Instant Pot (Ace Plus) Cooking & Beverage Blender Reviews

This Instant Ace Plus blender is one of the best appliances I’ve purchased — ever. For the price, it blends very well! I’ve wanted a fancy Vitamix blender for years (my friend has one, and I’ve seen it demo’ed in a store), but I could never justify the crazy price. While I haven’t compared the two blenders side by side in real time, I feel the Instant Ace Plus is comparable at 1/3 to 1/4 the price.

It’s rather quiet for a blender. It’s much quieter than a mid-price blender, an electric coffee grinder, or an inexpensive vacuum. Hearing loss is no joke! I had considered a blender with a silencing cover, but the price and reputation of this blender convinced me to buy it. I am very happy I did.

I’ve only used it to make smoothies (daily) and to clean itself. It makes perfect smoothies with the touch of a single button! It pulses then pauses to move the ingredients around but not melt the frozen stuff. Amazing!! It liquifies baby spinach, incorporates cocoa powder, and grinds frozen stuff quickly and easily. Never going to a smoothie shop again, especially when I can control the amount of sugar in my ingredients.

Two negatives (very minor) to this machine: It is HUGE! It makes my other appliances on the counter look small, lol. Also, it’s heavy—if you use it often and don’t have an “appliance garage,” you’ll probably want to keep it on the counter. The pitcher is heavy to lift and pour, but in my opinion, that only matters if you are very weak or have a medical condition. It’s too heavy for a kid to lift, but with sharp blades, a lot of power, and a pitcher whose base can’t be submerged in water, your kid probably shouldn’t be using it anyway. The many pages of warnings in the booklet are common sense, but DO READ the manual!

I highly recommend this blender. I’m becoming a real fan of Instant brand products.

For families who want to focus on whole foods while simplifying meal prep, the Instant Ace Plus Blender is an impressive innovation. It’s part instant pot, part blender and makes your favorite meals, beverages, and desserts easier to prep.

