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Most likely you’ve bought a blender because you love freshly prepared sauces, soups, and smoothies, whizzing, whisking and whipping up nutritious and healthy culinary delights for the whole family to enjoy both at home and when they’re on the road or headed into college. Making sure that your kids have their full quota of brightly colored fruit and vegetables can be a mission and that’s where a blender truly comes into its own.
Whether you are making a wonderful tomato-based chunky salsa, a home-prepared hearty vegetable soup or creating a zingy tropical fruit-based smoothie, with a blender, getting those A-Z of vitamins and minerals inside your family has never been easier or more creative.
With so many machines also coming with handy and convenient portable blender bottles too, you really can prepare one for the road. We mentioned soup, a big favorite recipe to get the blender treatment, but can you heat up your delicious homemade soup in the microwave in that blender bottle?
It’s a common question which is why we are discussing it today, and as always, answers across the internet vary widely which is why we’re hoping to shed some light on the topic and will be answering the question: “Are blender bottles microwave safe?”
The microwave is a very common household appliance and certainly extremely convenient. It’s hassle free, quick and requires minimal cleaning up, so it is a frequent choice, especially for heating up food that you’ve already prepared. It works like a dream for soups, stews, casseroles, etc. The most important thing when you are microwaving anything is to be confident. If you are at all unsure as to whether the vessel you are using or the food you intend cooking for that matter is suitable, then it’s best to avoid microwaving that item.
It’s obvious to see why using a blender bottle in the microwave might be tempting. After all, it is a leak-proof container, and the BPA-free plastic that they are most commonly constructed from can withstand a fair amount of heat. Seems like an obvious choice. We mentioned BPA-free, and again, that’s a crucial point to note so don’t need to worry about any potential toxic side effects from heating up plastic either. So far, it all sounds good.
Well, yes unfortunately so. While the BPA-free material itself may well be up for the job, it’s more likely that the cover or top to your blender bottle won’t be. They’ve not explicitly been designed with use in a microwave in mind, and therein lies the problem. Over time, your cover is likely to crack and leak if you subject it to regular heat from a microwave for example. That is mostly down to the fact that there is a tremendous amount of pressure being built up inside the container when you are heating up liquids. You’ve no doubt experienced the phenomena before when you remove a tightly sealed lid and some of the liquid sprays out on account of the high-pressure which has built up inside suddenly being released.
The other thing to consider is that blender bottles are generally not designed to be insulated.
A blender bottle is not a thermos flask and shouldn’t be viewed as such. It’s not been designed explicitly to keep hot liquids at a comfortable temperature for prolonged periods, whether they’ve been microwaved or not. A more appropriate question might be why you are considering using your blender bottle in this way to even start with?
At the end of the day, the choice is indeed yours, and it is not so much a case of answering the question as to whether blender bottles are microwave safe but rather why you would want to use them in this way when that’s not what they have been designed for.
If you do insist on using yours this way there are a couple of very obvious do not’s to be aware of.
First up, under no circumstances should you put your blender bottle in the microwave if it contains any kind of metal inside it. Many bottles have metal blades inside them to create smoother-textured smoothies and milkshakes, and we hope it goes without saying that metals in microwaves don’t go together.
Metal is a natural conductor which means that electricity just loves it, so much so that sparks are likely to fly. You’re quite likely to end up needing to replace more than just your blender bottle if you make the mistake of putting metal into you microwave; It could be costly as well as messy.
Secondly, when the liquid inside of your bottle becomes hot, a tremendous amount of pressure builds up that needs to escape somewhere. That’s even more the case with blender bottles as they feature unique pressure-seal lids. Worst-case scenario, the pressure could be so intense that your cap clean pops off just like a cork leaving a champagne bottle and the liquid sprays everywhere.
At the very least though, you’re going to experience some potentially dangerous spraying of hot liquids when you do release the top which can cause burns to the skin or other injuries which. So if you do insist on using a blender bottle, please be extremely careful when removing the lid of your shaker cup.
In our opinion, while you could exercise due caution by ensuring that you remove any metal blender balls or other metal parts and always slowly and carefully remove the sealed lid, we’d definitely recommend that you don’t use your blender bottle inside a microwave. It’s not what they’re intended for, and because of those pressure sealed lids, you really could injure yourself if the lid unexpectedly flies off and sprays you with hot coffee or soup. Don’t bother is our best advice!