What Do You Use an Immersion Blender For: 5 Amazing Uses

An immersion blender is a very powerful and versatile tool. But what exactly do you use it for and what can you do with it?

Those are common questions that people have when looking to buy a blender.

An immersion blender is a blender, but it’s not the typical jar style blender that most people are used to.

Therefore, it might be a good idea to review what you use an immersion blender for and decide for yourself if you should get one.

Table of Contents

What Is An Immersion Blender?

Let’s first discuss what exactly an immersion blender is.

An immersion blender is a blender that you can immerse in liquid.

It’s also sometimes called a stick blender.

These blenders can either have a cord, or can be cordless.

The main point is that you don’t put things in them. That’s what you do with a standard blender with a blending jar.

An immersion blender is used to put into things.

You can either use a standing container, a pot, or any other container you want.

Immersion blenders either come cordless

What Do You Use An Immersion Blender For: The Ideas

In order to help you decide if you should buy an immersion blender, I’ve outlined a few things you can use an immersion blender for.

Most of these are things you can’t do with a regular blender, or at least it would be very difficult.

Puree Hot Soups

Unless you own a very specific type of jar blender that can blend hot liquids, you will need to use an immersion blender.

Regular blenders can not be used with hot liquid because they will explode due to the increase in pressure. That’s why it is always important to check with the official manual to see if your blender can blend hot liquid. As a rule, most regular blenders cannot!

But stick blenders are great at making hot soups and pureeing them.

I’ve sued my immersion blender to puree soups while they are cooking on the stove, which is amazing and saves time.

If you were to try and use a regular blender, you would have to let the soup cool down and then transfer it to the blending jar.

With an immersion blender, you can simply immerse the blender right into the hot soup and puree it while it’s cooking.

This saves you a lot of time cleaning up things.

Whip Up Coconut Cream

As someone who is a fan of using vegan alternatives, I like that you can use coconut cream to make whipped cream for desserts.

I wrote an article covering how you can whip cream in a blender.

That article covered mainly how to use a regular blender for whipping up whipped cream. However, as I mentioned in that article, it’s even easier to simply use an immersion blender.

What I like to do is make a vegan whipped cream (this process will work with any whipped cream, vegan or regular) using coconut cream.

The recipe is fast enough, so I’ll cover it all here.

Take a can of coconut milk and put it in the fridge and let it chill. Then scoop out the cream that rises to the top OR
Buy a can of unsweetened coconut cream (make sure it’s not sweetened).

Then take a container and place the coconut cream in it. You can use a large mouth mason jar, or you can use a metal bowl, or anything else that you like.

Of course, when you buy an immersion blender, most of them come with a blending container that you can use.

You might wonder why bother using this blending jar at all. Well, the benefit to using the stick blender as opposed to a blending jar is that it’s a smaller surface area. That means that you can make a smaller amount of cream.

If you’re not looking to make a quart of whipped cream, then having and using an immersion blender is really important. It allows you to whip up a small amount of cream without having to make extra that you either don’t want and will be forced to use or worse, might throw away.

Make Homemade Organic Fruit Jam

Easily one of the best ideas and one of the coolest to use when you first get an immersion blender. Make homemade jam!

When I’m talking to people about what to use an immersion blender for, jam is always a good place to start.

You can’t make jam in a regular blender because of the heat problem. A regular blender will not blend up hot liquids or hot foods like jam that get super hot on the stove.

And you don’t want to blend up a fruit puree and then cook it with sugar since that’s not technically the right way to make jam.

What you should do is use an immersion blender to pulverize and blend up the fruit while it’s being cooked down with sugar (or your sweetener of choice).

You can stick the immersion blender right into the pot and blend up the berries.

I like to make my own jam with an immersion blender because it allows me to use both organic cane sugar (and sugar that was not processed using bone–just look for vegan sugar) and also use organic berries.

Berries are one of the most pesticide heavy fruits you can buy. That’s the reason why I only ever use organic berries. And you can use frozen berries to make jam (frozen organic berries are easier to source from stores).

Simply get the berries from the supermarket. I like to stay clear of stores like Whole Foods and other supermarkets and stick to smaller places like Westerly’s, Mom’s Organic, Erewhon and others spots. The bigger chains are more likely to source their food from questionable sources. For instance, I’ve seen Chinese garlic in most large scale supermarkets and bigger chains and Chinese garlic has been found time and time again to be bad.

Make Basil and Pine Nut Pesto

I love making pesto at home. But it’s something you really can’t make in a big blender.

