I have a second Vitamix (!)
Thanks to Vitamix for sponsoring this post and providing the Vitamix One for review.
Long-time readers may remember that I bought a Vitamix 5200 many years ago. I used it for a year (a thorough test-drive!) and then wrote a review post about it.
And later on, I wrote a post comparing a Ninja and a Vitamix.
Anyway, because of the posts I'd written, Vitamix reached out to see if they could send me one of their new products so I could review it.
As with the toaster I reviewed recently, I said yes with the thought that I could send a Vitamix with Lisey to her new apartment in the fall.
(Not everyone gets to start out with a Vitamix! Lucky girl.)
Anyway.
The newest addition to the Vitamix lineup is the Vitamix One.
It's a smaller, simpler, more streamlined version of a bigger Vitamix, and since it's designed to be a starter blender, I think it's going to be just perfect for Lisey's one-person apartment!
(She's going to airplane mechanic school in the fall.)
This simplified design is meant to be a perfect fit for people who just want to do basic tasks in their blender; things like making smoothies, sauces, and salad dressings.
The bigger Vitamixes can make nut butters, heat soup, and grind grains, but as I've mentioned before, I never use my big Vitamix for those tasks anyway!
I tend to just use it for usual blender tasks, and probably 90% of the time, I'm using it for smoothies.
How's the Vitamix One performance?
I made a smoothie with it yesterday, and I gave it a test with something that's a little difficult to blend; frozen peaches, which are kind of like rocks!
It passed with flying colors; it blended them up just as well as my big Vitamix does.
How much can you fit in the Vitamix One?
Since the jar looks pretty small, I thought it might be hard to make a multi-person smoothie, but I easily made a three-person serving.
The jar is 32 ounces, so unless you are serving a crowd, you shouldn't have a problem making smoothies and sauces.
What do I like about this blender?
The tamper
I love that it comes with one of my favorite features of the large Vitamix; the tamper.
It fits in the lid, allowing you to move thick smoothie ingredients around without removing the lid or worrying that you'll hit the blades. It's so super handy!
The smaller size
I have managed to make space in my kitchen for the larger Vitamix, but if I were tight on space, I would definitely appreciate the small footprint of this blender.
The solid construction
This blender has the same sturdy type of design my big Vitamix does; stainless steel blades, and a stainless steel seat in the blender base.
The blades and the blade base are often weak spots for cheaper blenders, so I appreciate that Vitamix designs these parts to last.
How much does this blender cost?
The Vitamix One starts at $249.95, which is much less than the big 5200 that I have ($449.95).
So, when you're comparing new to new, the Vitamix One is a much, much more affordable option.
However, I did not pay $450 for my 5200; I got mine at Costco for a little over $300.
Costco no longer carries the 5200, but if you can manage to snag a reconditioned Vitamix 5200 Standard from Vitamix, you can pay right around the same price that I did at Costco.
Why in the world would you spend $250 on a blender?
I know that $250 feels like a lot for a blender.
But I can tell you that my Vitamix has far, far outlasted all of my cheaper blenders*. And it has outlasted my mom's Ninja as well. I've already had mine for eight years and with heavy use, it's still going strong.
*I had gone through three blenders already, with multiple blade replacements, by the time I switched to Vitamix.
Cheap blenders break and then they hit the landfill; I'd much rather pay for a single, expensive blender that will be with me for decades.
Vitamix offers a 10-year warranty and it's a really good one, covering all parts, performance, labor, and two-way shipping for up to 10 years.
I can also tell you that Vitamix blenders just outperform cheaper blenders.
They liquefy greens in a smoothie, they crush ice easily, and they make smoothies that are actually smooth.
Also, if you are a person that regularly buys smoothies from a shop, your blender could pay for itself pretty quickly if you start making smoothies at home.
Should you get the Vitamix One or a 5200?
If you:
- want to pay the absolute lowest price for a Vitamix product
- don't need to make large quantities of food
- want to save kitchen space
then I think the Vitamix One is the best option for you.
- have more kitchen space
- want the option to make very large quantities of food
- want to grind grain, make nut butter, etc
- don't mind spending an extra $50-$75
then I would keep an eye out for a refurbished 5200.
I'm curious; what do you mostly use your blender for?
P.S. I imagine that eventually, there will be some reconditioned Vitamix One blenders available, and then they'll be even more affordable.
