Stick blender

What it does better than a jug blender

• Repairs emulsions. Split hollandaise, broken mayonnaise, grainy ganache, curdled cheese sauce — the intense localised shear of a stick blender re-suspends them when whisking cannot.
• Makes mayonnaise almost foolproof. Whole egg, oil, mustard and lemon in a narrow jug; blender to the bottom; blitz without moving for ten seconds, then lift slowly. It emulsifies from the bottom up.
• Blends in the pan. No transferring hot liquid, no blender jug exploding under steam pressure, no second washing up.
• Handles small quantities. A jug blender needs volume to work; a stick blender will process a few tablespoons.
• Smooths lumpy sauces without straining.

What a jug blender still does better

• A genuinely silky soup. A jug blender's vortex circulates everything past the blades repeatedly and gives a noticeably smoother result.
• Anything hard — ice, nuts, dried spices, frozen fruit.
• Large volumes, done fast.
• Very thick purées, where a stick blender stalls and heats up.
• For a truly smooth soup, a jug blender and then a sieve is the professional route. A stick blender gets most of the way there.

Using one without covering the kitchen

1. Use a tall narrow container rather than a wide one. The blender needs depth to create circulation and the sides contain the splashing.
2. Fully submerge the head before switching it on, and switch it off before lifting it out. This is the whole technique.
3. Tilt the container slightly and move the blender slowly up and down rather than round and round.
4. For hot liquids, take the pan off the heat and let it stop bubbling first.
5. For emulsions, keep the head on the bottom and let the mixture come to it rather than chasing it.
6. Clean it by running it in a jug of hot soapy water, then rinsing. Take the head off before it goes anywhere near a sink full of hands.
7. Unplug it before touching the blade, every time. The blade is directly exposed and the switch is easy to catch with a palm.

Why it repairs emulsions when a whisk cannot

A whisk moves a lot of liquid around at moderate speed. A stick blender spins a small blade very fast in a tiny volume, so the shear forces right at the head are enormously higher — and shearing is precisely what breaks fat into droplets small enough to stay suspended.

That is why a split hollandaise or a broken mayonnaise so often comes back in seconds under a stick blender after five minutes of fruitless whisking. The whisk was never generating enough force to re-disperse the fat; it was simply stirring two separated things around each other.

It is also why the technique matters — head on the bottom, container narrow, no movement until it has taken. You are building the emulsion in a small volume and then feeding the rest into it.

What to look for

A detachable head

For cleaning, and so the motor never goes near water.

Variable speed

Genuinely useful. A slow start prevents splashing.

A metal shaft and foot

Plastic warps in hot soup over time.

Enough power

Around 600W and up handles thick soups without stalling.

A bell-shaped guard

Reduces suction against the pan base and splashing.

Attachments

A small chopper bowl and a whisk are often bundled and are more useful than they sound.

Common questions