You blend as often as you can, and you’re enjoying a healthier lifestyle because of it.
Good on you.
Now it’s time to augment your blender so it can perform even more amazing feats.
From replacement parts (of higher quality) to measurement cups, ice crushing blades and more, this is the ultimate list of everything that you need to amp up your blender, and make it just a little bit better than it was before.
If you’d like to see a graphical breakdown of the blender accessories, we got you covered:
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1. Ice Crushing Blades
Let’s get real for a minute…
the real reason you got your blender is so that you can make absolutely astounding smoothies that rival the coffee shop down the nloc.
In order to do that, you need to be able to pulverize ice like it’s nobody’s business.
Ice blades aren’t even as sharp as standard stainless steel blender blades, but they have an ability to abrasively crush ice and turn it into a fine powdery snow.
Ice crushing blades generally outlast standard stainless steel blades by about two extra years.
With steel, it’s mostly about RPM, but part of it is about the blade sharpness.
Let’s call it a 70/30 split.
Ice crushing blades are meant to be abrasive, so they won’t work for normal blender things, but they’ll pick up the slack to be about a 95/5 split on power versus sharpness.
2. Replacement Gaskets
Gaskets come and go.
We wrote a whole article on repairing your blender properly, and in it we discussed that gaskets are usually one of the very first things you’ll end up replacing on your blender, even if it takes a few years.
Between cleaning, odor retention, and the range of temperatures (making hot soup and then a smoothie, for example), there’s a lot of stress on that little rubber seal at the bottom of your cup. It’s holding onto those blades for you.
Replacement gaskets are just something nice to have on-hand.
They’re ridiculously affordable, and it’s best to get them for your specific model before they go out of production.
While the company might be a good one, like Vitamix or Ninja, you never know when things could shift and those parts could stop being made (or the entire family of blenders for that matter).
Grab a four-pack and keep them in the original plastic packaging, and stow them away somewhere.
Avoid aftermarket or discontinuation prices while you can.
If you’re still on the fence about buying a blender, even after reading out buying guides on the matter, try to include extra gaskets in your initial order to save even more money.
3. Milkshake Blades
Toss in some Whoppers (the candy), some milk, ice cream, and make a 1950s classic treat that you can indulge in.
True milkshakes have a certain consistency and flavor about them, and when you make them at home, they don’t come out overly sweet like they do in restaurants.
Your milkshake blade can be swapped out in about fifteen seconds, and whips everything together flawlessly.
If you thought your standard stainless steel blades were doing a good job, this is about to blow your mind.
Milkshakes are dense, but there’s still air bubbles throughout them.
If you’ve ever had a milkshake after it’s been sitting there for a few minutes, you’ve likely detected a bit of a flat taste.
It’s not necessarily bad, but it is noticeably less exciting, and you would do better with a set of milkshake blades to really bring things to the next level.
4. On-The-Go Blender Cups
It’s difficult to stay healthy in our world of modern convenience, but you can help to fight urges and temptations by bringing your blended beverages and meal replacements with you.
On-the-go cups are basically sports bottles that usually come in twenty ounce containers, and they just sit on top of the blender base as your pitcher.
Once everything is blended well, you just pop it off and head out the door.
These work wonders if you’re unfortunately working early in the morning, or if you’re trying to get to the gym as quickly as possible so you don’t miss other engagements.
It’s a time-saver, and it’s sure better than buying premixed smoothies while you’re out.
Those things are chock full of sugar, and just don’t taste right.
5. Rubber Feet
Blenders vibrate and skit across the countertop if they’re not held down properly.
You’re not going send a powerful blender back because it moves a bit—it’s blending the food just fine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add on your own rubber feet to the stands to keep it in place.
You can also do this with something else that we have later in this post.
Basically, rubber will absorb the vibrations and shock, and keep it properly in place.
You want to avoid letting moisture sit around the base of the rubber feet, otherwise you get a bacteria that can start to break it down or make it feel perpetually slick and unclean.