Like you, I also mostly use my Vitamix for smoothies. It's so great at handling whatever I put in there, never any chunks of kale! I also like using it for chopping almonds and oats. I have a food processor, but it can be a pain to drag out and clean.
Smoothies. I use my blender almost entirely for smoothies. There's a pancake-like dessert that is mixed in the blender that I make maybe once a year.
Are you talking Dutch Babies or Pannukakku? They might also be called German pancakes sometimes. Those are good, we use our blender for that too.
The Vitamix One is adorable (I may have said that too loud at work - ha)!
I was gifted the larger Vitamix last year and I typically use it for smoothies. It came with the smoothie cups and the blade base that fits the cups so I can get out the door faster in the mornings. I've blended up sauces and hot soups as well and I am 100% in love. I can't get over how smooth everything comes out.
I have the separate container for grains and nut butters but I haven't taken the plunge yet, I'm not sure that I'm waiting for.
I said the same thing when I saw the small tamper! It's so cute compared to my large tamper.
I use it to make my batter for French toast and Swedish pancakes, and to make bread crumbs, milk shakes, and the occasional smoothie.
Smoothies, puree soups, bread crumbs, oat flour, chickpea flour, ground flax seed, salad dressing, crepe batter, anything super eggy (like frittatas)...and I'm sure there's more. It gets touched at least once a day, sometimes a few times a day. The Vitamix is a desert-island appliance for me. Worth every penny. Lucky Lisey!
Totally agree with everything you've said - it's expensive but it is also better than cheap blenders. I used to have a cuisinart and it was so-so. It would leave spinach bits in my smoothie which led me to not like smoothies. Then my husband convinced me that we should get the vitamix. Now I have a smoothie at least 3 days a week. I also use it for pancake batter (pour directly into the pan from the blender cup), slushies, sauces, and to make oatmeal flour. But primarily for smoothies - I get greens I wouldn't otherwise because of it.. When my husband was making his protein shakes, we used our vitamix 10+ times a week. It's still going strong. I did have to replace the blender cup because it cracked but after all this use for over 7 years, I'm satisfied.
I've had my Vitamix for 9 years as well and it's still going strong. We use it multiple times a week-mostly for smoothies/protein shakes (90% ) but I'll make soups, nut butters, oat flour and even powdered sugar with it on occasion. Like Kristen, this was bought from Costco for around $300. At the time, I was pretty nervous about the price, but now know it is well worth the $$.
Oh no. Here I have been lusting over a Vitamix all this time, but stalwartly resisting because I have a working Cuisinart, and then Vitamix has to come out with a cute little one. I actually have been looking for a reconditioned full-sized one, but this little one is probably as much as I would need. I'll be patient and watch for a reconditioned one... I think.
I use my blender for frozen banana "ice cream", for mixing dressings, homemade condiments and sauces, for shakes/smoothies, and a few other odds and ends, such as sometimes making homemade body cream.
Oh yes, this is such a perfect size for a one or two-person household. No need to get the big one!
Maybe I should see if Vitamix will do a giveaway for you guys...
Yes please!
But, where does one look for reconditioned?
There's a refurbished section on Vitamix.com, but they seem to be all sold out right now. You can also check Amazon. For instance, here's the one I have, refurbished:(affiliate link) https://amzn.to/3pVZ4hX
YESSSS! I mean, if you can. 🙂
A giveaway would be totally awesome!
I love my Vitamix! Though I've only had 5 years, it has done 10 years worth of work for us. I use it to make hummus, soup, dairy free ice cream, nut butters, falafel, nut based spreads, you name it, I've probably made it. Salsa is super quick and easy!
In 30 years of marriage, plus the blender I had in single hood, we have had 6 blenders. They are an integral part of my cooking life. Won't live without one now. I am more likely to get rid of my food processor than anything else. So glad they are meeting the needs of smaller family demographics now!
I love my Vitamix! I'm a fan of my big one because I can make smoothies for the whole family but I mostly use it to make blender muffins. I grind oats into flour and then add all the rest of ingredients, blend it and then right into the muffin pans.
Looks good. I have the big VitaMix so dont need another. But if I did this looks like it would be the one. Ive never had any problem with my VitaMix and have had it for at least 10 years!
