Following on quickly from our last reader question about whether to use boiling water in a soup maker, here’s another relating to the functions of soup makers in general. Does a soup machine blend?
It’s a surprisingly confusing aspect of buying soup makers, and in general, yes, soup makers do blend up their contents. That’s what allows them to give you different results like chunky soups (aka crunchy soups) or creamy soups (aka smooth soups). Because of the fact that a soup maker should be able to blend, it’s often not made obvious if that’s not something that’s included with your purchase, so pay particular attention to the write ups of lesser known brands to check what they say!
On the other hand, you can also buy soup kettles which typically just perform the heating functions. These tend to be used by people needing to keep soups warm – for example an obvious use on a larger scale would be a canteen serving soup over a number of hours. They likely won’t prepare the soup in the same way that you would with a soup machine, instead preparing and blending up the ingredients and possibly cooking them before placing the soup into the kettle ready for serving as needed.
Generally, the soup makers we’re referring to on this website tend to be just that, and therefore have blending capabilities, so you’re in the right place if that’s what you’re looking for and can go and check out our run down of the best soup makers!