for making nutrient-packed smoothies. Load it up with your favourite whole foods like nuts, berries and spinach, then push, twist and blend your way to a healthier lifestyle.
- Extraction in Seconds: Powerful 600-watt motor and refined nutrient-extraction blades blend whole foods into liquid fuel for your body – in seconds.
Valued for Money
4) Ninja Professional Countertop Blender with 1100-Watt Base Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Single-Serve: Ninja Professional Blender with Nutri Ninja Cups has 1100 watts of professional performance power with 3 speeds, pulse, and single-serve functions
- Frozen Treats: 72 oz Total Crushing Pitcher pulverizes ice to snow in seconds for creamy frozen drinks and smoothies
Hand Blender Winner
5) KOIOS Powerful 800W 4-in-1 Hand Immersion Blender 12 Speeds Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Powerful: High-torque power hand blender shaft with a powerful 800W motor
- Speed: Featuring 12-speed blending settings and a pulse function for intermittent bursts, its sleek and compact design means it takes up less space on your counter than a hand mixer
Budget Blender Winner
6) Ninja BL456 Blenders – Countertop Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Nutritious Delight: 900 watts of professional power breaks down fruits and vegetables for nutritious juices and smoothies
- Extraction Ninja; The Nutri Ninja Pro provides you with powerful Nutrient & Vitamin Extraction performance to extract hidden nutrition from whole fruits and veggies
Best Professional-Grade
7) Vitamix 7500 Blender, Professional-Grade, 64 oz. Low-Profile Container Source: Amazon
Key features:
- Variable Speed Control: Ten variable speeds allow you to refine every texture with culinary precision, from the smoothest purées to the heartiest soups
- Pulse Feature: Layer coarse chops over smooth purées for heartier recipes, such as chunky salsas or thick vegetable soups. Electrical Ratings- 120 V, 50/60 Hz, 12 Amps
- Low-Profile 64-ounce Container: Perfect for family meals and entertaining, while fitting comfortably under most kitchen cabinets. Cord: 6 feet. Radial cooling fan and thermal protection system
Is a blender right for you?
So, do I need a blender? If so, which one is right for me? It is important to ask yourself these questions before you go out there and purchase one:
- What do you want it for?
- Do you have space in the kitchen for one?
- Have you got a budget for it?
If you just want smoothies or milkshakes for breakfast, the countertop or the immersion blenders would do the job equally well. If you are likely to widen your skills and creativity in cooking, it could be worth investing in a more sophisticated blender.
Have you had fun with your new blender?
The opinions expressed in this content are those of the publisher, not Amazon.
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