I don't have a Vitamix but I have a Blendtec and I can attest to how fantastic it is. It is also high-end but built to last. I bought mine refurbished and I have well over 1000 blends on it (it keeps count) and it is still going strong.
Can't recommend enough to spend the money now to save your sanity later.
That's so funny that it has a counter; like a blender odometer!
I have the larger Vitamix and I second your point that they work very well and they can outdo any other blender. Plus they are easier to clean. Much easier--the only part that detaches from the body is the lid!
One of my favorite things to make with it is lemon curd, using the Vitamix recipe. It is so easy and so delicious. We have a friend who especially loves it--she is 104 and although she is still very active and engaged, she is losing her sense of taste. Lemon curd is one thing that hits the spot!
I have... multiple blenders...
- Blender one is a magic bullet that we've had since 2005. We lost the smoothie blade, so we only have the smooth blade, and at this point, we only use it to grind spices.
- Blender two is the breville hemisphere control blender. We bought this to replace the multiple cheaper blenders we had burned through at 2 year intervals. At the time, this was test kitchen's "good buy" option or whatever the "so you want a decent blender but can't justify the $600 on the top blender we really like" option is called. I think we've had it 5-6 years and it's doing great. I often spy it on cooking shows. We use it for smoothies and banana "nice" cream. I do wish it did a better job at the nice cream, like having a tamper, given our increasing nice cream consumption over the last 2 years. In the winter we also use it to puree soups, but less so now that we have an immersion blender again (how many did we break?).
- Blender three is the immersion blender.
- Blender four is a tiny one person one with a smoothie blade that I got on our buy nothing group because I wanted a tiny one to make oat flour and syrniki (Russian cottage cheese pancakes). The quantities I was making were too small for the bigger blender.
I would like to be able to make nut butters. I would like to have multiple carafe sizes. I would like it to double as a food processor. In the meantime, I will just look a bit crazy over here with my multiple blenders.
Oooh, I have often thought an immersion blender would be so handy for soups.
If you make soups a lot, I totally recommend an immersion blender. It's so much easier than transferring hot soup to a blender. And it takes up a relatively small amount of kitchen real estate.
My sister got me an immersion blender for Christmas a few years ago. It came with a blender blade, a whisk attachment, and a chopper attachment. My only wish is that I had the blender blade with the "scratch-proof" edges for my non-stick pans. This combo version is very compact storage wise, and my whole house uses it. The single whisk attachment makes fantastic whipped coffee and eggs!!
I didn't think I'd use the immersion blender my mom gave me but I do! I use it for soups and also to smooth out pressure cooked pinto beans into refried beans.
I have not tried that for smoothing out beans and now I think I need to.
We have broken at least 3, and at least one of those was a good cuisinart one. But we keep replacing them because it is to much easier (and safer) to blend with an immersion blender than pour hot liquid into the blender, then back into the pot, multiple times.
I use my immersion blender more than my vitamix because we don't drink smoothies allll the time.
@Jody S., and Kristen,
I got my first immersion blender, which does great for smoothies, soups, everything else! I haven’t taken my regular blender out for months now, although I’ll keep it awhile, just in case. Storage size much less!
I had a Kitchen Aid for about 14 years. I only used it a couple of times per week, so that's not a great test. I have had a Breville for about 4 years and we use it several times per week and sometimes twice per day. I don't think we could get along now without a blender. Smoothies, milkshakes, pureeing tomato sauce are the main things I use it for. I LOVE that I don't have to tamp. Somehow, it is able to pull everything down for a perfect blend. I paid $80 for it on a 50% off clearance/display shelf. I thought that was a lot since my KA had only been about $39. Ha! I hope it lasts a while, but if it doesn't- I'll splurge on the Vitamix.
Hi Kristen. I have used my blender for home made baby food, smoothies, milk shakes and pumpkin pie filling that is silky and smooth.
Every morning I make my own bullet coffee (1 scoop each of MCT oil and collagen, 1 T ghee) and a cup of coffee, blend it in my vitamix. Also I hate when natural nut butters have had the oil rise to the top and have to be stirred so I dump it all in the vitamix to stir it. Salad dressings, sauces, smoothies and even some soups from my vitamix. I love my vitamix. Best investment in my kitchen.
Oh, thank you for the separated nut butters idea. I've been wondering how to fix that, and I do have a vitamix. (I make salad dressings and smoothies. And margaritas from the vitamix recipe book.)
