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See why.The Best All-in-One Machines
They outsell iPads in some European countries, but can these do-it-all machines really replace almost every small appliance in your kitchen?
Our favorite all-in-one machine, the Cuisinart Complete Chef Cooking Food Processor, has been discontinued. In its place, we now recommend the Thermomix TM6.
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What You Need To Know
The must-have kitchen appliance in European and Australian households isn’t an Instant Pot, a Vitamix blender, or even a gleaming KitchenAid stand mixer—it’s a Thermomix all-in-one kitchen machine. Thermomix is the pioneering brand of this countertop appliance, but there are now many competitors making all-in-one machines. These gadgets look like food processors and are equipped with heating elements and a plethora of attachments for stirring, steaming, kneading, measuring, weighing, grinding, and more. The promise is bold: one machine to replace every small appliance in your kitchen. Fans of these machines claim you can use one to cook an entire multicourse meal, including recipes such as hands-off risotto with a steamed fish fillet, warm dip with a side of pita bread, and linguine with steamed mussels and a slow-simmered tomato sauce.
These machines have been embraced in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants such as Noma, El Bulli, and the French Laundry. Heston Blumenthal purchased 15 Thermomix machines for his Michelin-starred Fat Duck, and Wylie Dufresne reportedly used one to make his famous hollandaise sauce because it allowed him to dial in a precise temperature and control the speed and frequency of stirring. Massimo Bottura, chef of Osteria Francescana (consistently named one of the top restaurants in the world), has a partnership with the manufacturer of another all-in-one machine, HotmixPRO, and reportedly uses his for everything from grating Parmesan to making dough to emulsifying sauces.
In European and Australian home kitchens as well as professional kitchens, these machines are already essentials. Do they have a place in American home kitchens?
What Does an All-in-One Machine Look Like?
While the promise of “one kitchen appliance to rule them all” sounds appealing, it comes at a hefty price: The contenders in our lineup ranged in price from about $395 to nearly $1,985. While dozens of models exist in Europe and Australia, we considered only the machines that were compatible with North American electrical outlets, leaving us with a total of five models, all sharing the same set of functions: cooking, blending, processing, and mixing. We tested two machines from Thermomix, the more basic TM5 and the recently released TM6, which offers additional functions for slow cooking, boiling water, making caramel, and sous vide cooking.
All the machines in our lineup are about the same size as a stand mixer and share a similar design: a workbowl that sits atop a base containing a concealed heating element and motor. Inside each workbowl is a blade for chopping and mixing. Every machine in our lineu...
Everything We Tested
Recommended with reservations
- Blender: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 2 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 2 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
The newest model from Thermomix, the TM6 looks and performs identically to the TM5 but has a larger display with more recipes built in and additional settings for slow cooking, fermentation, boiling water, sous vide cooking, and making caramel. While it excelled at all our initial cooking tests, making tender risotto and pasta, evenly diced mirepoix, a silky smoothie, and effortless bread dough, its additional settings were largely inadequate. Both the kettle and sous vide settings fell short of our chosen temperature, so water never quite boiled and sous vide eggs were underdone. Its ever-spinning nonremovable blade also completely pureed slow-cooked beef stew. However, its sugar-stage setting made perfect caramel. If you are short on kitchen space, are looking for guided cooking, or want to be able to hold temperatures for sauces or candy making, this all-in-one machine is the best choice.
- Blender: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 3 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 2.5 stars out of 3.
While this machine didn’t offer the same hands-on digital interface and guided cooking as the Thermomix, it had a few unique features we really liked. First, its blades were easy to put in and take out (similar to a food processor), so it was a cinch to swap out attachments without disassembling the whole machine or to remove the blade when we needed more surface area for browning. Second, you could heat the workbowl without the blade rotating, which meant this machine produced the best browning of the bunch. However, its numerous programs and attachments were hard to keep track of, and we constantly had to refer to the user manual. This was especially bothersome when we cooked our own recipes. It also couldn’t blend; smoothies still had huge chunks of kale and pineapple even after many minutes of blending, and hollandaise ended up looking more like scrambled eggs than an emulsified sauce.
Not Recommended
- Blender: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 2 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 2 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 1 stars out of 3.
- Blender: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 2 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 1 stars out of 3.
Discontinued
- Blender: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 3 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 3 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 3 stars out of 3.
Cuisinart’s answer to the Thermomix all-in-one machine is terrific, both as a food processor (plus dicer) and as a multipurpose mixing and cooking machine. We enjoyed excellent results whether we cooked our own recipes or followed several of the 200-plus step-by-step recipes Cuisinart built in for everything from grains to vegetables to main dishes to desserts. Its only flaw was that it wasn't able to puree the kale, juice, and pineapple into a creamy, thick smoothie, leaving it thin and chunky, even when we tried a few different approaches. In all other ways we found it very easy to use; simple to assemble and handle, with intuitive controls; and easy to clean, whether by hand or in the dishwasher (all parts except the motorized base are dishwasher-safe). We also appreciated that its workbowl is made of sturdy stainless steel. We didn’t really want to part with this handy machine when testing was done.
- Blender: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Stand Mixer: 2 stars out of 3.
- Food Processor: 2 stars out of 3.
- Heating and Cooking: 2 stars out of 3.
This is the older model from Thermomix, with a smaller screen and a more limited selection of built-in recipes (though you can download more through Bluetooth). Functionally it performed identically to the TM6, making well-cooked risotto, decent pasta e ceci, a well-blended smoothie, and evenly diced mirepoix. Still, we had the same usability issues that we saw with the TM6: It operates only when the lid is on, making it hard to judge the size of mirepoix or follow visual recipe cues. You also can’t heat it without stirring, so browning isn’t as good and chicken was mangled when we made chicken risotto.
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Lisa McManus
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.
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