Not only that, but that bacteria is near your food, and will develop an odor.
Grab two sets of rubber feet for your blender so you can keep things clean and perfectly in place.
Rubber with a sticky-back side would work as well if you want to permanently attach it to your blender.
6. Blender Pitcher and Cup Racks
Air drying your dishes is super important, but countertop dish strainers are just clusterbombs where a bunch of bacteria can begin to house in as little as four hours.
That develops odors, and your dishes just don’t come out the same way.
An overcrowded strainer means there’s going to be stubborn hard water buildup spots on your dishes, like in the bottom of your blender cups, and on the interior of the rubber lid. You can avoid all that.
Get a specific and sturdy rack that can handle your pitchers, cups, to-go cups, and measurement containers so that everything remains in one place, and it stays as clean as possible at all times.
Keep this near the blender, but away from the sink.
You can put a cotton rag underneath this rack while they dry so your counters don’t flood, just be sure to throw it in the wash after everything has had a chance to dry properly.
7. Countertop Traction Pads
Similar to those drying rubber pads that you use underneath dishes when they’re drying, these will help out with vibration absorption, but they will also help out with water getting stuck under your blender’s motor housing and developing an odor.
It’s a simple and inexpensive way to designate your blender area, and keep things clean at the same time.
8. Spout and Measurement Pitchers
Measurement pitchers are different from cups, because they’ll often hold high capacities up to 64 oz or more.
You can view these as replacement pitchers for your blender, but you can upgrade them.
Instead of that boring, linear measuring pitcher that you had before, you can get one with an easy pour spout on the side.
This is a lifesaver (and reduces or eliminates messes) when you make anything frozen, which you’ll presumably be doing a lot of.
This is where you can experiment with different handle sizes, ergonomic grips, measurements on the sides, and different locking rubber lids. It’s not just about customizing the look of your blender, but upgrading its range of functionality at the same time.
9. Measuring Cups
Stainless steel measuring cups, like you’d get for a baker. If you’ve ever tried to measure out mashed banana, or a recipe calls for a certain amount of ounces of a type of berry instead of just counting them out, then you’d be reaching for some measuring cups.
If small stainless steel ones aren’t your thing, you can get Pyrex glass measuring cups for a bit more volume. The goal it to avoid plastic, since it can discolor from the acidity in fruits, and the measurement markings are going to come off after a few runs in the dishwasher.
You’d need something that tells you cups, quarter cups, and a set for half teaspoons and full teaspoons, at the very least.
The rest of it you can basically figure out on your own if you have these measuring cups.
If you’re making very specific drinks, like protein shakes, you know how important that precise measurement of spices can be. If you go overboard, you’ll have a big cup of nothing, because it’s going in the garbage. You can’t eyeball measurements like this.
10. Motor Cooling Stand
These motors get insanely hot. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a Vitamix Pro 750 model with a cool-running motor, hot days and environmental issues can still happen.
Cooling stands give the motor a bit of extra breathing room, but you will definitely hear an increase in the level of noise.
It’s not subble by any standards, so you’ll have to account for this when you’re thinking of the usual time of day that you blend, who will be around, etcetera.
The cool thing is that you can improvise.
You can buy a simple stand with ventilation (one that won’t melt, so leave plastics away), or you can get one with a motorized fna like a laptop cooling stand.
The only thing you have to be wary of is spillage. If you’re making a smoothie, you don’t want to drop strawberry puree into an electric motor fan, you know?
11. Soundproofing
Blenders get loud.
Some of them even go above the 85 dB range, which is where you can experience short-term hearing loss or damage.
That’s pretty scary, and while it’s not as loud as a juicer right next to your ear (which is a nightmare, I don’t recommend it), it can still be an issue.
If you’ve just come in from a workout and have the start of a headache, you don’t want to avoid a smoothie because of the motor sound, you know?
