Vegans are probably the people who benefit the most from a good blender. They are the people who use blenders for more things (smoothies, sauces, nut butters) and get the most value from them.
When I talk to friends who are vegans, they all tell me how integral a part of their kitchen their blender is. They get the most use out of it by far.
Unlike some people who buy a blender for new years resolutions to lose weight with smoothies, vegans tend to use blenders daily.
If you’re a vegan, or even a vegetarian who is looking to move towards a more vegan diet, then you really should have a blender. You are going to get a tremendous amount of usage out of it.
What I’m going to do in this article is cover both what you can do with a blender that is helpful for vegans or people looking to incorporate a vegan diet into their lifestyle, and then we’ll cover the best blenders for vegans.
An important note first-
A lot of people who buy a blender only need it to:
You can get away with a cheaper blender for those uses. I always suggest buying a good quality blender, but it’s not impreative in those situations. However, if you are a vegan and you’re buying a blender to use for your day to day cooking and food prep—do not get a cheap blender. You’ll be disappointed.
Before we jump into the discussion I’ll link to my top three blenders for Vegans.
Why Would a Vegan Need a Special Blender?
Now, anyone can use a blender to do these things, but it is especially important for vegans to know how to use a blender because you’re working with plant based foods– vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts. And a blender is going to allow you to make a varied and interesting diet.
The most important thing about choosing a blender when you’re a vegan is that you want to get one that is well made. That’s the reason I am only recommending top of the line brands and models. While Vitamix and Blendtec aren’t cheap, they are exceptional blenders. They will run day in and day out and handle all of your needs.
Honestly, if you’re someone who is eating fast food and wants to make a smoothie now and then…don’t buy a blender like this. It’s a waste. You should fix your diet first and odds are you will buy it and return it after a week when you realize you don’t have the will power to eat a healthier diet (I’ve seen a fair share of new years resolution people buy blenders only to return them the following week when they are back to their daily McDonalds diet and soda).
No, only get these type of blenders if you’re serious about using them to incorporate a healthy lifestyle.
What Can a Vegan Do with a Blender?
Ok, now let’s take some time discussing what exactly a Vegan can use a blender for. You can use the Vitamix or Blendtec for any of these, the Ninja is pretty good and the only area where it’s week is when making green smoothies.
- Pureed Vegan Soup
- Nut Butter
- Green Smoothies
- Fruit Smoothies
- Vegan Cream Sauces
- Nice Cream aka Fake Ice Cream
- Protein Shakes
- Anabolic Ice Cream (aka Faux Protein Ice Cream)
- Nut Milks
- Oat Milks
- Grind Flour
- Grind Coffee Beans
That’s my master list of things we’ll discuss in more details. But basically that rounds out the most important things a vegan can use a blender for.
As you’ll notice, there’s nothing there that is only useful for vegans (except maybe the vegan cheese and sauces). But even those recipes can be used by vegetarians and other non-vegans to.
Pureed Vegan Soup in a Blender
This is one of the best uses for a blender that Vegans can take advantage of. By pureeing a soup, you’re going to be able to alter the texture of a chunky stew or soup into something much more creamy.
While I have personally used immersion blenders to puree hot soups, you can also use a Vitamix or Blendtec. I would advise not to use a Ninja since they are not designed to blend hot liquids. You would have to let the soup cool off first. Which you can, of course, it just adds more time to the cooking.
But both Blendtec and Vitamix can handle pureeing hot liquids and soups. So, if you’re making a carrot soup, and you want a creamy texture instead of a think chunnky carrot soup, then pureeing is the way to go.
There are a ton of recipes including creamy cauliflower, creamy carrot, creamy tomato (all vegan) that you can make with these blenders.
But again, only use a Vitamix or Blendtec blender for this use.
Nut Butter
Nuts and nut butter is one of the staple foods for vegans. And if you want to really take control of your diet, you will want to make your own nut butters.
Nuts and seeds are a great source of healthy fats and protein for vegans. And the reason that I suggest that you make your own nut butters and seed butters is that you want to avoid sugars, bad fats (some nut butters have added fats such as transfats).
