Why You Should Stop Using A Blender For Smoothie Bowls

A high-powered blender is an essential in the kitchen, perfect for pureeing sauces, condiments, milkshakes, and you guessed it, smoothies. It's an easy way to pulverize ingredients into a silky smooth substance with just the push of a button. However, sometimes silky smooth isn't what you want. For example, a pesto sauce that has been turned into a solid green puree won't have the same bite and appeal as a pesto that is slightly chunkier. Sometimes a food processor is just as good of a gadget that most people don't reach for. So how do you know whether to whip out the blender or food processor?

When it comes to smoothies, a blender is a no-brainer. However, when whipping up a smoothie bowl, consistency is key. Sure, smoothies may contain ingredients you want to disguise such as veggies, but a smoothie bowl is sweeter with more fruit and needs a similar consistency to pesto, whereas smoothies need a similar consistency to soup.

According to America's Test Kitchen, a smoothie should be slurp-able and a smoothie bowl should be scoop-able. And how do you achieve a scoop-able texture? A food processor. When pureeing your fruit mixture in a blender, you could be left with a thinner consistency that will prevent all your yummy smoothie bowl toppings from floating — and who wants a smoothie bowl that has the consistency of soup?

Having runny liquid drip from your spoon is no fun, and another tip ATK mentions is that it's best to use frozen fruit over fresh, because this creates a firmer, thicker, icier consistency. That being said, all the frozen contents are a lot for those smaller, narrow blender blades to handle. Meanwhile, the food processor has a much stronger vortex that is able to break down tougher ingredients, which results in a thick, smooth texture without the large, unwanted chunks. 

Winding Creek Ranch states that a good trick to achieving optimal thickness is by using frozen bananas slices and just enough milk for the mixture to come together.