Instant Pot Ace Blender Review

Did you know the Instant Pot company sells appliances other than just pressure cookers.  The Instant Pot Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender is their newest appliance and here’s my Instant Pot Ace Blender review.

When Instant Pot asked me if I’d like to review their new Ace Blender I jumped at the chance. I love their pressure cookers, and was impressed with their Gem slow cooker, so I knew their blender would probably be awesome too.

The Ace Blender uses Instant Pot’s advanced microprocessor technology and has 8 Smart Built-In One-Touch programs: Smoothie, Purée, Ice Cream, Soy, Rice, Nut/Oat Milks, Soup and, Crushed Ice programs. In addition. the Ace features 3 manual blending speeds and a Pulse / Clean button that self cleans the blender.

Four of the programs are for blending cold items, and the other are hot blending programs.  The cold blending programs are for making smoothies, ice cream and other frozen treats.

What’s cool about the hot blending programs is that they actually heat up the ingredients to boiling before blending. So it’s not the friction from the blades that creates the heat like most blenders. There’s actually a heating element so you can create one-pitcher meals.

The Ace has a large 60 ounce heavy duty glass pitcher which includes the heating element and 8 stainless steel blades.  The digital display gives you additional information, including time remaining on your blending cycle. While the hot programs are working, the display will tell you the temperature of the food inside so you can check on the progress.

The Ace includes a food tamper to help break down food, 5oz measuring cup, cleaning brush with bristles to clean under and around the stainless steel blades and a food-safe strainer bag with drawstring for filtering soy, rice, oats nuts or seeds resulting in a smooth filtered beverage.

Instant Pot Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender Features

• 8 Smart Built-in Programs – Smoothie, Purée, Ice Cream, Crushed Ice, Soy Milk, Rice Milk, Almond, Nut/Oat Milk, and Soup
• 3 Manual Blending Speeds – Low, Medium and High, blender will beep 3 times and begin blending at the selected speed
• 4 Cold Blending Programs – Smoothies, Ice Cream (similar to a sorbet), Crushed Ice, and Almond (Nut)/Oat Milk
• 4 Hot Blending Programs – Purée, Soy Milk, Rice Milk and Soup, with the ability to toggle between 2 options for purée, rice milk and soup
• Pitcher – Premium-quality 60 ounce (1.75 Litres) glass pitcher which includes a concealed heating element and 8 machine ground stainless steel blades
• Accessories include – Food tamper, 150mL / 5oz measuring cup, cleaning brush with bristles, and a food-safe strainer bag with drawstring. The strainer bag is made with lint-free material and machine washable.
• Size – 60 ounce | 1.75 Litre
• Watts – 700 Blending & 600 Heating
• Weight – 11.7 lb | 5.3 kg
• Dimensions – 9.21 L * 8.27 W * 19.17 H /  cm: 23.4 L * 21 W * 48.7 H
• Warranty – 12 months

There’s more information, including a great FAQ (frequently asked question) section on the Instant Pot website. The Instant Pot Ace Manual is online if you’d like to learn more about the Ace before buying.

What You’ll Love About the Instant Pot Ace Blender

• It has a powerful motor with a speed of 23,000 RPM but it’s relatively quiet.
• The Ace is well made and Instant Pot has a great reputation for good customer serve.
• The $99 price is well below what you’d pay for most high end blenders.
• It has a self-cleaning / function.
• You can heat, boil and blend a recipe with a touch of one button.
• There’s only one-pitcher to clean.
• The blender clicks into place and you don’t have to worry about twisting on the bottom, nor the bottom leaking.
• It does a great job of blending.

What You May Not Love About the Instant Pot Ace Blender

• The glass container is very heavy, over 5 lbs., and it can’t be submerged in water
• The blender is too tall to fit under kitchen cabinets, and steam comes out of the lid while cooking hot foods, so you’ll need to make sure it’s not too close to your cabinets.
• Currently a recipe booklet is not included with the blender. The manual only has recipes for creating soy, rice, nut and oat milks. However, Instant Pot has teamed up recipe creators (bloggers like myself) in the past to create amazing recipes for their products. I’m sure they’ll continue this tradition with the Ace Blender and you’ll see recipes soon.
• The silicone seal absorbs odors.

Putting the Instant Pot Ace Blender to the Test

The first recipe I used to test out the Ace was the almond milk recipe in the manual. It couldn’t have been easier, especially since a nut milk strainer bag is included with the blender.

The manual suggests soaking the nuts, so I left them soaking on the counter while I was gone to the gym, about 2 hours. I decided to peel the skins peeled off; which was super easy after soaking they just popped out. The manual said taking the skins off is optional.

Next, I used my freshly made almond milk to make a protein smoothie.  I followed the layering guide in the manual.

You’ll want to add the liquid first, then your protein powder, followed by your greens, and finish with your frozen fruit. I also added some chia seeds for a little extra protein and fiber.

Later that day for dinner, I made a blender version of my Pressure Cooker Creamy Tomato Basil Soup. Since the blender is smaller than the pressure cooker, you’ll have to divide the recipe in half. But the good news is your don’t have to dice the ingredients. Just give them a rough chop and add them to the blender.

Instant Pot Ace Blender Tomato Basil Soup Recipe

Making the soup in the blender is not quicker than making it in the pressure cooker, but you do get a smoother, creamier soup than when I blend it in the pressure cooker with an immersion blender. It was about 30 minutes to make the soup because it has to bring the ingredients to a boil before it blends the soup the last 2 minutes of the cycle. Urvashi from Two Sleevers did a video of using the blender that explains the heating process well.

When I tried making almond butter in the Ace, but since almonds are such a dry nut, there wasn’t enough moisture to blend. I would get an error message and the blender would stop. I switched the almonds over to my Blendtec and it struggled as well. So I brought out my food processor and it was a better fit for making almond butter.

Marci from Tidbits recently posted her Vanilla Cashew Cream recipe where she combines the pressure cooker and the new Ace blender.

Instant Pot Ace Blender Review Conclusion

I’ve been a big fan of the Blendtec blender for years. I felt the Instant Pot Ace Blender performed as well if not better than my Blendtec blender. Often I have to use the smoothie program twice on my Blendtec to get my smoothie as smooth as I like. But just one cycle on the Ace gave me the result I was looking for.

The Ace blender is big and heavy and doesn’t fit under my counter. But the jar is sturdy enough that if you want to leave it on the counter, you could set the jar on the counter next to the base.

If you’ve been wanting a high quality blender at a more affordable price, the Instant Pot Ace may be just what you’ve been waiting for.

Currently the IP Ace is only available at Walmart » https://www.walmart.com/ip/Instant-Pot-Ace-60-Cooking-Blender/626991948

Disclosure: I was sent an Instant Pot Ace to review, but all opinions expressed are always my own.

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