If we could only keep one kitchen appliance, our choice would be a blender. From smoothies to the tastiest hummus, a blender does it all. An alternative to a blender is a pestle and mortar, but of course no one is waiting for that these days. This article covers everything you need to know about blenders: how they work, what types of blenders there are and what you can do with them.
Are you looking for a new blender, but don’t know which one yet? Make use of our handy TOP-10 of the best blenders of 2023.
What is a blender?
A blender is used for grinding/blending soft and hard ingredients. The kitchen appliance is used for blending and pureeing and is therefore also called a chopper. Thus, a blender is very popular for making a smoothie, as well as for sauces, soups and crushing ice cubes.
For readers confused with a smoothie and a juice. A smoothie is made with a blender and is a mixture of liquid, frozen fruits and/or vegetables. A juice involves extracting all the liquid from fruits and vegetables, for which you use a juicer or slow juicer.
Types of blenders
- Normal blender or smoothie maker
- Power Blender: these are powerful blenders with a high speed per minute. A better option for smoothie bowls.
- Professional Blender: suitable for catering and frequent use.
- Blender-to-go: the mixing cup can be used as a drinking cup. Handy when you drink your smoothie on the way to work, for example.
- Vacuum blender: a vacuum blender extracts all the air (and thus oxygen) from the blender cup.
- Soup maker: do you use the blender mainly for making homemade soup? Then choose a soup maker, which blends the ingredients but also brings your soup up to temperature.
- Smart blender: a smart blender that you can control via a smartphone app.
Also read: what is a vacuum blender?
How does a blender work?
Using a blender is very simple. You fill the mixing cup with the (fresh) ingredients, put the lid on and press the start button. Most blenders have different speeds to choose from. Blenders are available with the following functions:
- Turbo function: this is often the strength setting. Useful when you need a lot of power for a smoothie bowl, for example. You will often find a turbo function on power blenders.
- Pulse function: this allows you to use the maximum speed of the blender as long as you hold down the (rotary) knob. This is useful when you need short pulses at high speeds.
- Ice crusher function: this function is useful when you want to blend ice cubes or frozen fruit.
Also read: a suitable blender for frozen fruit and ice cubes.
The pros and cons of a blender
As with any kitchen appliance, it has pros and cons. What are the pros and cons of a blender?
Pros:
- Time-saving: quick preparation and easy to clean.
- Healthy: homemade food is always healthier and fresher. It also preserves fiber, something that is not the case with a juicer.
- Very versatile: as you have read above
- Affordable: you already buy a blender for a few tens of dollars
Cons:
- Noisy: a blender makes quite a lot of noise especially when you put hard ingredients in it.
- Space: a blender takes up space. Fortunately, smaller blenders are also available.
Also read: 8 benefits of a blender: why you should buy one.
What can you do with a blender?
Most people think of a blender as a smoothie maker, but it’s much more than that. For example, you can use a blender for:
- Soups: if you use a blender only for soups, choose a soup maker.
- Milkshakes or smoothies: a good blender will grind fresh ingredients and frozen fruit within a short time.
- Sauces: think hummus, pesto, tomato sauce
- Vegetable milk: grind nuts or oatmeal with water and you have a vegetable milk.
- Cocktails: opt for a blender with an ice crush function
- Dressings: perfect for salad dressings.
- Desserts: think batter for cakes, as well as frozen desserts.
- Baby food
A blender invites you to do more home cooking, which is healthier and more satisfying than cooking a ready-made meal with packets from the supermarket.
Can you make dough in a blender?
If you make the occasional bread or something with dough then you can use a blender for this. If you bake regularly then we recommend a dough mixer. These are more powerful, do not move while kneading dough and are easier to clean than a blender when it comes to dough.
How many watts is a blender?
A normal blender uses about 200 watts and this can go up to 1,500 watts for power and/or professional blenders. To put that in perspective, when you use a 1,000-watt blender for less than 5 minutes it uses 166 watts, which equates to 1.66 kWh. This is comparable to a light bulb you leave on for 8 hours.
What is a powerful blender?
A misconception is that the number of watts tells something about the power of a blender, but this is not true. The number of watts only tells you something about power consumption. You look at the number of revolutions per minute to determine how powerful a blender is. For a powerful blender, you look at a RPM above 20,000 per minute.
What does a blender cost?
You can buy a simple blender starting at a few tens of dollars. For power or professional blenders, prices run into hundreds of dollars.
- Normal blender: 25 to 100 dollars
- Power blender: 50 to 200 dollars
- Professional blender: from 300 dollars
- Blender-to-go: 25 to 80 dollars
- Vacuum blender: 100 to 150 dollars
- Soup maker: 50 to 100 dollars
- Smart blender: from 100 dollars
What is the best blender?
The Vitamix Ascent A2500i was named the very best blender in our blender test. This is a professional blender that really gets everything fine. This blender is suitable for the catering industry, as well as for foodies who think to use the blender on a daily basis.
What is the best buy blender?
Are you looking for a blender with excellent value for money. The Philips Viva HR3571/90 was voted the best buy in our test. A great blender for smoothies, sauces and soups.
Popular blender brands
- Philips & Tefal: the perfect choice for an affordable blender or vacuum blender.
- Kitchen Brothers, Tristar, Inventum and Moa: look at these brands if you are looking for a budget blender.
- KitchenAid and SMEG: for when you are looking for a stylish blender and budget is not an issue.
- Magimix & Bosch: a good brand for power blenders.
- Nutribullet: this brand is best known for blender-to-go’s.
- Blendtec and Vitamix: these are professional blenders.