I covered this in another article where I wrote all about the best blender for nut butters.
It’s both cheaper as well as healthier than buying your nut butters from a store. For instance, you can easily make organic Almond butter for a fraction of the cost that stores charge.
Not only that, but you can make mixed nut butters and other healthy but butters like cashew, macadamia butters, and pecan nut butters. All of the hard to find nut butters are easy to make at home with a good blender.
Let’s take a look at some numbers and see how much you’ll save:
The price of organic walnut butter:
Local New York Health Food Store: 8oz $16.99
Local Austin Health Food Store: 8z $14.89
Boston Health Food Store: 6oz 12.99
Philadelphia Organic Shop: 6oz 10.99
If you make your own organic walnut butter, here’s the cost:
Organic Walnuts range in price, but average at around 12 bucks a pound (that’s 12 dollars for 16 ounces). That means that homemade walnut butter will be: 16 ounces = $12
More importantly, you are getting organic walnut butter. The prices for the local walnut butter is often for regular walnut butter. If you are only looking to buy organic walnut butter, sometimes those small jars can cost upwards of 20 bucks.
My suggestion would by to simply buy organic walnuts and then use a blender to make your own nut butter using a Vitamix or Blendtec.
And if you’re someone who likes a mixed nut and seed butter, then you’re really going to benefit from making your own at home with your own blender. Here’s a cool recipe:
Chocolate Power Seed Recipe
Organic Cacao Powder (Chocolate’s super healthy, plus this tastes delicious)
Tablespoon of Organic E.V. Coconut Oil
Green Smoothies
Vegans are the target market for green smoothies. It makes sense, vegans have fruit and vegetables as their main food sources. Nuts and seeds tend to be secondary along with lentils and beans. Greens are where you get your micronutrients, and if you eat enough of them you can get your macro ingredients as well.
And green smoothies are a great way to hit both your protein goals (greens do have protein) as well as get super high amounts of antioxidants.
Of course, it’s not just vegans who like Green Smoothies. They are popular with almost everyone. Bodybuilders, athletes, people looking to lose weight, and fitness enthusiasts all love to make green smoothies. Why else would there be so many places popping up that sell them?
But vegans are the ones who can benefit the most from a good blender that can make green smoothies.
And unlike some of the things on this list, green smoothies do require a serious blender. The reason is that blending leafy greens (which are a big part of green smoothies) requires you have a powerful motor.
Now, you can make a leafy green based green smoothie with a Ninja blender, but it’s not as easy to do as with a more powerful blender such as a Vitamix or a Blendtec.
I’ve made leafy green smoothies with Ninja’s and even bullet style blenders. Honestly, if you don’t have a Vitamix or a Blendtec, then i would either skip making green smoothies or I would suggest that you use microgreens. Reguular leafy greens such as spinach, kale and wheatgrass simply won’t blend up smooth enough in a Ninja.
If you are looking to make a green smoothie with kale and spinach and things like apples and lemons, then you should get either a Vitamix or a Blendtec.
These are my two options for that. They are more expensive than the Ninja blender, but if you’re serious about using your blender on a weekly basis and want to make green smoothies, then they are the way to go.
Fruit Smoothies
If you’re someone who is more into fruit and making fruit smoothies, then you can get away with buying a Ninja or bullet blender. However, I would still recommend that you get a high end blender just because they tend to be more versatile.
But let’s first take a look at how healthy and nutritious fruit smoothies can be.
If you’re someone who is not into making smoothies normally, then you’ll really enjoy starting off with fruit smoothies.
These smoothies are super easy to make, and they also taste delicious. Plus, there is so much variety.
You can make a berry smoothie with frozen mixed berries and almond milk. You could make a banana and nut butter smoothie with vegan protein powder. You could take fresh pineapple and blend it up with coconut milk and almond butter. Or you could just make a refreshing blueberry smoothie before you head out to work.
