Instant Pot are well known for their pressure cookers, that have been gaining in popularity all over the world. They have now branched out and added the Instant Pot Ace Blender to their range. We had a good look in to this to find out what it is all about and to find out if your should buy one.
Pros
- Cook and blend simultaneously
- Great preset modes
- Well priced
- Can pulverise lots of different foods
Cons
- Not the best for crushing ice
- Can’t use heat up food without using a preset blending mode
Verdict
A very well priced kitchen appliance that allows you to blend and heat at the same time. If you make a lot of soup, baby foods or alternatives to dairy, the Instant Pot Ace Blender is a great addition to your kitchen.
It is easy to use, especially as it has some great preset programs to take care of foods that are commonly blended.
Instant Pot Ace Blender Overview
The first thing you notice about the Instant Pot Ace Blender is the base. It fits in with the other products in the Instant Pot range, thanks to the layout of the controls. The the heating element is in the pitcher, which allows you to heat and blend at the same time. This means that you don’t need to use a hand blender or pour heated ingredients in to a normal blender. The advantages of this, of course is that it is much safer and requires less washing up.
There is a huge amount of things you can make with the Instant Pot Ace Blender including:
- Smoothie
- Purée
- Frozen Dessert
- Soy
- Rice,Nut/Oat Milks
- Soup
There are also a number of recipes Instant Pot suggest you try.
Design and Features of the Instant Pot Acer Blender
The Instant Pot Ace blender is very good at its job. It has three manual blending speeds, four cold blending programs and four heated blending programs.
The cold blending programs are perfect for smoothies and frozen desserts. The heated blending programs allow you to blend and cook your ingredients simultaneously.
The Instant Pot Ace Blender is powerful but quiet. The motor can spin up to 23,000 RPM, which allows you to crush, blend and pulverise the toughest ingredients in seconds. The Pulse / Clean mode breaks up large chunks of food or thoroughly clean the blender.
Its large 60 ounce (1.75 litre) glass pitcher includes the heating element and the stainless steel blending blades. The glass is designed to withstand large changes in temperature.
The display on the front of the blender shows real time cooking temperatures in either Fahrenheit or Celsius, so you can easily check on the cooking progress.
When you buy the Instant Pot Ace Blender, you get:
- A food tamper to help break down food
- 150mL / 5oz measuring cup
- Cleaning brush
- A food-safe washable strainer bag with drawstring. This is for filtering soy, rice, oats nuts or seeds
Using The Instant Pot Ace Blender
When you want to cook with the Instant Pot Ace Blender, simply put all the ingredients in to the pitcher. Then select one of the four aforementioned programs.
The blender will start heating up, and you will be able to see the temperature on the display. The blender’s blades will then pulse intermittently throughout the cooking cycle. How often they do this depends on the program you select.
Cooking Programs
The cooking programs make the Instant Pot Ace Blender very easy to use. For example, to make a tomato soup, chuck in a can of whole tomatoes, chunks of onion along with the rest of the ingredients, before pressing the soup button. About 20 minutes later you get smooth and creamy tomato soup without any bits floating around in it. The pitcher does get warm when you cook with the Ace, but you can safely use the handle.
The programs also make it easy for you to make dairy alternatives. For example, the rice milk setting cooks the rice before blending it with water. The other milk settings don’t need to use the heating element. The Instant Pot Ace Blender includes some basic instructions for making these dairy alternatives, however they may not be the most delicious thing you have ever tasted.
Blending
Good blenders, need to make smoothies, pesto, almond flour, almond butter, whipped cream and pancake batter with easy. A good test of how powerful a blender is, is to see how it copes with ice and cheddar cheese.
The Instant Pot Ace blender smashes through the majority of these useing the blender’s pulse/clean button. Pesto, pancake batter and almond flour is dealt with after just one pulse cycle. However, cheddar cheese has to be fed in gradually, or you risk the blender overheating and cutting out. Although, it does do a good job of grating it. The smoothie setting makes easy work of mixing up frozen berries and orange juice. The only hard bits left, are the seeds of the berries you put in.
The Instant Pot Ace Blender can’t quite match higher end blenders such as a Vitamix or KitchenAid Pro products, when it comes to blending almond flour enough to create almond butter. Additionally, ice needs to be fed in gradually, or you will be left with some large chunks of ice .
A disadvantage of this blender, is the lack of some manual settings for heated blending. It would be good to have something so you wouldn’t have to just rely on the presets, which is the only way you can access the heating feature.
Cleaning the Instant Pot Blender
When it comes to cleaning the Instant Pot Ace Blender, the pitcher is very easy to clean. This is because of the pulse/clean button. All you need to do, is fill the pitcher with of water, add a couple of drops of washing up liquid and press the button. Afterwards, just rinse it out. Unfortunately, you can’t put the pitcher in the dishwasher to clean, as the heating element is in to. But, it isn’t really a problem, as cleaning is very easy.
Final Thoughts on the Instant Pot Blender
The Instant Pot Ace Blender is a great addition to Instant Pot’s range of products. It is very capable of making basic blended dishes, especially soup thanks to its heating element.
The preset programs also make it easy to experiment with stuff like almond or rice milk. The Instant Pot Blender is a great bargain if you’re looking for a good blender.
Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.
4 thoughts on “Instant Pot Ace Blender: Should you buy one?”
I have always wanted a blender like this. I love smoothies and I like making my own sauces too. Can it crush frozen fruit or will it break the machine?
My favourite feature has to be the self-clean. It’s so easy and practical. When cleaning a machine is so easy, it makes me want to use it!
Hi Hollie,
Thanks for your comment.
This thing decimates frozen fruit! It struggles a bit with ice, if you don’t feed it in slow enough. But, it is powerful enough for any home.
My blender recently got spoilt because of power fluctuations in my home and I decided to get a new one. This ace blender is great going by the presented information on this post. Being able to combine two functions at a go makes it a worthy product to me and one that definitely is a must get for me. Thanks
Hi Ro,
Thanks for your comment. You will not be disappointed in this machine.