I use this affordable immersion blender for homemade pesto, salsa, dip, and more - it's versatile, powerful, and easy to clean

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• An immersion blender can help you make soups, salsas, and dips with less cleanup than a blender or food processor.
• I tested the Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender and used it to make dip, pesto, and all different types of soup.
• Not only was it effortless to use, but cleaning the blender was quick and painless.

While it may be the middle of summer, for me it's always soup season. Anyone who has ever been blessed enough to eat with me at a restaurant knows that I'm always going to ask the server the same question: "What's your soup of the day?"

Soup is one of those comfort foods that I'm always in the mood for - I've been known to get an early morning cup of chicken lemon rice soup alongside my omelet at a diner. However, because I didn't have the proper equipment, I always categorized most of my favorite soups as a "restaurant food," or recipes that seemed either too complicated, difficult, or ambitious for me to make at home.

That was until I tested the Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender. For $100, this has everything I need to make my favorite soups, dips, salsas, and more at home. Even though I'm relegated to the role of my girlfriend's sous chef in our apartment, home cooks will love the simplicity, versatility, and easy clean up that comes with the Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender.

What you get

It comes with five major components - a motorized handle, immersion blender, whisk, chopping bowl, and extra-large jug.

The motorized handle can be used with the immersion blender, whisk, and chopping bowl, just click it into place and it automatically connects with whichever tool you're using. The motor gets up to 280 watts but can be adjusted within 15 different speed settings depending on how chunky you want your final product to turn out. While Breville makes more powerful blenders than this, I've never had any issues blending cooked potatoes and cauliflower into a creamy soup.

The immersion blender is 8-inches long, allowing you to fully submerge the blades into deep pots and its bell-shape design helps increase blending ability without splashing all over your kitchen counters. The bottom of the blender has a non-scratch exterior so you don't have to worry about ruining your pots if you get too close to the bottom or sides of your cookware.

The whisk attachment is just as easy to use and clean. Click it into the motor and you're ready to mix, aerate, and whisk anything you need.

While it's not technically a food processor, the chopping bowl has stainless steel blades that will perform the same essential function. Click the motor into the lid of the chopping bowl, and it automatically connects to the blades at the bottom. Plus, each part of the chopping bowl easily separates when it's time for cleanup.

You can use the large jug to stabilize the chopping bowl or to hold all the ingredients as you blend or whisk with the attachments.

How the Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender performed

The Breville Control Grip couldn't be easier to handle during testing.

The motor/handle is ergonomically designed for a natural grip and the material is soft to the touch. The button to turn on the motor is right where you'd expect it to be when gripping the device, and you can easily adjust the speed with the top dial while you're still blending. This is important because you're not supposed to start the blender at high speeds right away but instead are supposed to slowly build up to higher speeds.

So far, we've cooked several different soups with the blender attachment, including cauliflower and onion, roasted tomato and garlic, potato leek, and tortilla.

While blending time differs depending on how chunky you want your final dish, it never took us more than 10 minutes to complete the blending step of any recipe.

The scratch guard on the blender allowed it to glide along the bottom of our large pot without fear of ruining the surface of our cookware, and it was easily washed with hot water and soap. Additionally, we never had any issues with food getting jammed in the blender or the motor overheating.

Like the blender, using the chopping bowl is also intuitive.

So far, we've made a white bean hummus dip and a parsley-based pesto. The pesto blended relatively quickly, but the beans took a little bit longer to blend down to our desired creaminess compared to the soups we'd made with the immersion blender. That said, it's not like holding the button down a little longer is very taxing so this wasn't too much of an issue.

For denser items like chickpeas, the blades didn't seem powerful enough to keep grinding at times, so we had to transfer everything to the extra-large jug and use the immersion blender instead.

If you're pressed for time, you can always increase the speed of the motor, but again, gradually increase the power of the motor until you get to the speed you want.

We haven't felt the need to use the jug as a stabilizer for the chopping bowl and have just placed the chopping bowl directly on the counter. In fact, we haven't used the jug much because we use the immersion blender mostly in our pots.

We don't eat eggs or whipped cream in my apartment, so we haven't had a reason to use the whisking tool yet either. There's nothing really special to this attachment but I can see it being useful for things like pancakes, waffles, and even desserts.

The bottom line

The Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender has become our favorite tool in the kitchen because I no longer have to go out to try all my favorite soups. With all the different attachments included alongside the blender, we now have the ability to make any recipe we come across in our favorite cookbooks.

There are plenty of immersion blenders out there that will get the job done, but the reason why this one is the top pick in our buying guide is because of its versatility and value. For $100, you get a powerful motor and useful attachments that can help make a variety of dishes. It's an easily justifiable purchase for any person who likes to cook and is looking for ways to make their favorite restaurant dishes at home.