Are you putting your blender to good use? Do you even have a blender??
While blenders are not a requirement for a wonderful, fulfilling life, I have found my blender to be one of my dearest kitchen appliances as I have made more and more lifestyle and diet changes to improve my health.
If you haven’t pulled yours out in a while, let me give you some motivation and inspiration.
First, to be clear, the blender I’ve used literally my whole life is the Blendtec. We currently have the Blendtec Classic 575. They are high-quality, high-speed, and last forever. You can get them used for cheaper than new because they can get pricey.
I now present: My Top 5 Blender Faves!
Cashew Milk
Nut milks in general are easy to make with a high-speed blender! I’ve done almond plenty of times, but my favorite is cashew because you don’t have to strain it through cheesecloth afterwards.
Simply soak ½ cup of raw cashews for a few hours, then drain and rinse them, and add them to the blender. Add 2 cups of water and any additional add-ins you want. Some options include a pinch of salt, a dash of cinnamon, a bit of vanilla, etc.
Blend until no chunks remain and bam! You have creamy, delicious cashew milk for cheap without any unnecessary ingredients, fillers, or sugars.
This is great for when you need a dairy alternative and works well in baking, in sauces, dips, etc. It’s been a staple at my house for a while now.
Sauces
Speaking of sauces, a whole new world opened up to me when I switched to more plant-based eating. Suddenly I was looking at all sorts of home-made sauce recipes and my life has never been the same!
If you look at the ingredients list of dressings and sauces sold in stores, it’s nearly impossible to find one without a bunch of garbage in it. And when you do come upon a rare, healthy gem of a dressing, it’s about $20 for 3 oz. Not worth spending that money on a regular basis.
Good news is if you have a blender, you can easily make all sorts of unique and flavorful dressings at home without sacrificing your health or your budget.
For me, the big ingredients I was trying to avoid in recipes were sugar, dairy, and vegetable oils, and then other things like gums and carrageenan, etc. were nice to not have.
Turns out a simple google search will give you all you could ever need when it comes to dressing and sauce recipes. Try it! Next time you need a good sauce, see what you can find on the internet to make yourself with your blender.
Some go-tos at our house are ranch, cilantro-lime dressing, dairy free “cheese” sauces, hummus, and walnut-ginger dressing.
Smoothies
I have been struggling the last few weeks to get enough calories and protein, and as I’m preparing to give birth in the next couple months, I want to make sure my nutrition isn’t lacking!
Fortunately, smoothies have stepped in to save the day recently. There are literally endless ways to customize a smoothie to get in what you need.
This protein smoothie from one of my favorite WFPB food blogs has been my go-to lately and it has chickpeas in it! Plus greens and cauliflower. Such an easy way for me to get in some key nutrients with minimal effort.
My son loves fruit smoothies so we make those a lot. I always add some nuts and seeds of some sort and if it really needs a sweetener I’ll add a little bit of maple syrup. This is a great way to get veggies in for him as well and it feels like a fun treat.
Flour
Before I got a wheat grinder, I would use my Blendtec to grind up whatever grain I needed flour from. This was always small batches of course, but it worked so well! If you’re in a pinch and need a cup of flour, pull out your high-speed blender and get blending.
I once made several cups of cornmeal this way, and though I would not recommend it (as it was a ton of work), it did work.
My most common blender flour is oat flour. It’s so easy to blend up rolled oats or oat groats and it comes out great.
Nice Cream
We’re big ice cream lovers over here, so going dairy-free and sugar-free was pretty sad on that front.
Enter the world of nice cream! Nice cream is the term coined for dairy-free ice cream alternatives and it typically involves blending up frozen fruit. If you haven’t tried it yet, freeze a few ripe bananas in slices, and when they’re good and hard, stick them in your blender. Blend until smooth and creamy. You will be shocked at how similar the consistency is to regular ice cream! Bananas are naturally sweet, so with just one ingredient, you have yourself a healthy alternative to ice cream.
Of course, you don’t need to stop there. Go crazy and add all sorts of things to it like other fruits, berries, nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, peanut butter, chocolate powder, etc.
If you don’t like bananas, you can find all sorts of recipes online for different versions of healthy nice cream.
There you have it. I hope you dust off your blender this week and improve your health while you’re at it. If you have any favorite blender uses, feel free to share in the comments. I can’t wait to hear what you’re doing with it!
