This is our favourite version that we throw into our soup maker every Friday night for when the bread woman comes with fresh Portuguese crusty bread. Meanwhile there’s a juice function for blending cold mixtures such as smoothies, but it failed to liquidise a frozen berry and yogurt smoothie, so won’t take the place of a blender.

There's a high setting (up to 100C) for bringing liquids up to the boil and a simmer setting, which is a lower temperature (up to 80C) and ideal for simmering soups. Most soup makers don't reach a high-enough temperature for an extended period to cook meat thoroughly. A lover of all things food and homeware, I can be found in the GHI kitchen testing a whole host of appliances to enhance the cooking experience!

If you don't mind pre-roasting vegetables to give your soups depth, then this will still give you soup in a shorter time than if you transferred the contents to the hob and then to a blender. It seems to work well but putting it together for each function requires a degree in engineering and a constant eye on the instruction manual!

A clever fun take of cream of tomato soup and comes with the most delicious air fryer grilled cheese hearts. That is because they are brilliant at making blenders, so it feels like you have a much higher quality blender with the soup maker. The comprehensive recipe book features broad range of uses – nut milks and butters, dips, doughs, cakes, baby foods, desserts and, of course, soup.The water could have evaporated when in the soup maker and different soup makers do things slightly different so if you add another 25ml or 50ml of water depending if it is really really thick or just coats the back of the spoon. In this one we are using chunks of chicken and you can serve it with a few chunks of chicken over it. With just a 1400ml capacity for soups, it’s a little smaller than some others on this list, but we think its versatility makes up for the lower capacity. This two-in-one blender and soup maker can keep your soup warm for an hour after the program finishes.

Both our smooth and chunky soups were well cooked and tasty, but it didn’t manage to blend up our frozen berry and yogurt smoothie, so you can’t use it in place of a standard blender.

There’s a handy automatic cleaning mode, but it didn’t remove all the burnt food on the base of the jug, so you’ll need to wipe it down too.

If you’re opting for the latter type, it’s worth noting that you’ll need to avoid certain ingredients that require more prolonged heating/cooking, such as onion, or it may dominate the flavour of the soup.Now I have loaded you up with lots of recipes for a soup maker, you can decide what soup maker recipe you are going to make first, or if you would rather have them in an ebook do check out our soup maker recipes PDF below. From the everyday to the special gathering, from the healthy snack to the indulgent treat and from the ‘in a rush’ to the ‘take your time’. My favourite soup for weight loss this Slimming World Speed Soup is loaded with vegetables and so flavoursome.