With accessories to blend, chop, beat, mash, whisk and more, the SilverCrest Hand Blender sizes itself up to be the ultimate kitchen companion. As well as the standard blending foot, it includes mini chopper and food processing attachments, for chopping everything from nuts and herbs to veg and cheese, as well as a whisk and potato masher.
It also has variable-speed settings, so you can start slow and work up to a higher speed.An equivalent hand blender set from brands such as Bosch or KitchenAid would normally cost £90 or more, so at £40 this one could be a real bargain.
We tried the Lidl hand blender out to see if it’s worth buying. Read on to get our first impressions and verdict.
Lidl hand blender: what you get
Like its premium branded rivals, the SilverCrest hand blender has a metal blending foot. This is usually easier to clean and means you won’t need to worry about strong odours or staining, something which can happen with cheaper plastic models.
It comes with several additional accessories, including an 0.5-litre mini chopper and a 2-litre food processor bowl, which is a decent size for whipping up batches of dip or pesto. The food processor has attachments for slicing, dicing and grating. Other accessories include a masher attachment, whisk attachment, and a measuring/blending cup.
First impressions of the accessories and build quality
The main body of the hand blender, blending foot attachment and mini chopper accessory feel particularly well built, and have the look and feel of a premium appliance. But the food processor and masher are made entirely of plastic, and feel cheaper. We liked the rubber feet on these accessories, though, which help to stop them moving around when in use.
The blender has a one-button variable-speed control – the more you press, the faster it goes. This is particularly handy for blending soup, as starting at a lower speed can help to avoid splashing.
What’s it like at blending, chopping and mixing?
This Lidl hand blender was great at certain jobs: it blitzed through all the ingredients in our vegetable soup in seconds, did an excellent job of chopping up almonds and herbs, and even made a mean pesto. But the food processor attachment was a little bit of a disappointment. It struggled to grate parmesan or dice carrots evenly.
You can’t adjust the thickness of the slicing attachment, either, so your vegetables will be sliced very thinly, which could be limiting when cooking.
Baking fans will find the whisk useful for whipping up cream or whisking egg whites.
How easy is it to use and clean?
Using the blender was a piece of cake thanks to its one-button speed control. You can really feel it get faster the more you press, which makes you feel in control. The clip-on, clip-off attachments were easy to fit, too – although a little harder to remove.We found the instruction manual clear and easy to understand, and it includes four different recipes to help you get started.
Cleaning could be easier. Some parts are dishwasher safe, but not all, so you’ll need to remember what will and won’t go in the dishwasher. We found cleaning some parts quite tricky, especially the lid of the food processor bowl. It can’t be run under water, you can only wipe it over with a wet cloth. This makes it harder to clear out all the little dirt traps where food can get stuck.
A cleaning tool for the dicing attachment is included in the box, but we didn’t find this to be particularly effective as we had leftover carrot jammed in the blades.
Anything else worth knowing?
As it has a part-metal body, this model is a little heavier than some, which could get tiring after a while. However, it was pretty quick to blitz ingredients, so you shouldn’t need to handle it for long.
We thought that it was relatively quiet, too. This means you’ll be able to whip up a morning smoothie without waking anyone up, or blend together a dinner party dip without disrupting the conversation too much.
The instruction manual recommends that you don’t operate the stick blender and whisk attachments for longer than a minute, and the food processor, mini chopper and masher for longer than two minutes. But this is plenty of time to get the job done.
None of the accessories stack or fit inside one another, which makes storage quite messy, so it’s worth thinking about whether you’ll have the space to store everything.
Which? first look verdict: Lidl hand blender
Overall, we thought this hand blender was impressive for the price. It has the look and features of a more premium model, and it does a good job of blending and chopping as well as blitzing thicker mixtures such as dips. But we weren’t so impressed with the food processor attachment, which felt flimsy and made a bit of a hash of slicing, dicing and grating.
If you want a tried-and-tested option, check our hand blender reviews for our Best Buy recommendations, all of which cost the same or less than £40.
Best Buy hand blenders from our 2018 tests
In our lab tests, we test how well each hand blender tackles the jobs they are designed for, including chopping, blending, mixing, whipping, pureeing and more – as well as how easy each model is to use and clean.
We’ve recently tested 10 branded hand blenders, including basic and premium options. We found three Best Buys, including several for less than £40 – so you don’t have to spend a lot to get a good hand blender.
We also found one model which struggled with so many basic food prep tasks we decided to make it a Don’t Buy. Discover the cheaper hand blenders which excelled in our tests – and the model to avoid – in ourhand blender reviews.
