I have never been much of a blender person. I don’t drink smoothies, and I’m usually able to puree, process or otherwise obliterate any and all food stuff with either my food processor or immersion blender. I am, however, quite impressed with the Ace Cooking Blender (made by the folks at Instant Pot) and its soup-making abilities.
Like the Instant Pot itself, this blender comes with many pre-programed—some might say “unnecessary”—functionalities. There’s a cleaning program, an ice cream program (which I am deeply skeptical of), a program for every alt milk you can think of and a soup program. (There’s also a smoothie program, which seems slightly condescending.)
Because we are firmly in the midst of Soup Season, I decided to try the soup functionality first. Though I knew the high-powered blender came equipped with a heating element, I wasn’t sure it would get hot enough to cook harder roots and squashes, and I wasn’t expecting a $99-blender to produce a soup that was smoother than something I could make with my immersion blender. Boy, do I feel dumb.
Basically, I ended up loving the soup-making functionality of this blender much more than I thought it would. I loved that I didn’t have to stir anything, I loved that I didn’t have to transfer anything from one receptacle to another, and I loved that this thing gets soup smoother and silkier than anything I’ve ever made with a stick blender. You simply place chopped vegetables, broth and any other ingredients you desire in the glass pitcher, then press “Soup.” The blender then starts heating and, once it starts boiling violently, begins a 22 minute and 44 second program in which it stirs and whirs the soup intermittently, followed by a final obliterating high-power blend cycle. I will admit that—after watching hot soup spew forth from many blenders on various competitive cooking programs—watching soup boil in a blender was uncomfortable at first. (But I got over it.)
For its maiden voyage, I made a parsnip soup loosely based on this recipe from Martha Stewart, substituting caramelized onion for the leek and turkey stock (which I had on hand) for chicken stock and water. I also omitted the cream, because the soup was, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, plenty creamy without it.
And now I must mention the only two bad things I have to say about the soup program. For one—and I’m sure you smart people in the audience have already figured this out—you simply cannot brown any ingredients in a blender. Also, to keep soup from spewing forth, you have to keep the volume under 1400 milliliters, so you can’t make a huge batch of soup (which I’m totally okay with, but larger households might find limiting).
The first shortcoming is easy to work around—just brown anything you want to brown in a pan before adding it to the blender—but the second is something you just have to live with. You can make any pureed-type soup in this blender, but if you wish to make the one I made, you will need:
1 yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons of butter
1/2 of a Russet potato
1 apple
1 large parsnip (about half a pound)
3-4 cups of broth or stock
Salt and pepper
Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat, add the onion and season it liberally with salt. Once it begins to brown, decrease the heat to medium-low and let it cook until it’s completely caramelized, about 45 minutes. (This can be done ahead of time, if you like.) Deglaze the pan with a little stock, scrape up the browned bits, and get it all in the blender.
Chop the remaining produce into roughly inch-sized chunks. (I was very haphazard in this regard, and it ended up not mattering even a little bit.) Chuck it all in there, then slowly add the stock until it reaches the max fill line. Add salt and pepper to taste—this will largely depend on how seasoned your stock is—lock the lid in place, and press “Soup.”
There will be some beeping, followed by intermittent whirring, boiling, and then very aggressive blending, but in the end, you will have hot, velvety, completely smooth soup. Pour into bowls—no ladle needed—top with croutons, or whatever else you like to put on soup, and enjoy.