If you put the basil and pine nuts and olive oil in a big blender, it just won’t blend up into a nice pesto. There is too much room in the blender.

On the other hand, the immersion blender is much better at making pesto.

You can use a small jar and place the basil, pesto, and olive oil right into the small container and then use this to blend it up into a pesto.

Pesto was traditionally made in a motor (also known as a molcajete in Spanish cooking). The same method of making mole in Mexico is similar to how the classical Italian pesto is made. So, you can use a mortar and pestle, if you wish, and it’s definitely a cool thing to try out.

But it’s also super easy to make a homemade pesto in a container with an immersion blender. You can use a handful of basil leaves, some olive oil, some pine nuts, and blend up a small amount of rich and creamy pesto. (you can also add the fresh cheese if you don’t want to make a vegan version).

Make Homemade Soap

Another great way to use an immersion blender is to make homemade soap.

When you make homemade soap you, you need to use a blender to help blend the oils, water and lye.

You can’t put that hot lye and fat mixture into a blender because it can spurt and it’s also not easy enough to whip up and incorporate air into the soap.

The process of soap doesn’t require you to blend it, but rather to whip it up and agitate it. That’s why a regular blender won’t work at all.

You might think a a hand whipper might be the right tool, but there is a danger in using a standard whipper. The danger is that the soap (or more correctly the fat and liquid lye mixture that is being whipped and mixed) will splash out and get on your hands or face.

When you are making hot or cold process soap you need to be very careful about splashes because the lye is still going to be “hot”. It only cools down after the saponification process (the reaction when liquid lye mixes with soap).

I have a very detailed review of the best blender for making cold process soap here.

Do You Need An Immersion Blender if You Have A Regular Blender?

The next question is whether or not you need an immersion blender if you already have a regular blender.

If you are not planning on making pureed soup, soap, pestos, or mole or salas, then I would say you can get away with using a regular blender.

An immersion blender is not inherently superior to a regular blender for making smoothies or frozen drinks.

But, if you are someone who wants to cook and use a blender during the process, then I highly advise you get an immersion blender.

Why? Because it’s just too messy and difficult to use a regular blender. Add to that the fact that not all standard jar blenders are designed to work with hot liquids and you have an easy decision to just use an immersion blender.

Things You Can Use An Immersion Blender For That You Can’t Use A Regular Blender For

Hot Liquids- Soup!

As I mentioned above, you have to be very careful when using a blender and blending hot liquids. Unless you get a jar blender that has been specially designed to blend hot liquids, then you might be in for a major incident.

In fact, there have even been class actions taken against blender companies because of exploding blenders.

That’s why I just say be better safe than sorry and get a blender that can handle hot liquids, which is exactly what a stick blender is capable of.

Making Homemade Soap

Again, this is something that you might be able to do with a regular blender, but it would be so messy and inconvenient that I will list it here as some.

I’m a big fan of making your own soap at home. I’ve covered it before and have a whole write up if you’re interested that you can read.

Basically, I would suggest not trying to make soap at home (besides melt and pour) unless you have a good immersion blender.

Pesto

If you don’t have an immersion blender, then don’t even bother. You can’t make pesto in a real blender. It’s just too much work.

I covered this completely in my article can you make pesto in a blender (a no-frills title!).

Essentially, I would suggest people who want to make pesto either:

Use an immersion blender
Use a cutting board and bowl and hand blend
Use a Motor and Pestle

Milk Shakes

When it comes to milk shakes, it’s important that you think about the quantity of the milk shake. Do you really want to make an entire blenders jar worth of milk shakes?

Because if you use a traditional blender, then it would be something to consider. Remember, big blenders aren’t great at making small smoothies or small milk shakes.

That’s why I have an entire write up on the best single serve smoothie blender.

Imagine the size of the milkshake that you’d get if you use a Vitamix jar blender or a regular Ninja blender? It would be huge!

Not only that, but when you make a milkshake in a regular blender, you do not have the same control over the milkshake as you do with an immersion blender.

Consider what a classical milkshake blender is? It’s basically an immersion blender. Nothing more and nothing less.

Now, I do like milkshake blenders and have used them, but they are more for restaurants and diners or people who want that particular aesthetic in the kitchen. They look cool if you’re doing a retro diner design for your kitchen.

But if you’re just making a normal milkshake with coconut ice cream, almond ice cream, or regular dairy ice cream, then an immersion blender is going to handle the task just fine.