Please note this is one of my wordy reviews, so go ahead and grab your coffee cup or another fine libation. How did I come upon this wonder of A.I. engineering called the Instant Ace Plus? Well, I was extremely frustrated to discover my local grocery store was out of stock of my organic UNSALTED dairy butter. I am a vegetarian, not a vegan, I wanted to see if I could switch exclusively to nut instead of dairy butters. I found out I cannot, I still prefer organic unsalted dairy butter for certain of my recipes, though I have begun using nut butter on my bread instead of dairy butter thanks to the Instant Ace Plus. My other blender that was said to be dishwasher safe really wasn't and as a result I had been struggling with a broken lid for some time while using it. Regardless I am often mixing up so many different foods in a day that multiple blenders are fantastic for me. IN MY OPINION this is the best blender I have ever used. I am so pleased to own one of my own. If you have the Ace Ultra and not the Ace Plus DO NOT discard it but consider adding the Instant Ace Plus if you want to get into nut butters and grinding specialty flour for gourmet bread making. I am starting to grow Amaranth in my garden and look forward to grinding that into small amounts of flour I will add into my homemade bread for example. I have already ground some of my dehydrated bread on number 6 blend cycle and I got so mesmerized watching it next thing I knew I had more flour, the grind on my bread crumbs was that fine. These machines are so fast I will have to be sure to pulse it next time to make bread crumbs but it caused me to discover I can even reuse leftover dehydrated bread as more flour if I want in addition to bread crumbs. the Instant Ace Plus CLEANS SO EASILY I AM AMAZED. No more struggling. I am recovering from a back injury so this is especially appreciated by me. The machine weighs in at around 16 pounds so it stays put on the counter easily. It is so balanced ergonomically when lifting I feel I am holding a ten pound handweight and I get some more isometrics in. REMEMBER DO NOT PUT THE CONTAINER IN THE REFRIGERATOR. These are more than blenders, they are A.I. and there are electronics in the bottom of the container SO DO NOT REFRIGERATE, one must pour the contents in another container and place that in the refrigerator. So that is a feature that can be improved that future editions have the ability to keep the Smoothie cold after making it so the pitcher can sit on top of the machine. The Keep Cool and the Keep Warm feature should last more than two hours, I recommend 12 hours. NOTE:The Instant Ace Plus at the time of this writing can only HEAT food, there is no refrigeration function. This may be due to shipping issues with coolant perhaps?? The very first thing I did with mine was take some sesame seeds I had been longing to make into tahini. I had tried in vain with my other blenders and food processors but they could not do the task. The Instant Ace Plus can do it!!!!! I recommend NOT tamping often and letting it do its thing and it will amaze you. The only mistake I made with mine at first was pausing it and tamping, that slowed it down. Now I just let it blend and puree, etc., and I am never disappointed, it more than pulverizes. My big surprise and delight is the soy milk feature with the delay timer. I make my own soy and almond milk and it had been a chore to clean my other soy milk maker. My other soymilk maker also has a lot of waste, I actually make a soy porridge out of the waste, it is that much. The Instant Ace Plus that comes with a lovely machine washable strainer bag makes milk with almost no waste, it was so miniscule I almost could not see it. No more triple straining!!!!!! If I want porridge or thick oat cream for ice cream making I still use my other soy milk maker as I just press a button and it makes oat cream on its cleaning cycle. With the Instant Ace Plus I would have to watch the texture of the oats if I wanted a coarse oat cream. The Instant Ace Plus has a button for superb BLENDED Oat Milk that i look forward to using as my other milk machine could not blend my oat milk enough. It is a wonderful feature to be able to throw in my beans or nuts, add water, 48 ounces is the max for hot liquids and hit the soymilk button and the delay start for six hours. When the beans and nuts are soaked it automatically starts and makes great milk. To clean I spritz some of my homemade dishsoap (1/8 castille, the rest water,) add 32 ounces of hot water press clean and in just 48 seconds the container practically sparkles. The container also has a perfect pour spout, no need to use a funnel to fill a mason jar with this marvel. The soup feature works great. I made vegetarian Indian style curry from my leftovers in a very short time so I had more time to make a batch of homemade pita bread. I also whipped up some hummus in it. I look forward to making homemade pasta sauce in it as soon as my tomato plants give me some tomatoes. I think it will be great for heating ice cream recipes before placing in the ice cream maker. I have a small kitchen and use my covered stovetop as more counter space so this is very handy to me since I cannot easily heat up a pot of NON FAT ORGANIC ice cream ingredients on the stove. I think it will be great also for making water ice. I made my spouse and I a protein Smoothie for lunch with ours and it just beyond wowed me! The smoothest smoothie I have ever made. Well actually Ace Plus made it, I just prepared it I guess. I might call him Mister Fantastic, he is that bombastic. When he is making recipes he/she? sounds like a sound effect from an instrument panel of the Blue Angels. Remember that the manual does NOT contain any recipes, though there is an app to download. I purchased two recipe books and will review more when they arrive. Note when making soymilk I used half the amount of ingredients I use for my big soymilk maker that yields me 1/2 gallon and it makes perfect milk with half the ingredients and yields 48 ounces. I like that I can put hot coffee in it without damaging it and make a hot low fat Frappucino. I can also reheat leftover coffee I have in my fridge in it if I want. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is the Keep warm maxes out at two hours and it DOES NOT have a Keep Cool function. Still if compared to my other similarly priced blender it is CERTAINLY MORE THAN 5 STARS.

UPDATE:5/13/2020 Alright now for the real nitty gritty particulars only discovered after a while of using my lovely Instant Ace Plus. I STILL THINK THESE ARE FANTASTIC AND WONDERFU with a few important caveats for those who only have minimal kitchen appliances and also for ALL WHO OWN THESE to protect the machines from damage. The perfect go to for best/easiest soy and almond milk. I fill 6 ounces IN WEIGHT (use electronic or other type weight scale,) of soybeans. Place in Instant Ace Plus fill to 48 ounces of water then hit delay timer for 6 hours. When soymilk is done strain (I find a fine metal strainer easier, but strainer bag is great for many things,) and place in 1/2 gallon mason jar, cool then refrigerate. For almond milk add 6 ounces of almonds BY WEIGHT and NOT volume, place in machine add 48 ounces water, press SOY MILK BUTTON AGAIN, then delay timer for six hours. I KNOW THERE IS AN ALMOND MILK BUTTON BUT IT IS COLD and not enough yield is obtained, maybe for ice cream after soaking almonds as it is creamier-I have not tried that yet. I know it yields almost a half gallon almond milk on SOYMILK setting when almonds are soaked 6 hours as I make almond and soymilkk regularly. On smoothie setting if I add a vitamin C pill or other vitamin pill I have to hit the Smoothie function twice to blend pill completely even when stacking all ingredients correctly. If you eat ramen or other instant soup place water then flavor packet in machine. Hit puree button then start. After it is done place noodles in bowl and pour liquid over-KNOW I AM A VEGETARIAN so please be respectful and do your best to use vegetarian soups with this. If you put campbells soup in you must strain out noodles and veggies from can and place in seperate bowl then pour finished broth over. It is very quick and much easier than heating up canned or packaged soup on the stove. Rinse, Fill with water to 32 ounces when finished and press clean button to clean. Be sure to rinse lid first and take it apart to make sure it is clean before doing this. NOW BE VERY CAREFUL WITH CLEAN -NEVER PUT SOAP AND PRESS A HEATED FUNCTION TO CLEAN AS MACHINE WILL OVERFLOW!!!!! BE CAREFUL TO KEEP BOTTOM OF PITCHER DRY!!!! I found out I do not like to blend hot LOW FAT SAUCES OR CHEESE SAUCES in this as it gets stuck on the bottom and is HARD TO CLEAN!!!!! HUMMUS IS MUCH BETTER IN MY OTHER FOOD PROCESSOR-IT IS VERY HARD TO GET IT BLENDED SMOOTHLY-I MAKE A NON FAT HUMMUS. I ALSO CANNOT EASILY GET ALL THE FOOD OUT AS THE BLADES ARE NOT REMOVABLE. Great for crushing ice, blending cold drinks, mixing up low or non fat ice cream or frozen yogurt mixes before freezing. As far as nut butter I had a tough time since I do NOT ADD MORE OIL. It did not blend it smoothly and I also got less of a yield. Still I use mine almost every day making milks, smoothies, etc. Note I have been busy and have not yet ground flour with it but I will update again when I do.

