Not gifted or sponsored. I bought my TM31 with my own money and won my TM7 in a charity raffle. Thermomix hasn’t seen this post, and there are no affiliate links in it.
In 2013 I wrote a list of eight things I wish I’d known before I started using a Thermomix. I’d had my TM31 for about a year and was still slightly giddy about it. Thirteen years later I’ve reread that list with a TM7 on my bench, and every one of the eight still holds.
So this is my Thermomix review, with the benefit of hindsight and a lot more mince.
A confession first
A lot of the recipes on No Spoons have been through my thermy at testing. I just haven’t written the Thermomix methods up. A kitchen machine that costs $2,649 isn’t something I want to assume anyone has, and every recipe here works without one. More on that at the end.
From TM31 to TM7
I’ve had my TM31 since about 2012. I lusted after the TM5. I lusted harder after the TM6. I never upgraded, because the TM31 just kept going. It’s a workhorse, and it’s hard to justify replacing something that hasn’t given you a reason to.
Then I won a TM7 in a charity raffle. Best raffle ticket I’ve ever bought.
It’s everything I hoped it would be and then some. The bit I love, love, love is the heat. My TM31 tops out at 100°C, with the Varoma setting for steaming. The TM7 has a Browning Mode that goes up to 160°C, so I can brown mince properly in the bowl instead of reaching for a frying pan.
The thermy still has pride of place on the bench, right next to the coffee machine. The two most important appliances in the house, side by side. One of them gets used rather more than the other, and I’m not going to say which.
What it does on a low-spoon day
This is the part that didn’t exist in my 2013 post, because I didn’t think about cooking in spoons back then.
- It stirs, so I don’t have to stand. Set the heat, the speed and the timer, then walk away. Nothing catches on the bottom while I’m sitting down.
- It weighs straight into the bowl. No measuring cups, no jug, no extra bowl. Most of my one-pot meals finish with one bowl, one lid and a spatula to wash.
- It chops for me. I throw things in mostly whole and let the blades do the knife work.
- It turns itself off. The timer ends the cooking, so a foggy brain doesn’t mean a burnt dinner.
- It takes the thinking out. The TM7’s guided recipes go one step at a time on the screen, which helps on days when holding a whole recipe in my head isn’t happening.
Weeknights often look like a one-pot meal: under five minutes of throwing things in, hitting a few buttons and leaving it to cook.
Standing at the stove stirring mince is spoons I’d much rather spend somewhere else.
The eight things I wish I’d known (still true on a TM7)
1. It changes how you think about time, temperature and measuring.
I learned to cook from my great-gran, where a recipe is a guide and you adjust as you go. A sealed bowl threw me. To heat anything you choose a temperature and set a timer, and “simmer until it looks right” becomes a speed, a temperature and a number of minutes. It took me a while to stop fighting it. These days, on a low-spoon day, it’s the point: fewer judgement calls, less hovering.
2. It’s far more powerful than you think.
In the first week of owning my TM31, I went to chop some frozen bacon. Ten seconds later we had bacon dust. One tap of the pulse button would have done it. In 2013 I joked that molecular gastronomy was very fashionable. Powdered bacon still isn’t. The flip side is that a thermy doesn’t really grate, not in the traditional sense. It goes from a fine dice straight to dust or mush, with nothing much in between. If you want proper grated cheese or zucchini ribbons, that’s still a Ninja Food Processor grating job (or a bought bag of pre-grated).
3. It changes the way you shop.
The consultant told me this at the demo back in 2012. I thought, sure, if you use packet mixes, but I cook from scratch. I was wrong. It did change some things about how I shopped and cooked (CRPS still takes the cake on that one, and this whole website is about that little chestnut).
I went through phases of making more from scratch because it was just easy. Do I make my own butter weekly like they swore I would? Nope. That wore off pretty quickly. Do I still do it? Sure, for special occasions and when I have the spoons. I did and still do save a small fortune on flours because I can buy the base ingredients whole and mill my own. For that, I don’t believe there’s a better multi-purpose kitchen appliance. It beats the Ninja hands down. For other blending jobs, I think they’re both very interchangeable.