Really, the number one use for blenders is going to be making smoothies and fruit smoothies are by far the most popular and easiest ones to make.
Vegan Cream Sauces
As a vegan, it’s important to learn how to cook without cream and cheese. There are so many recipes that vegetarians can eat that you won’t be able to enjoy as a vegan unless you learn how to make vegan cream sauces. Think of all of the Italian dishes that use cream or cheese? Do you want to never enjoy them again? Or would you like to make them with vegan alternatives?
Well, if you have a blender you can make vegan cream sauces that allow you to eat those foods.
For instance, you can make a mock cream sauce using cashews and nutritional yeast. There are dozens of variations online. And you can adjust to taste. It’s super simple.
If you are planning on making vegan cream sauces, I’d make sure to get a bag of nutritional yeast. You can order these online (or pick up in any food store with a health food section). Bob’s Red Mill makes a good version. This can give vegan cream sauces a “savory” flavor that might otherwise be hard to get.
Vegan cream sauces are really great, but you can’t buy them in most stores. If you do find bottled vegan cream sauces, I would suggest you steer clear as they will likely have a heavily processed ingredient list and often trans-fats. As noted in major studies, vegetarians and vegans have much lower incident of heart disease.
Just make the vegan sauce at home using a good blender.
Nice Cream aka Fake Ice Cream
Ice cream is something vegans can pretty much continue to enjoy now that there are so many alternatives out there. You have major brands making Oat milk ice cream, coconut milk ice cream, almond ice cream and so on. The original non-dairy ice creams were Soy and Rice milk based.
However, if you don’t feel like paying the high price for vegan ice cream at the stores (who can afford expensive Ice Cream besides millionaires) Besides the fact that I don’t feel like paying 12 bucks for a pint of ice cream, I also like to make it at home so I know I’m getting organic ingredients.
The range of vegan ice creams are huge. You can go all out and process almonds into almond butter, then blend up with almond milk and organic coconut sugar…or you can whip up a coconut yogurt and turn it into a faux ice cream.
Most of the time you read about ice cream recipes they call for an ice cream maker, but you can also make what are called no-churn ice cream.
Here’s an interesting example of a vegan ice cream using zucchini.
Protein Shakes
When you think protein shakes, you might not necessarily think of vegans, but you should. There are lots of great vegan protein powders to use. And Vegans can sometimes have trouble hitting their protein goals.
That’s why Vegan protein shakes are so great. They are easily digestible and fast. A chocolate or fruit flavored vegan protein shake made in a blender can be a great breakfast or lunch. Other vegan protein meals tend to be quite heavy: lentils, quinoa, nut butter on bread, etc…
So, I like to suggest using your blender to make vegan protein shakes. You can make your own using a high quality vegan protein powder (I suggest NorCal since they are one of the only protein powders not made or processed in China) and/or make one using nut butters and chia seeds.
A great protein shake recipe would be:
- 1 Scoop of NorCal pea protein
- 1 Cup mixed berries (organic frozen berries are my favorite)
- 1 cup ice water.
If you mix pea protein (which is the best vegan source of protein in protein powders) which has no flavor, then it’s easy to turn it into a nice fruit flavored shake using a handful of frozen berries.
I always like to incorporate mixed berries such as blackberries, raspberries, as well as blueberries and strawberries to round out the antioxidant profile.
The one thing that you have to be cautious about when buying protein powder (and not just vegan protein powder) is that much of it is sourced or processed in China. That’s just a major red flag and the number one reason people should either use whole foods (nuts and seeds) or good quality non-Chinese protein powered like NorCal. The contamination in Chinese factories including lead, toxins like melamine, and other chemicals is simply too hard to overlook.
Just skip brands that are made or processed in China. I use organic nut butter and for protein powder like Norcal:
Anabolic Ice Cream (aka Faux Protein Ice Cream)
This is not a vegan dessert. It’s a type of Ice Cream hack that is made with Greek yogurt. Greg Doucette and Will Tennyson both cover it. Basically, it’s a whipped yogurt that is made with protein powder. It’s super low in calories, really high in Protein, and is an all around killer substitute for sugar rich ice cream.
