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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?

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Last Updated May 12, 2023. Appears in America's Test Kitchen TV Season 22: Irish Staples

The Best All-in-One Machines
Update, May 2023

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.

See Everything We Tested

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

Good : 3 stars out of 3.Fair : 2 stars out of 3.Poor : 1 stars out of 3.
*All products reviewed by America’s Test Kitchen are independently chosen, researched, and reviewed by our editors. We buy products for testing at retail locations and do not accept unsolicited samples for testing. We list suggested sources for recommended products as a convenience to our readers but do not endorse specific retailers. When you choose to purchase our editorial recommendations from the links we provide, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices are subject to change.
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Reviews you can trust

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. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.

Lisa McManus

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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