The title of this post may sound silly since Blendtec jars nearly clean themselves. But for those who have only known old-fashioned blenders, where you have to untwist the blade to clean the blender and have the worry about protecting the rubber gasket and not poking yourself with the thin crisscross blade...let me walk you through how I clean my Blendtec blender jars.

First off, let me start by saying I use multiple jars every day: Twister, WildSide* and FourSide, depending on what I've decided to create. I actually use my jars like mixing bowls. If I am blending up a quick bread, I grind my wheat berries into flour in the FourSide jar, place my wet ingredients in the WildSide jar, dump a third of the flour from the FourSide into the WildSide, and ta-da! Quick bread batter in mere minutes.

To clean up, I add a little water, one drop of dish soap (note the words "one drop") and then just put the jar back on the blender with the lid. I hit "pulse" a few times, dump the sudsy water, rinse the jar with running tap water, turn it upside down on a dish towel to air dry and I am on to the next task. Easy peasy!

Just one drop of soap in your Blendtec blender jar Now, if I have made fresh nut butter in the Twister jar, I admit cleaning the jar is a longer process – but not that long. Here's what I have learned. I use the Spectacula spatula to pull out all that fresh yummy nut butter. Then I put the Twister jar back on the blender with the Twister lid on and hit "Pulse." This throws the nut butter that was clinging under the blade to the sides of the jar. I scrape the jar clean again, then add to the jar a few tablespoons of water, plus a tiny drop of dish soap. Pulse, pulse, rinse, rinse. I tilt the jar so I can see all angles, and if it meets my approval, I am done. If not, I put the jar on the top rack of the dishwasher and that's it!

Ok, so it's canning season and I've canned several batches of salsa. Cleaning the blender jar is just as easy. But to be sure there is no leftover heat from a hot chili pepper, I just put the jar in the sink filled with suds and a little bleach. I rinse the jar, then turn it upside down to dry. All the water runs off the jar with the help of the little drain holes on the bottom of the jar. Thank you, gravity! (And thank you engineers!) As I said, the jars nearly clean themselves.

How do you clean your jar? Here's some more tips on how to maintain your blender jars. Here's some more tips for removing stains from your jar:

• Juice of 1 lemon, 2-3 tbsp of baking soda, and some water. Then, run to Speed 10 and scrub with non-scratch sponge.
• Vinegar mixed with baking soda (and some water) will also work. Then, run to Speed 10 and scrub with non-scratch sponge.
• 1-2 tbsp powdered dishwasher detergent dissolved in 1-2 cups hot water, left to soak for 1 hour. Then, scrub with non-scratch sponge.
• To get 'smells' out, just grinding up a lemon works like it does for your garbage disposal.
• Put in six squirts of Bleach in the jar.  Let it sit in the jar for about 5 minutes and rinse well before blending.
• Lemi Shine® is a dishwasher detergent additive.  Combined with your auto dish detergent, Lemi Shine® Original removes tough hard water spots, stains, and film during the main wash cycle.
• Protein powder – Lemi Shine® will also help with the protein powder.  Let soak in the jar for 20 min with some powdered dish washer detergent.

*The WildSide jar is no longer available for purchase. Please check out our new and improved WildSide+ jar.