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If you think about your home, the kitchen is the favorite room for everyone. And when it comes to cooking, some of us take hours preparing the food without knowing you can use a blender as a food processor.
Needless to say, this is not a task for every blending machine out there in the market. Food processing involves delicate procedures like chopping, slicing, and shredding materials, which means a simple mistake could ruin your recipe.
Still, grinding flour and powders are also a food-processor task, but which requires a real food processor or a capable blender. Otherwise, you’ll burn out the motor or break the blades if you use the wrong machine.
In any case, in this article am going to share with you some essential tips when it comes to use a blender as a food processor. But first, let’s see what differentiates a blender from a food processor.
Food Processor vs Blender
Just as the name, a food processor is a tool to “process” food materials and speed up cooking hours. The appliance comprises a power base and a processing container that usually come with multiple blades for different purposes. That’s to do tasks like chopping, shredding, slicing, and grinding.
On the other hand, a blender is primarily for making smoothies and pulverizing food materials to fine textures. It also consists of a power base and a processing container, but its blade in most cases is fixed to the container. For brands like Ninja Kitchen, however, some selections have a removable blade attachment, allowing you to work according to your choice.
More on that, there’s the category of the personal compact blenders that uses a removable blade lid. But just as their names, the blender designs have a small capacity that you might find inconvenient in making large batches.
Can You Use The Regular Blender As A Food Processor?
A simple answer, YES. A blender is a versatile tool that you can use to handle almost all the tasks of a food processor. If it’s some delicious pesto, salads, or any other chunky blend that doesn’t need full pulverizing, any blender with a nice blade can complete and with consistency.
Then, when it comes to crushing ice, high-end brands like Vitamix and Blendtec, plus alternatives like Ninja Kitchen can handle it without disappointing. You just need to know about your particular recipe and how to control your machine.
This now brings us to the next subject of our write-up, whereby we’ll look at the various things to consider when using a blender as a food processor. I won’t go into much detail, rather highlight them as they’re almost similar to when blending.
Factors To Consider When Using A Blender As A Food Processor
Container:
This mostly involves the capacity of the jar, whereby you’ll find a larger capacity like 48 or 64 ounces more convenient. And if you’re using Vitamix as your brand, you’ll notice the newer low-profile pitcher chops better because of the wider design.
Blade Design:
Blenders like Blendtec and Vitamix mostly have blunt blades but still they can chop and do other food processing purposes. However, the secret to achieving better results is going with low amounts at a time.
Power
Power is not exactly a major factor when it comes to making chunky blends, or otherwise shredding and chopping. This is so as you need to have control over your mixture as much as possible, something you might find tricky with fast-moving blades.
Multiple Speed
The last thing you would want is your blender giving you sauces, salsa, or even a smoothie when in reality you wanted a salad. Therefore, the variable speed setting can be very helpful so that you can set it to the lowest.
Pulse Features
Although not every blender has it, the pulse feature is very crucial when it comes to preparing chunky recipes that don’t need complete pulverizing. It allows you to process the materials in short “pulses”, giving you maximum control since the motor will instantly stop upon releasing the button.
Preset Programs
The preprogrammed setting is one of the best ways to prepare your chosen recipe with high precision. It comprises select recipes integrated into the blender respective to their processing times. A good example is the Ninja BN801 Kitchen system that has Chopping and Vitamix A3500 with Dips & Spreads preset.
Notes:
Although the engineers set them to deliver the most perfect blend, the preset programs are not always perfect. This comes as the set timers are meant for a particular mixture. So, a slight error on the measurements or using different/ additional ingredients in the mix means you’re making a different recipe.
Therefore, you still might want to be close to your blender when using automatic blending for chopping or other food-processor tasks.
8 Food Processing Tasks That You Can Do With a Blender
As we conclude the topic, here is a highlight of the various food processing tasks that you can do with a blender.
- Vegan Salads: requires blending the mixture of vegetables on the lowest speed
- Pesto: Involves blending a mixture of basil, garlic, cheese, olive oil, and pine nuts at medium speed.
- Shredded Cheese: You pulse chunks of hard cheese at high speed
- Baby Food: involves blending a mixture of freshly cooked vegetables at the highest speed
- Fine, Snowy Ice: requires crushing dry ice cubes on high speed
- Blend Crumbs: needs you to pulse some slides of dried bread on high speed
- Meal Flour: You need to blend your dry ingredients at the highest speeds
- Knead Dough: involves pulsing wheat and a mixture of some yeast, sugar, and water. The task however requires the use of a dry container (Vitamix) since it has blunt blades.
Final Verdict
Without a doubt, you can use a blender as a food processor on top of its main blending purpose. Of course, not all models have the ability to do that, but the majority from top providers can handle most tasks even if not all.
As the highlight above shows, speed is the greatest determinant when it comes to food processing. Some dishes will require you to run your blender at the lowest speed and others can bring about better results when on the highest setting.
Therefore, the variable/ multiple speed setting is very crucial in performing food processor tasks with your blender. The pulse feature is also important in some cases since it offers better control than when the blender’s running continuously.
That said, though, a food processor remains the best in its tasks. It usually has a wide container than the standard consumer blender, plus various blade attachments. If you have the might and you want to enjoy your culinary adventures much better, therefore, investing in one might pay off. The same applies if you’ll be processing large amounts of dishes more often.
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