Soup Maker Vs Blender – Which is best?

There seems to be a new “must-have” kitchen appliance every week nowadays, and to be fair, many are improvements on older, more traditional gadgets. When we first heard about soup makers we were intrigued but also slightly amused, all they cook is soup right? Just another gadget. But the more we looked into them, the more beneficial we realised a soup maker can be.

You see a soup maker doesn’t only make soup, it has many other functions too. Unlike the blender that just blends. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, let’s look at the functions of a common blender.

What Can You Use A Blender For?

To make a balanced and informed judgement, we need to look at all of the tasks that can be performed in both blenders and soup makers. We’re going to start with the functions and tasks a blender is capable of performing. A blender can be used for:

• Making dressings and sauces
  Mayonnaise, pesto, hummus, etc can all be made in a food blender.
• Smoothies
  From fruit smoothies to milkshakes even alcoholic cocktails, all can be put together in a blender.
• Peanut butter
  Home-made nut butter, not just peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts the choice is yours.
• Baby foods
  And other pureed food can easily be produced in a food blender.
• Blended soups
  Hot and cold soups can be blended in a blender.
• Breadcrumbs
  A blender can be used to turn stale bread into breadcrumbs, make almond flour, oat flour and much more.
• Grinding fish products
  To make fish cakes etc grind the fish up to easily combine it with the other ingredients.
• Making batter
  Adding all the ingredients to the blender will make mixing up batter for pancakes, waffles and muffins a much easier task.
• Creating cauliflower rice
  Vegetable rice is in vogue now, blending cauliflower, broccoli etc is the easiest way to create vegetable rice.

This Months Popular Blenders

What Can You Use A Soup Maker For?

Some soup makers have more functions than others, but in general, a soup maker can be used for:

• Making soup
  It sounds obvious, but a soup maker can definitely make soup.
• Making sauces
  The average soup maker can be used to produce sauces and ketchup.
• Making batter
  By adding the ingredients to the soup maker, you can easily mix the batter for pancakes, waffles, and muffins.
• Baby foods
  It’s easy to prepare pureed baby foods in a soup maker.
• Smoothies
  Milkshakes and smoothies can easily be made in a soup maker.
• Jam making
  A soup maker is an excellent one-pot way of making jam.

This Months Popular Soup Makers

So What’s Best Food Blender Or Soup Maker?

As you can see both soup makers and food blenders share many functions, the differences are few but significant. So let’s make the comparisons and differences easy to compare.

Function	Soup maker	Food blender
Cooking soup	Yes	No
Smoothies	Yes	Yes
Milkshakes	Yes	Yes
Mayonnaise	No	Yes
Mixing batter	Yes	Yes
Baby food (pureeing)	Yes	Yes
Baby food (cooking)	Yes	No
Nut butter	No	Yes
Jam making	Yes	No
Making sauces (from scratch)	Yes	No
Making breadcrumbs	No	Yes
Vegetable rice	No	Yes
Grinding fish and soft meats	No	Yes

So as you can see from the chart above, there are some functions that cannot be done in a food blender that can be done in a soup maker and vice versa.

Which Is Better- Blender Or Soup Maker?

 Is one better than the other? That depends on your point of view and culinary needs. If you enjoy home-made mayonnaise regularly and don’t eat soup, then a food blender is your ideal choice. On the other hand, if you’re a regular soup maker, and like home-made jams and smoothies, a soup maker will probably suit you better.

In many respects, a soup maker is like a blender that can cook food. But there are quite a few functions that cannot be done using a soup maker that can be done with a blender. There’s one other aspect that is only available in soup makers that could be the deciding factor.

Self-Cleaning Cycle

With a blender, whatever you make, you’ll have to manually wash the blender after use. Plus any saucepans etc you’ve had to use to cook whatever you prepared. Many soup makers have a self-clean cycle. Put simply, that means it cleans itself, all you have to do is add water and washing up liquid and select the clean function.

So imagine you come home from work, absolutely exhausted, you eat your delicious, healthy meal and then you have to face the dishes. Or you come home from work finish your delicious healthy soup, and while you’re eating, the soup maker washes itself clean. All you have to do is rinse it before you next use it.

Frequently Asked Questions