4. It gets really hot, so treat it with respect.
One big change was that blessed little measuring cup in the lid of the TM31 that caught the steam, and was very hot if you lifted it out without letting it cool a little before the next step (and forgot to grab a tea towel).
The TM7 doesn’t have the blessed little measuring cup or an evil counterpart in that respect. But with the TM7 going to 160°C there are a few other things to be mindful of. A new feature is that it can cook with the lid off, and it also won’t spin above speed 6 once it’s over 60°C, which saves you from a hot soup fountain.
5. It takes the effort out of weeknight dinners.
In 2013 it was midweek risotto, a dish I couldn’t be bothered with even on weekends before the thermy. Since going keto in 2020 it’s other one-pot meals. The dishes changed. The effort didn’t.
6. It makes you a more adventurous cook.
Things I’d filed under “too much faff” became weekly jobs: sauces, stock paste, breads, fudge. People have told me a Thermomix doesn’t count as real cooking. Dinner counts.
What it won’t do is season for you, so taste as you go.
7. Very fresh cream turns to butter.
With the TM31, we had a dinner party, beautiful fresh Maleny Dairies cream to whip for dessert and the butterfly whisk in the thermy. Three of us tried in turn. Three of us made butter. We ended up whipping it by hand in about three strokes. Freshly made butter is lovely, mind you. Just not on a pavlova. I haven’t tried whipping cream in the TM7 yet, but its touchscreen has a lot more smarts and presets so I feel that those misadventures are less likely.
8. Buy a second bowl. Don’t wait. You’ll thank me later. It’s still the best advice on the list.
The honest bit: what’s not so great
- The price. $2,649 in Australia as at October 2026 (check with a consultant for current pricing), sold only through consultants. Guided recipes need a Cookidoo subscription once the three-month trial ends. I’m quite resentful of paying for another pricey subscription; it’s probably my least liked feature. You can use the TM7 without Cookidoo, and honestly I haven’t played with it much. I went straight from a TM31 with no computerisation to a TM7, so I didn’t know what I wasn’t missing, and I still think the touchscreen manual controls are Star Trek.
- It’s heavy. About 8.4 kg. If lifting is hard, give it a permanent home on the bench and don’t plan on moving it. It is easier to make intentional shifts on the bench than the TM31 (and I’m told you don’t need a slidey thing that you needed with the TM5 and TM6 because it’s now built in).
- Steam and blades. The lid does get hot, and the blade is sharp when you wash it.
- Noise. Blending and chopping are loud, which matters if noise drains you. Vorwerk says the TM7’s motor is quieter than the TM6’s, especially at low and medium speeds. And yes, compared to the TM31, it’s virtually silent. But it still makes noise, it’s a kitchen appliance. And yes, the “I’m finished” ding, ding, ding still doesn’t stop until you turn it off and yes, it can be a bit grating at times.
- Bench space. It takes up a decent chunk.
- A learning curve. Expect a few weeks of translating your own recipes into speeds and minutes.
So, is a Thermomix worth it?
For me, yes. My TM31 earned its keep many times over, and the TM7 gives me the hands-off browning I didn’t know I needed so badly in my life.
But you don’t need one to cook No Spoons recipes. Every recipe here is written for ordinary kitchen gear (here’s how we test our recipes). A slow cooker or electric pressure cooker covers a lot of the hands-off cooking for much less, and second-hand Thermomixes do turn up. If you’re curious, go to a demo before you spend anything.
If you’re new to spoons, here’s how a spoon rating is set, and our Low Spoons recipes are a good place to start.
Over to you
Would you like me to write up the thermy methods for our recipes? Tell me in the comments, and tell me which recipes you’d want first. I’ll only add a method I’ve actually tested, so it may take a few cups of coffee.
And if you’ve got a tip you wish you’d known before you started, add that too. My 2013 self would have appreciated it.
