The Panasonic blender & soup maker is more than just a blender. With a high-power motor and a precision cooker base, it’s designed to make quick, nutritious meals and snacks that you barely have to lift a finger for. As an appliance reviewer, it’s rare that I test a product that I really think is different and interesting. This one is. Keep reading to find out why I liked it so much!
Watch my review
This Panasonic kitchen appliance is a little different from others you see on the market. It has several different settings, making it a great all-in-one product. In this video, I’m making coconut lentil butternut soup on this blender and soup maker.
What’s in the box of the Panasonic blender & soup maker?
You’ll find the blender’s base, a 1.2L glass blender container, a blender lid with gasket, a noise-reduction cover, a two-part noise reduction “silent valve,” and an operating manual with recipe guide.
This blender container features a nonstick bottom and a heating element. It must be placed in a specific direction for the blender base to turn on, and it has contacts on its base for power.
What makes this blender different?
Unlike other blenders, this product can cook—and not just with friction. It contains a precision cooker base that lets you boil soups and soften ingredients, so you can make a wider range of recipes without any pre-cooking needed. It’s a hybrid product, and it does a great job of both blending and soup-making.
There are two main features that make this blender different. The first is its long, soup-making ability; the second is its noise reduction cover.
Soup making temperatures and time limits
Panasonic invests a lot more time and technology into this feature than other blender companies. This blender has a precise, nonstick cooktop that heats to 37˚C, 60˚C, 80˚C, or 100˚C, allowing you to actually cook hard ingredients rather than just purée hot ones.
It can cook for longer periods of time, too. Many blenders have short auto-shutoff limits; this one cooks soups at a standard 22-minute cycle, but can run for up to 60 minutes at a time based on your recipe. Blending speeds and temperatures stay at your selected temperature for that entire duration.
How hot can soups get in this blender? Soups and sauces can reach 100 degrees Celsius in this blender. This allows all ingredients to be fully cooked without a stove or oven. That includes ingredients that usually need to be pre-baked (like squash), as well as ingredients that usually need a longer cooking time (like red lentils).
Noise reduction
The second big feature of this blender is its noise reduction cover. Noise reduction covers are often only available on higher-end models, or are only available as an additional accessory for purchase. Instead, Panasonic includes a noise reduction cover in this blender’s base model. It’s a nice touch, especially as this blender’s soup routines can run for such a long time.
Thanks to this noise reduction cover, the blender is quieter than most of the blenders available on the market. Its loudness depends on what you’re blending and what settings you use, but it is up to 6.1 times quieter when used with its noise reduction cover.
For many of my common uses, I found that this blender ran at about 89dB without its noise cover, and 74dB with it on.
Key features of the Panasonic blender & soup maker
This blender features a high-power motor with six stainless steel fin blades on a fixed, low-profile cutting unit. It has a hot blending capacity of one litre and a cold blending capacity of 1.2 litres.
The Panasonic blender & soup maker was designed to be a very broadly used small kitchen appliance. It has nine precise, automatic programs, covering both hot and cold blending. These programs are set around an LCD screen with a running timer, and include: Soup (smooth), Soup (chunky), Smoothie, Frozen drink, Fruit purée, Pasta sauce, Nut drink, Jam, and Keep warm (maintains a temperature of approximately 55 degrees Celsius with continuous, slow stirring).
In addition to these nine pre-programmed options, you can also use this blender on Manual and Clean. Manual gives you manual control over the device’s temperature, timing, and blending speed. Clean is a one-touch, automatic cleaning program that pulses water at 70 degrees Celsius to remove stains and odours as it deep cleans your blender jar and blades.
My experience with this hot and cold blender
I really, really loved using this blender and soup maker. It’s a bit of a niche product, but one that I found myself using on an almost daily basis.
The Panasonic Blender & Soup Maker is a quiet and extremely effective blender, and it really does make making soup so easy. I made a lentil soup from the Panasonic website the very first day I unboxed this blender, and it took me less than five minutes to prep.
I then ended up making the same recipe three more times in quick succession (minus the butternut squash) because my partner and mom liked it so much. My mom keeps driving halfway across the city just to show up on my doorstep asking for more soup—and it’s genuinely the easiest recipe I’ve made all year. The appliance does all of the real work for me; it’s the perfect set-it-and-forget-it recipe.
While I think the blender’s heating element is what really makes it shine, it does a great job with cold foods, too. You can count on it to blend your smoothies and slushes evenly, and it makes lovely purées.
Need help finding the right blender? Check out our blender and juicer buying guide.
Final thoughts on the Panasonic blender & soup maker
If you’re looking for a small appliance that’s a blender and soup maker in one, you truly cannot beat the Panasonic blender & soup maker. It’s such an odd combination of functions, but I can really see it becoming a kitchen staple in households that love soups, curries, and more.
Thanks to its built-in cooktop, this soup maker is substantially different from other hot and cold blenders. You can use it to make more involved recipes than most blenders, and with less prep and clean-up, too. It feels closer to an electric multi-cooker, with an excellent blender coincidentally added in.
I’d recommend this product most strongly to cooks who make a lot of purées, chunky soups, pasta sauces, and nut milks. With its Keep Warm setting, it’s the perfect way to make a hot, fresh, healthy entrée or side in just a couple of minutes when you get home from work. The recipe cooks itself while you wind down, relax, and change into comfy clothes for dinnertime—and then it’s hot and ready to serve when you’re ready to eat.
Shop the Panasonic Blender & Soup Maker online at BestBuy.ca.
