Choose from the different blending options – from them slow stir function to gently mix ingredients to retain a chunky texture, or blend at the end of the cooking cycle for smoother results. You can peel the vegetables (or use ready peeled if you have them), throw them into the soup maker, add a bit of stock and then let the soup maker do the work. Your setting that you choose on the soup maker will then give you either chunky or smooth soup. It was used for everything from making soups, homemade baby food, my homemade tomato sauce or just when we needed something quickly blending. If you have visited recipethis.com before then you will know that we love our kitchen gadgets.
It was delightfully smooth and creamy, without any trace of chunky carrot, and not watery at all. This was following a recipe from the booklet, which was as straightforward as they come. When ready (usually 30 minutes), you have to press the blend button to whiz everything together. My favourite ever recipe with the soup maker has to be my homemade tomato sauce.
When Cuisinart offered me one to review, I asked my mum, Mamta, to put it through its paces, as she regularly makes soups at home. This burly blender is a pain to clean, as its blades aren’t removable. Navigating my fingers around cuisinart griddler elite the sharp metal to pick out pieces of lentil was a challenge. If you make a lot of soup, investing in a good soup machine will save you time and effort. Read our review of this Cuisinart model to see how it performed in our tests.
The soup function is also very helpful since it keeps all of your food in one container, rather than dirtying multiple dishes. Blending Power
This blender can cut through chunks of ice and hard, raw vegetables such as carrots. Versatility
It has many functions and if you know how to use the multiple functions you really will get a lot out of this machine.
Sign up for price drop alerts and begin tracking this product by completing the form below. A fairly basic-looking, utilitarian design, which is rather paired back in terms of bells and whistles. Yet it’s bigger than many at 1.6 litres, making it a good, cuisinart griddler elite cheap option for a family of four. It’s also light, quiet, and comes with a brush and scouring pad for scrubbing off those tenacious soup residues. Overall, a strong soup maker which allows for more customisation, but let down by being large and weighty.
Others even have a self-clean mode, though I found you often still need to rinse or scrub in the sink. A keep-warm function maintains the soup’s temperature for a limited time after cooking, up to an hour, in most cases. Usually, you can reheat your soup in the device. The first thing I made was a simple lentil soup. The blender lid houses a measuring cup, too. It is, admittedly, a tad more hands-on than some soup makers – the aforementioned sautéing, for example, requires you to switch between functions during cooking.
Soup is also incredibly easy to cook, and a soup maker renders the process even simpler. While not exactly an essential kitchen item, a soup maker can save plenty of time. All the devices tested here cook up a smooth, creamy meal in between 20 to 30 minutes.
Whenever the functionality changes, for example from cook to blend, you’ll hear a bleep. However, the lid had a hole to add ingredients, which is good, and it wasn’t very loud at all. Helpfully, the lid also has an in-built memory cuisinart pots and pans set function, useful if, say, you’ve forgotten an ingredient, or want to add something halfway through the cook. I’d suggest waiting a couple of minutes after you’ve finished before removing the lid, as it gets quite hot.
And with the weather looking every so slightly rainy these next few weeks, there’s no doubt we’ll be turning to home cooked soups a little more often. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at There’s a lot more to this product than adding the ingredients, selecting a programme and walking away, which could be considered a plus or a minus depending on your approach to cooking. “Soup is one of the simplest foods,” Harris explains, “which sadly means it is often the dumping ground for sub-standard ingredients.” Gwen Pratesi is a James Beard Foundation Award Finalist in Journalism and award-winning travel writer.