Go for a spin: 23 recipes that call for an immersion blender

We have several favorite store-bought BBQ sauces, and nearly every one contains corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup. And we pay a premium for the ones that don’t. Our solution? We started making our own BBQ sauces at home, using fresh tomatoes, onion, brown sugar, white vinegar, honey, molasses, Worcestershire sauce, a whole mess of spices, an immersion blender, and this recipe from Alyona’s Cooking.

This simple black bean soup recipe from The Almond Eater only requires beans, tomatoes, onion, garlic, red pepper, broth, and some spices. Making things even easier, you don’t need to fully puree the soup, as it is best served a bit chunky.

See? We told you this list isn’t solely soup recipes. Case in point: This butter chicken recipe from Foodess. For this classic Indian curry dish, your immersion blender makes the sauce consisting of tomatoes, onion, garlic, butter, garam masala, paprika, cinnamon, salt, and heavy cream.

Immersion blenders can make desserts, too! The options are more limited, but one we thoroughly enjoy is this chocolate mousse recipe from Life is But a Dish. It’s not only easy (just five ingredients are needed) but also a little healthy, thanks to the inclusion of avocado.

Mushrooms are an underrated superfood — they’re low in calories, packed with vitamins and minerals, and make you double in size so you can battle an evil giant turtle who lives in a castle. You may not have a princess to save, but we still highly recommend this creamy, tasty mushroom soup from Healthy Recipes Blog.

In the first month after finding this creamy tomato soup recipe from Skinny Taste, we made it three times. Not only is it tasty, but we love any recipe where our slow cooker does most of the work. We also enjoy freezable, meal-prep-friendly recipes, and this recipe checked that box, too!

You can’t make guacamole without mashing a few avocados — but give your hands a break and let the immersion blender do most of the work. After all, you’ll already be chopping the garlic, onion, tomatoes, cilantro, and jalapeno included in this recipe from Food.com.

Perfecting hollandaise sauce can be tricky, which is why we recommend this simple version from RecipeTin Eats. How simple? With the help of your immersion blender, it can be made in under five minutes. If you can poach an egg (we believe in you!), you’re on your way to eating eggs Benedict at home. 

Why use an immersion blender when making hummus? Because this tool can pulverize and blend the chickpeas, garlic, tahini, paprika, cumin, lemon, olive oil, and salt needed for this recipe from My Vegan Minimalist in just five minutes. 

Patatas bravas is a Spanish dish consisting of diced and fried potatoes — so what’s the point of the immersion blender? The blender isn’t for the potatoes; it’s for the from-scratch tomato garlic aioli that’s drizzled on the spuds in this version from The Movement Menu. The recipe also includes a link to make your own paleo-friendly mayo!

Sauce from a jar can be a time-saving shortcut, but for the sake of freshness and flavor, we prefer to make our own at home. When cooking red sauce, the only appliance we need is our slow cooker, but for pesto, we reach for the immersion blender. As Tori Avey will tell you in her recipe, using this appliance is the second-best method for making pesto. We would opt for the best way — using a mortar and pestle — but we don’t have the time, patience, or muscular endurance.

Potatoes make for terrible soup — they’re covered in skin, raw, and, you know, solid. But when you peel, dice, boil, and puree the potatoes, you’ve got the makings of a solid soup! Potatoes especially shine in this ultimate creamy potato soup from Sugar Spun Run, which tops the finished product with bacon, sour cream, cheddar, and chives.

If you like the previously mentioned potato soup but want to sneak some leeks into the recipe, try this version from Once Upon a Chef. It’s lighter, smoother, and vegetarian-friendly if you swap the chicken broth for vegetable broth.

We have a friend who is obsessed with ranch dressing. She puts it on everything, stashes some in her car, keeps a mini bottle in her purse for emergencies, and is on a neverending quest to find the best variety. As it turns out, the tastiest type might be the kind you make at home, at least according to “The Best Ranch Dressing Recipe” from Finished with Salt. Armed with our trusty immersion blender, we tried it ourselves and have to agree with the boastful name. We’ll get back to you with our friends’s opinion... 

File this one away for the holidays — or anytime you can manage to get your hands on a 4-lb pumpkin. Alternately, as Cookie + Kate will tell you, this creamy pumpkin soup can be made with canned pumpkin puree. Adding to its versatility, this creamy recipe can be vegan-friendly if you substitute coconut milk for the heavy cream. 

Salsa comes in various consistencies, but in our humble opinion, restaurant-style is best because it’s not so thin that it won’t stay on a chip but not so thick that it resembles pico de gallo. This restaurant-style salsa recipe from The Kitchen Girl is quick, easy, and has the perfect consistency…but you can also perfect it to your liking with the various settings on your immersion blender.

When our slow cooker and immersion blender join forces, anything is possible. Okay, maybe not anything, but they definitely put our minds (and meals!) at ease. In this case, with the aforementioned appliances and this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, you can easily make homemade apple butter to spread on bread, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, and more. 

No standard blender? No problem. You can easily make high-quality smoothies at home with your immersion blender. Feel free to tweak the exact ingredients to your liking, but we recommend drawing inspiration from this smoothie recipe courtesy of Food Network, which features strawberries, blueberries, chia seeds, spinach, mint, honey, yogurt, and OJ.  (If you change the ingredients enough, you can also make a milkshake!)

One of the primary reasons we purchased an immersion blender was to make delicious, from scratch pea soup with the perfect consistency. Once we bought it, we sought the perfect split pea soup recipe and eventually landed on this gem from Tastefully Grace. It contains a full pound of peas and celery hearts, carrots, and succulent morsels of smoked ham.

Hearty white beans and kale collide in this classic Tuscan-inspired soup from Rainbow Plant Life. In addition to the aforementioned ingredients, the recipe includes onion, celery, carrots, artichoke hearts, potatoes, and the Italian green sauce known as gremolata. You’ll want to keep some of the ingredients intact for this flavorful soup, but you will still need your immersion blender to perfect the consistency.

Creamy and vegan? Sounds like sorcery, but it’s actually just a brilliantly tasty cauliflower soup recipe from Rainbow Plant Life. Instead of milk or other dairy, the creaminess comes courtesy of both cashews and cannellini beans. But our favorite part of this soup is its consistency — smooth enough to slurp but thick enough to act as a dip for your favorite crunchy bread.

Gravy is a versatile sauce. It pairs perfectly with a variety of meats as well as potatoes, vegetables, and nearly any bread-based food from pot pies and biscuits to noodles and rice. Keep your options open by making this vegan gravy from Connoisseurus Veg, which only calls for an immersion blender if, like us, you prefer your gravy smooth.

Soups are comforting in the winter, and summer squash season is May to August, meaning this zucchini soup from Downshiftology is perfect at any time of year. It’s also super simple, requiring only zucchini, garlic, onion, cashews, lemon juice, broth, and some herbs and spices…and your immersion blender!