I love that the Ace Plus does so much more than an ordinary blender! The Ace's optimized program for cleaning itself is right up there as one of its best features, but shouldn't diminish its other strengths. Its cooking is also amazing, as are the other programs!

Just for soup, this is absolutely wonderful. We've been saying we wanted to have lighter suppers most of the time anyway, so this is a perfect addition to our kitchen. It is unbelievably easy to make soup! I can just cut up available leftover veggies, and ones which are just starting to get past their prime, along with onion, carrot, and potato, and toss them in with an otherwise too small to be useful piece of leftover meat or poultry (or not), add some favourite seasonings, pour in stock up to the maximum fill line (which creates a rather copious amount), or less, and push the soup button once or twice (the latter is for pureed soup). When it beeps 10 times, lunch or supper is ready. It's delicious, and it's essentially a free meal! The first time I made soup in the Ace, we went back for seconds and thirds, and still had a very little bit left. I was going to throw it away, but my husband rescued it to have with lunch. I will continue to make more!

I also used the Instant Ace Plus to make some hot chocolate using a recipe from Instant Pot. The cocoa was great, and copious, but the cleanup was dreadful. The brush helped, but needs to be more bristly at the end. Finally, my husband suggested using Dawn Power Dissolver, and that shifted the coating of chocolate milk at the bottom so that the clean cycle was able to whisk it away. I may or may not make this again, considering; but it might be perfect for some occasion, so never say never.

Next up was smoothies. Don't laugh, but I was never a smoothie maker, so this was a bit of an adventure. The first try turned out very well, but the results were quite copious for two people: we each had two very large glasses, and had a small amount left over. I've been making smoothies almost daily since then, which has helped us increase our fruit intake. The fact that we can make them at home without any added sugars is a big plus over smoothies you buy.

We're not into alternate forms of "milk," and may be the only people in America who had never had any (since we don't have problems with regular milk, we haven't felt the need), but as this is meant to work well for them, I thought I'd try making almond "milk." I didn't realize I needed near boiling water, so I had to soak the almonds in hotter water for another hour before the skins were loosened. (Removing the skins would be the perfect task for kids who want to help. It isn't difficult, just takes a while.) Once they were off, the Ace went to work. I poured the resulting liquid out through the bag the Instant people had provided (which was easy to wash by hand later on), and had no difficulty squeezing the last of the "milk" out. It's creamy, and pleasant tasting, but other than colour, it doesn't bear a whole lot of resemblance to milk. I don't like water, and find this refreshing. I'll probably try the other varieties too.

As for the bad: It can be hard to read the buttons when they're not lit up. A larger font would have gone a long way for people who are middle aged and older. My major complaints, however, are not being able to program the hot cycle for different foods; and that this version doesn't have a dessert/n'ice cream button. I'd love to be able to make sorbets, but will still try to find a way. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be any logic to the way the buttons are arranged.

Yes, the blender jar is a bit on the heavy side, but I'm quite sure my mother could have hefted it at the age of 93, so I really don't think you need to worry that it would be unsuitable for the elderly, unless it's somebody who's decidedly frail. Quite the contrary, in fact, since its ability to make fresh soups would be particularly appealing to older people.

The moment I hear that a new and notably different kitchen product is coming to market, I cringe. If the product proposes a new way to cook, it's going to need to be very well explained. It needs to have clear instructions and provide a big set of fantastic recipes that cover everything from the basics, like how to cook a sausage, to more complex stuff for a big dinner.