I made soup from scratch in under 30 minutes with Panasonic's new soup maker – but it does so much more

Soup season has arrived and along with it the launch of a new do-it-all soup maker. This launch, from Panasonic (for £169.99), promises to whizz up fast, healthy soups for you in as little as 22 minutes and has ten other functions to keep your kitchen running smoothly. It blends and heats soup but also has cold settings for smoothies or frozen drinks, too.

Seeing as it's the ideal time of the year for a bit of leek and potato, I've been trying this soup maker out in my kitchen to see how it fares. Here's how I've gotten along with it so far, as well as how it compares to its fellow best soup makers. Hey, I'll even make an argument for why you might buy it over one of the best blenders.

So far, I've only made soup with this gadget as I've been using it a little over a week, but I'll be sure to try out its full suite of settings before I give my final verdict.

My first recipe was a carrot and coriander soup for a speedy midweek dinner. The only prep I needed to do beforehand was to roughly chop an onion, my carrots and a small potato and to boil a kettle for some vegetable stock. Your chopping doesn't need to be neat or uniform here, though it is important you don't overfill the maker with hot liquid (there's a very clear max fill line).

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In under five minutes I had chucked the ingredients into the jug and filled it with stock. All that was left to do was use the control panel, which is very intuitive, and set it to Smooth Soup mode. The unit then flashed to let me know that it was warming the device, before a timer showed for 22 minutes.

That left me with plenty of free time (in which I could unload and refill the dishwasher), as well as a window to make accompanying cheese and ham toasties in. When the cycle was complete, the consistency of the soup was as smooth as anything you'd get from a can and the automatic keep warm function worked a treat for serving up portions later in the day too.

Next up was leek and potato, which was just as easy to prep for – all you need to do is chuck everything in to get mixed up.

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As with the first recipe, it took under 30 minutes from getting my chopping board out to having hot soup ready to go.

I've been impressed with how intuitive this soup maker has been to use so far, though I've still got some doubts about how much I'll use it long-term and the viability for most people of having something quite so big in their kitchen. But, as promised, it is fairly quiet and very capable. The cold blending modes mean that I can totally see why you'd buy it over a standard blender too for the price, as you can pack so much more functionality into one appliance.

I've still got plenty of broths to make before I come to my final verdict on this gadget but so far, I can totally see why a soup lover would want it.