Myra's Kitchen Blog » Immersion Blender

Having the right equipment for the job makes cooking a whole lot easier. I’m going to be writing a series on essential equipment.

I’m starting with one of my favorite tools, the immersion blender. While it doesn’t replace a good stand blender or a food processor, an immersion blender is a convenient way to blend a soup right in the pot. It’s speedy and tidy, as long as you remember not to lift the immersion blender out of the pot while blending.

For a long time I resisted buying one, since the weak small models don’t compare to the powerful industrial strength varieties I was accustomed to using back in my restaurant days. The industrial-sized blender was essential for blending soups and sauces in pots that were 20 quarts or bigger.

My graduate class last week took place in a commercially outfitted kitchen with large equipment. While it was quite thrilling to pulverize a small pot of soup in a matter of seconds, the equipment was clearly a bad fit for the job.

All this brings me to my favorite home model, the Waring blender, which is appropriately powerful for small to medium-sized pots. It’s stronger that most of the other brands on the market.

This size is more than good enough for what most of us make at home. On the other hand, should you find most of your cooking is in pots larger than 20 quarts, then the jackhammer-sized model would be a good fit.

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