So after soaking two cups of raw, unsalted cashews in water overnight, I put half of the nuts in each blender’s container, along with four cups of water and a pinch of salt.Īnd even with all of the prep, making cashew milk in the Ace couldn’t have been a more straightforward process. Plus, the Instant Pot Ace has programs for several types of dairy-free milk, including nut milk, oat milk, rice milk, and soy milk - and I wanted to put at least one of these eight programs to the test, to see how well they were dialed in. Nut milk is easy to make, but it requires a good blender, so it seemed like a great place to start my testing. So if the Instant Pot blender claims to do it all for just $99, why would anyone pay $500 for a Vitamix? To discover the actual difference between these two blenders, I called in samples from each of the companies, which kindly sent them my way, and tested each in three head-to-head categories: nut milk, smoothies, and hot soup. This feature is why the blender is heralded as a “Multiuse Cooking and Beverage Blender,” not just a blender. The Instant Pot Ace even has a hidden heating element that can also cook raw vegetables before puréeing (no Vitamix does that). The Ascent has a plastic container, while the Ace’s is heavy-duty glass.

The Ascent 2500, which cost $500 on Amazon, has three smart programs the Ace has eight. On paper, the features of the Instant Pot Ace blender seem to blow the Vitamix Ascent series, the brand’s newest and most high-tech line, out of the water. So when Instant Pot, the Canadian company best known for its culty electric pressure cooker with over 28,000 reviews on Amazon, came out with the Instant Pot Ace 60 blender for just $99 - which, for now, you can only get at Walmart - it was hard not to wonder just how it would stack up. For blenders, that’s Vitamix, and though they’re notoriously expensive, Vitamix blenders are powerful and beloved by home cooks and professional chefs alike. In the same way that Kleenex has come to refer to all tissues or Ziploc means any resealable plastic bags, some brands become synonymous with the thing they make (arguably) better than anyone else.

Insta blender