How to Blend and Puree Without a Blender? A Guide

Blender is one of the most essential tools in one’s kitchen. It expands your cooking options and allows you to make a variety of hot and cold recipes in the kitchen. However, if you don’t have a blender, you can still process your ingredients with other methods.

There is a wide range of alternatives that you can use in place of your blender. The choice of equipment will mainly depend on the type of food you are going to be processing using the blender.

How To Blend Without A Blender – Methods

You can use the following methods as a substitute for blenders:

These methods are time-consuming and will take manual effort, but they will process your food in the right manner and provide you with desired and efficient results.

So, without any further ado, let’s begin with these methods.

Chef’s Knife

The knife is the most important kitchen utensil as it is used in all of the recipes. Make sure that you get a high-quality chef’s knife for your kitchen that is sharp and sturdy, especially if you want to use it to blend food.

You can use the knife to cut the ingredients into the smallest portions. Once you have chopped the ingredients, you can place the flat side of the knife on them and press them hard down on the cutting board to mash them.

Then, you can process the food and vegetables further by using a mortar and pestle, or food mill. In this way, you will be able to blend your food without needing a blender.

Mortar and Pestle

One of the ancient tools that have been used for thousands of years to process food. You can create a lot of quality recipes and blends using mortar and pestle.

Although it won’t be as fast as an electric blender, it will still do the job. You can process a wide variety of foods including grinding spices, and nuts, making the paste, blending vegetables, and other ingredients.

You just need to follow these steps to use mortar and pestle efficiently.

Boiling and Mashing

Vegetable processing can be a lot easier if you boil it first. Boiling makes the vegetables soft, so bending them for making vegetable juice or processing them is a lot easier.

Simply pour some water into a pot, place vegetables in it, and allow it to boil. After the food has boiled, you can take the vegetables and process them using one of the substitutes mentioned in the list.

You can also use the potato masher, which I haven’t mentioned in the list. Mashing the boiled vegetables will give you a lot better results.

Food Mill

Food mills are cheap and hand-used tools for blending and pureeing vegetables and fruits. You can find them easily in the market for a cheap price.

The tool is made of a manual hand presser on a perforated steel plate. The hand crank will be used to push the food through small holes of steel plate to process it into smaller pureed or blended forms.

You can use a food mill to process a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients.

Cheese Grater

Cheese graters can be used for processing vegetables, as they make it easier for you to cut the vegetables into smaller portions. You can wash the vegetable, peel it (if needed) and then rub it on the cheese grater to cut it into smaller pieces.

However, a cheese grater is a sharp tool, so when processing smaller vegetables, you have to be extra careful. Otherwise, you might end up hurting your fingers.

Rolling Pin

A rolling pin can also be used for mashing vegetables and processing food. However, we will recommend only using it if you don’t have any of the above options available.

A rolling pin can only be used to mash the food, so you will need to chop it into smaller pieces and boil it first.

Also, instead of mashing the boiled veggies, you can place them in a plastic bag and simply roll the rolling pin on them, to make a paste. You can take the paste out of the bag later to store it or use it for the recipe. 

Fork, Spatula, and Other Kitchen Utensils

If you don’t have a rolling pin or a potato masher, you can also use a fork, spatula, or other strong kitchen utensils to mash the food.

Boiling the vegetables makes them soft, and then mashing them is a lot easier. So, you can easily mash them even using a fork.

How to Blend Veggies and Fruits Without a Blender?

You can blend vegetables even if you don’t have a blender. We have shared plenty of ways above through which you can achieve the desired results.

However, when it comes to vegetables and fruits, let’s classify them into two categories.

The first ones are soft vegetables and fruits. Blending them even without a blender is easier because you can do it with a few simple steps:

If you are making a smoothie, you can add proteins to thicken the mixture. Then, you can add the mixture into water or milk, as per your requirements.

However, if you are blending stronger vegetables, mashing them won’t be easy. Hence, to make the process easier, you can boil them first.

Just pour some water into a pot, add the chopped pieces of the vegetable and let it boil. Sprain the extra water out, and mash the boiled pieces.

The pieces will be soft and you will be able to mash them easily, making your desired blend without needing a blender.

How to Puree Without a Blender?—Here’s What to Do

Blending and pureeing are very similar concepts. While blending means to grind, chop, mix and blend, pureeing simply means to crush and pulverize the desired fruit or vegetable into a liquid form.

Luckily, you can prepare delicious purees at home even if you don’t have a blender. There are plenty of substitutes in your kitchen that you can use in place of the blender.

You can use the same tools we mentioned for blending to prepare purees as well. The most efficient tool among these is the mortar and pestle.

First of all, you need to chop your fruit or vegetable into small pieces. You can go about it in two ways, either through a kitchen knife or through a cheese grater. The grater will give you much smaller pieces, but not everything can be used on a grater.

In the case of squishy fruits, you will need to peel them first, before processing them. If the pieces aren’t small enough, you can mash them using the chef’s knife to make them even smaller.

In the case of harder vegetables, you can boil them first, to make them soft, and then mash them using the mortar and pestle.

Once you have the mashed veggies or fruits, you can add your desired proteins and vitamins, like yogurt or peanut butter to thicken the mixture and then mix it in water or milk to prepare the puree.

You can also crush the ice using this equipment and add them to your puree to savor the taste. Your delicious purees are ready to be served.

How to Make Strawberry Puree without a Blender?

Strawberries can also be pureed easily without a blender. There are plenty of ways you can prepare strawberry puree, so let’s go with the most simple one.

First of all, you must know that strawberries are hard fruits, not soft like oranges, so you won’t be able to easily smash them with forks or a chef’s knife.

So, chop them into small pieces and boil them a bit to make them softer. Once they are soft, you can use a variety of ways to mash them up.

You can mash them with a mortar and pestle, using a potato masher, using kitchen utensils, or a rolling pin. You can also use the food mill to mash the strawberry.

Stop the mashing once you feel like the puree is ready. You can keep mashing until you have achieved the desired results.

The strawberry puree can be used in shakes, juices, and a variety of other delicacies in your kitchen.

You can also store the prepared strawberry purees in your fridge for 3 to 5 days, depending on their quality and preserved time. Just make sure that you seal them in an air-tight container.

Also read: How to make beetroot juice with a blender?

How to Puree Baby Food Without a Blender?

The process is pretty much similar to what we have discussed before. However, when it comes to baby food, you have to be extra careful with the ingredients.

You can boil the fruits and veggies in a steamer, pan, or slow cooker, after chopping them into small pieces.

After the ingredients have softened up, you can mash them using the potato masher, food mill, mortar, pestle, or kitchen utensils.

Once you have mashed them enough, the baby food puree will be ready. You can season them a bit with salt for taste and add breast milk or water as per your recipe.

See, easy and peasy without needing a blender for the job.

What to do if you don’t have a blender?

Even if you don’t have a blender, you can go with the immersion blender or food processor in your home.

Basically, the immersion blender and food processor have also the same functions as the blender, but their blades will be a bit different.

Check out the type of blade which will go best for the pureeing and blending, and use it to blend your fruits, veggies, and other fruits.

The best blade to use for pureeing is the blunt blade. Provided with enough force, it will easily pulverize through the ingredients, providing you with the perfect results.

However, if you don’t have the immersion blender or food processor, then you can go with our above-mentioned steps.

Frequently Asked Questions?

Conclusion

Mery Webber

Mery Webber, the founder of Kitchen Aims, is a passionate home cook with extensive experience in the kitchen appliance industry. Through her blog, she aims to share her knowledge and help readers create the perfect kitchen.