Hand blenders are surprisingly versatile, and they do very well with a large range of ingredients.
Even the cheapest ones can do multiple things, but the best hand blenders can basically do the same as regular countertop blenders.
If you’re wondering what you can actually do with a hand blender, here’s a list of the most popular things people use it for.
Smoothies and milkshakes
These are the first things mentioned on Kitchn’s list, and we completely agree.
Hand blenders are really great at mixing smoothies and milkshakes for one or two persons at a time.
Just throw in your berries, fruits, vegetables, ice, milk, and ice cubes, and start blending. In a matter of seconds it will turn to a nice, silky smooth shake or smoothie.
Soups
As The Kitchen Professor states in a blog post:
“hand blenders give you a perfectly creamy texture every time”.
The safest way to blend a hot soup, is to leave it in the pot and use a hand blender for the job. That way you don’t have to pour scolding hot contents into a small jar of a countertop blender, risking it to splash onto your hands or arms.
With the hand blender you’ll easily have the soup blended into a nice, smooth texture, and then you can continue cooking it to your liking.
After blending the soup, simply rinse the hand blender under running water – it will be clean in seconds.
Purees
Hand blenders are great at pureeing, and you can do all kinds of things, such as hummus, baba ghanoush, pimento, and more.
You may need one of the more powerful models in order to make proper purees, but they’ll turn nice and smooth in no time when done right.
All you have to do, is to ensure that you can shake the jar or pitcher slightly, to mix everything properly while pureeing.
Dips
Whether you like your guacamole completely smooth or with a bit of texture in it, a hand blender is the way to go.
Simply mix your ingredients in a jar, and use the hand blender to smoothen it all out. The longer you run it, the smoother it gets.
Hand blenders are also great for salsas, aioli, pesto, and much more.
Baby food
Every parent knows the drill: Baby food must be mashed, mixed well, and fresh. Reviewed.com puts it this way: “the best thing you can buy to help you make great baby food, is an immersion blender” – and they’re right!
With a hand blender you can easily introduce solid foods to your baby, such as potatoes, carrots, bananas, but you can also prepare an oatmeal porridge by blending it for a few seconds to smoothen the texture a little bit.
Whether you’re preparing a single portion or larger quantities of baby food, a hand blender is a great choice for the job, and it only costs a fraction of the designated baby food makers available on the market.
Mayonnaise
You won’t believe how easy it is to whip up a mayonnaise in a few seconds, by using a hand blender.
Simply add the ingredients (oil – egg – lemon juice/vinegar – salt and pepper), and start blending.
It blew our minds how easy it was to make our own mayonnaise from scratch, using the hand blender. And what’s even better, is how easy it was to clean everything up afterwards.
Whipped cream
Everyone is craving a cup of hot chocolate topped with a generous portion of whipped cream, or how about a piece of apple pie complimented by a nice, fluffy portion of ditto?
There’s just something special about freshly whipped cream, it tastes different than what you get from a can, and there’s no sugars or anything else added to it.
With the hand blender there’s no need to bring out the bulky, heavy hand mixer, and you don’t have to which for minutes the old-fashioned way either. Simply attach the whisk (that comes with most hand blenders these days), and get started. It literally takes a few seconds, before your heavy cream turns nice and foamy.
Cake batter
We’ve always brought out the good old hand mixer for this job, or mixed the cake batter manually. However, recently we came across a recipe from BigOven, that required the use of a countertop blender, but we thought “heck, we might as well give the hand blender a try first”, and it turned out great.
Pancakes, waffles, and cakes – the hand blender mixes them all into a nice, uniform mass within a few seconds, and you’re ready to bake.
Chopping and grinding
With the addition of a chopper attachment, you can chop, dice, and grind anything from nuts to onions.
The longer you run it, the finer it gets, and you can basically put anything in it and get a nice output.
It doesn’t process larger volumes at a time though, but for smaller batches, such as 1-2 portions of a dip or sauce, it works really well.