Now, when you make this with Coconut yogurt or Cashew yogurt, you’re not going to get as much protein as you would when you use dairy based Greek yogurt, but it’s still a cool recipe to try.
Most of the recipes include xanthan gum, which you can source online, but if you’re not interested in that you can try and simply whip up a protein powder and yogurt base in your blender.
Without that xanthan gum, the “ice cream” won’t set like in the prep videos and articles. What you could do is to blend it up and put it into a bowl and then freeze it slightly.
There’s a trick where you whip it up (it creates an airy texture) and then fold it into a bowl. Then you can freeze it and once or twice during the freeze make sure to mix it so it doesn’t freeze solid.
Nut Milks
Nut milk is one of the staples of a vegan diet. You can use nut milks in everything from coffee and tea to smoothies and in your cereal.
As a note, cereal is a really important food that vegans should consider adding to their diet because it is an excellent source of Iron in the diet. You can get Iron from leafy greens and legumes, and great meal combos like lentils and spinach. But a fortified cereal is a really easy way to get your needed iron.
Ok, that aside over, let’s jump back to nut milk. Sure, you can buy it from a store and that’s what I do a lot of the time. But if you’re someone who is into making your own food at home and you like to experiment, then making nut milk might be right up your alley.
It’s rather simple to do if you have a blender. You can make oat milk with a blender, almond milks, and cashew milk. The basic method is all pretty simple. You blend up the oats/almonds/cashews with a bit of seal salt and water, then you strain everything through a fine mesh strainer.
If you have easy access to a good organic nut milk, then it might not be something that you need to do. But it might be fun to try every once in a while when you’re in the mood to make healthy organic nut milk.
Oat Milk
This one ties into the nut milk mentioned above, but it should be mentioned on it’s own. A lot of people are either allergic to nuts or simply prefer oat milk.
You can make oat milk in a blender (as I mentioned, I have an entire article covering this here). The big issue with making oat milk is to make sure it’s not “slimey”. The major commercially available oat milks are all highly processed and include chemicals to make them not sticky. If you’re going to make oat milk at home, the best trick I’ve come across is to not press too much when straining. That causes the slimey oat milk. Just filter normally without pressure.
Grind Flour
Another use of a blender is to grind flour. Now, most people are going to be satisfied buying organic flour or other high quality flour in local health food stores. But if you’re someone who wants to make something from scratch, then a quality blender is really important.
You can make your own oat flour or almond flour with a good blender: I’d recommend using one like Vitamix that has the best variable control setting on the blades and motor.
While it is easy enough to source oat flour or almond flour, the problem is freshness. If you want truly fresh flour, then it’s best to make it yourself. And this is especially true if you’re only looking to use a small bit of flour once in a while.
Consider the situation where you want to make a cookie or protein bar with oat flour. If you buy a whole bag, then most of it will go stale and won’t be useful the next time you want to cook. But if you grind your own flour when you need it, you’ll never run into that problem.
Grind Coffee Beans
While I do advise you to always use a burr coffee grinder when grinding fresh coffee beans, you can use a blender. It works like a charm if you happen to have brought a bag of whole coffee beans or been gifted one and don’t own a grinder.
You can use any of the main blenders I recommend to grind coffee beans. Heck, I’ve used my Ninja to grind coffee beans a lot and it always worked fine.
The only thing you’re going to have to remember to do is grind for differing lengths of time depending on the type of grind you want. But its certainly doable. You can make fine ground coffee in order to use it for a drip coffee machine or a pour over style coffee maker. Or you could make more a coarse grind for a French Press coffee maker.
My suggestions would be to check out one of the following blenders:
Ninja Professional Blender – $$
BlendTec – $$$
Vitamix – $$$
Hi Everyone!
Jenny O’Brien here. Nutritionist & personal trainer. Just your average vegetarian and smoothie fanatic!
If you have any questions, or you’d like me to cover a particular topic, drop me a line and let me know!
Thanks!