Soundproof foam is a lifesaver, but it does require a bit of DIY know-how to get the most out of it.
Open up the motor housing, and find the areas that aren’t being used for ventilation on cool-running motors.
Fill those spots up with soundproof foam, and listen to the difference once you reapply the motor housing.
It’s still audible, of course, but that soundproofing actually absorbs some of the sound shock and vibrations to mitigate the usual loudness.
12. Steel Cups
Not a fan of plastic pitchers or cups?
We can’t say we blame you.
Plastic is not only horrible for the environment, but far more fragile than stainless steel or even glass.
Plastic containers end up looking extremely cloudy after short periods of use, even if you’re using premium dishwashing detergent in a brand new dishwasher.
It just degrades over time, not to mention leach chemicals into your food.
The answer is stainless steel.
Totally food safe, easy to clean, and you don’t end up with divots and cuts in the interior.
With plastic containers, those cuts and scrapes can house bacteria if not cleaned properly, which can not only flavor your blended food and drinks, but also get you sick.
304 grade stainless steel or above is usually dishwasher safe, and doesn’t leave behind any tinny or metallic taste in your beverages.
13. Professional Covers
You go to the coffee house, they fire up the blender, and close that plastic house that sits around the blender.
Do you know what that’s for?
A mix of keeping things clean if a splatter were to occur, and soundproofing.
It only helps out minorly with the sound on ultra powerful motors, but it’s better than nothing.
This gives a professional look to your blender, while also insuring you against the lid popping off and splattering you.
14. Rubber Spatulas
These aren’t necessarily for your blender, but they make it dead simple to get every last drop of deliciousness out of it.
Rubber or silicone spatulas gently glide against the inside of the pitcher, and help to rouse up all the smoothie, sauce, or whatever it is that you’re blending so that it pours into the designated container.
You can’t account for the bits that get stuck underneath the blades, but this will ensure that you’re losing less food, and by doing that, you’re wasting less money on food as well.
Rubber can degrade with time, just like your gaskets, so it’s best to get designated spatulas that are only to be used for your blender.
Air dry them in the same place that you keep your extra pitchers and cups, and you’ll always have them handy.
15. Food Storage Containers
We’ve talked about convenience a lot here, especially with the on-the-go cups.
The only problem with those is that you need to have the ingredients pre chopped and sliced and ready to blend straight away.
If you’re doing that first thing in the morning, you’re not really improving your productivity, are you? Instead, prepare the fruit and veggies the night before, and stash them in some food storage containers.
Opt for glass when possible. Plastic tupperware not only gets this greasy feeling on it, but it doesn’t age well.
The acidity from strawberries, blueberries and certain veggies will discolor and possibly flavor the sidewalls of a plastic container.
Glass is resistant, less likely to get lost in the cupboard (we’ve all done it), and can be 100% airtight so your ingredients remains at peak perfection when it comes time to blend them.
Alternatively, you can keep some chopped fruits and veggies in here, and some in on-the-go cups in the fridge for the morning.
Do I Need These Extra Attachments?
Some are for repairs and maintenance, some are for expanding what your blender is capable of.
The truth of the matter is, you can just use your blender out of the box without worry, but you could enjoy the experience more with some accessories.
You’re here, reading this right now, because you’re eccentric about blended foods and beverages, just like we are.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a designated space just for your blender?
So the attachments, like the milkshake or ice blades, are not technically necessary.
Blades and pitchers can promote longevity for your blender though, since you won’t be relying on generic stainless steel blades for every single thing.
While they’re versatile, if you’re mainly getting a blender for frozen beverages, you’ll get more life out of an ice blade.
The Blender Accessories You Needed to Know About
Now that you’ve seen what your blender can truly do, you’ll be able to augment it like never before.
Turn your blender into the perfect kitchen companion to tackle every single task (within reason), and get ready to utilize it for meal preparation and other numerous benefits.
Blenders aren’t just for smoothies anymore, especially if you have the attachments we’ve listed here.
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