20 Things You can Prepare with a Blender

For many years after I did not own a blender. There was no need. I was single and cooking simple meals. I thought blenders were for complicated cooking.

Then after my first child was born, I took a leap and bought an immersion blender. It was handy to prepare baby food.

I thought I did not need a countertop blender because I was not into smoothies. Well, I was into smoothies. I would buy a smoothie when I was out. but I never thought I could prepare a smoothie at home. I thought I needed to be a qualified chef to prepare a smoothie.

Later on I bought a countertop blender, and I realized that I could use a blender for so many things besides smoothies. They can really make your life easier.

The number of things you can do with a blender will depend on the type of blender you have. Of course, it depends on the blender you have. If your blender is a high powered one, then you would be able to do more things than with a cheaper blender.
But it does not mean that you cannot do the same with a low range blender, or that you cannot do the recipe without a blender. Just a blender will make things easier and faster.

20 things you can prepare with a blender

1. Smoothies, including green smoothies. People that follow starch based diets, do not favor smoothies. Dr McDougall does not recommend smoothies, and I do not drink them often. But they are a great way to get your children to eat greens, and fruits. You get more greens by drinking a smoothie than by eating the greens. Not sure about you, but eating lots of greens takes lots of effort and you might get bored. When preparing a smoothie you can consume a large amount of greens without even realizing.
2.  Dips: There are a variety of dips that you can prepare at home using a blender. They are cheaper and healthier than the ready made dips. Besides the ready made dips have oil. Your imagination is the limit. You can prepare avocado dip, red pepper dip, beans dip, hummus, spinach dip or create your own dip recipe and you can have it ready in 5 minutes.
3.  Puree potatoes and starches: For some reason I read you cannot do mashed potatoes in a blender. Not sure why. I do make mashed potatoes in a blender. I found that blending potatoes is much easier than using a hand potato masher. With the masher I never get it completely smooth, and I do love it when it is smooth. So you can do any puree, potato, sweet potato, butternut, pumpkin, and prepare your baby food also.
4.   Puree vegetables: It is easier to use the blender to do puree than to do it by hand.
5. Soup: I love soups and although I love any types of soups I prefer them smooth and creamy. My mum used to give us potato soup, but she diced the potato. I am now preparing potato soup, but I blend it. It is so delicious and creamy. So different than what my mum used to give me. And you can prepare any soup, all year round, because you can have warm or cold soup. There are plenty of recipes of delicious cold soups out there.
6. Nut and seed butters. This is something I have not tried but it is on my list to try. Nut butters or seed butters have so many applications. You can use the butter as a spread or to prepare something else. For example, my kids go to a school that have a no nuts policy. So they cannot take peanut butter sandwiches or nutella sandwiches (they love nutella even if it is not healthy). I would like to try a homemade chocolate spread with sunflower seed butter instead of nuts.

   

7. Fruit butters, whether you use a countertop blender or an immersion blender, it will come handy to make fruit butter. Fruit butter is when you cook some fruit until the texture becomes like butter. you can add some sugar and spices.
8. Fruit jam: Also blenders will help you to smoother the fruit jam.
9. Apple sauce, quite simple.
10. Pancake batter: A blender will help you prepare any type of pancake quicker. I use my blender to prepare banana and oat pancake. My kids love it. I have never done any other pancakes, so for me that was a revelation.
11. Flours: You can grind your own flours from buckwheat, oats flour or chick pea flour. It is quite easy.
12. Salad dressings: I love creating healthy and natural salad dressings with no oil. I use different ingredients like vegetables and fruits, though most of the time I do not add a dressing to my salad.
13. Grinding seeds, like Chia seeds , sun flower seeds or flax seed.
14. Healthy ice creams: You can prepare your own healthy ice cream with frozen bananas and some no dairy milk, like coconut milk. You can even add cacao and have your own chocolate-banana ice cream.
15. Sorbet: Just blend frozen fruit until is smooth (sort of like a smoothie).

There you have it, 20 different uses you can give to the blender. There are plenty of other things you could do. Your imagination is the limit. Some of the things you may need a high powered blender some you could do with a food processor and some with a grinder.
For others, you can just use a normal blender or an immersion blender.

If you want to follow a Starch based plant diet and eat unprocessed food, a blender could  be your best friend. But you can still eat a healthy, unprocessed meal without a blender. Remember blenders were only invented in the last 100 years.