I have an several years old Oster hand mixer that came with additional drink mixer, whip, and dough hooks. I put in the dough hooks, which are actually two big spirals, and just plunge them down into a jar of separated nut butter and turn it on to stir. It stirs it right there in the jar. No scraping the butter out of the jar and then out of a blender.
Confession: We have a pretty nice KitchenAid blender that has a broken part. And has had a broken part for, um, three years. Every summer--which is when I would use a blender the most--I think, "I need to get that part and fix the blender." And then I remember I have to get a particular tool to fix it, and I get lazy and just use our food processor. Which does not work as well as a blender for things like smoothies.
Anyway. It would certainly be cheaper to replace that part than buy a Vitamix. 🙂 Although that part is the same plastic piece that has broken on it twice, so it's definitely a design fault.
P.S. I'm sorry to tell you that the comment I sent to your other site yesterday never posted.
So, there seems to be a caching problem with my other blog. I cleared it just a bit ago and now I can see everyone's comments. Can you see them now?
Yup! (Also, when I tried to submit just this one word as my comment, I got a WordPress response that my comment was too short. "Try to say something useful." Yikes. I suppose that's to eliminate spam, but wow. Harsh, WordPress. Way harsh. 🙂
That is so cool about Lisey going to airplane mechanic school. She will go far. I started following you when they were all so little. It was just the blog. I loved the way you would take pictures of the stuff you made or working on. You were actually one person that really gave me a love to shoot food photos.
Yes the vitamin is a great machine love mine. Glad to hear that there is a cheaper and smaller version. My son lives in a condo and that might be a great gift for him someday.
Thanks for all the info you fill our minds with
Have you ever ground canned chickpeas? They are my nemesis in both blenders and food processors, but I don't have a Vitamix.
I have made hummus using chickpeas in the vitamix. It worked but was too smooth for my liking, I prefer it in a food processor because I add in things like cilantro, and I would rather the mix ins be pureed too much.
I don't have a standard blender. I always thought I would use one but never did so we gave ours to someone who uses it. I do have an immersion blender that I use for blending soups and gravies. Many years ago my mom found a basic Sunbeam one for less than $30 at a nearby pharmacy and it's been working well for me since.
We use our food processor much more often. I inherited my mom's Cuisinart from the late 1970s and it still works perfectly. A few years after she bought it the bowl cracked and they sent a new one free of charge. The warranty has long expired so now I would have to buy a new bowl and cover but that would be a small price to pay to keep it in use. We use it to make many things, big batches of sofrito, shredding potatoes and onions for latkes, shredding cheese for mac-n-cheese, dough, bread crumbs, slicing apples for apple pie, and the famous Sue Weinstein German Apple Cake that came in the Cuisinart recipe book. My mother-in-law LOVES that cake and I plan to make it for her now that my mother has passed away.
Agree about VitaMix. I’ve had mine forever 15 yrs I think) before that $70 x about 7 times on cheap blenders. It makes incredible dressings, soups, sauces. Blend any cooked veggies and milk (plus anything else you like) and you have cream soup. Smoothies, protein shakes-perfect. It’s worth considering. It’s a great weight management til for me.
I mostly use my blender to puree my son's food for his g-tube. It has to be perfectly smooth with no particles or anything that could get caught in his MicKey button. I also do green smoothies, but not as often as I make food for my son.
Some moms are extra special!
I have a vitamix. Totally love it! I use it mostly for smoothies. But it is also great for for entertaining....especially margaritas.
That looks like a very cool machine. I have an old Hamilton Beach blender (American made with a glass blender container) that is at least 30 years old. It struggles to restore natural peanut butter, but otherwise handles what I ask it to do. We also have a one-person smoothie blender and a stick blender bought years ago when my son was recovering from a broken jaw. Both are quite handy. The whisk on the stick blender is great for whipping up a cake from mix.
I still say I could buy three Ninja Kitchen Pro's (maybe 2.5) at Costco for the price of one Vitamix blender at Costco, so even if I ever have to replace it once in 10 years, I'm still ahead. I've had mine now probably 5 or 6 years and it's still going strong. My daughter makes a smoothie almost daily, we make our own nut butters (super fast and easy with the multi-level blades!) and all the various things you use a blender for, plus there's a food processor bowl we use for chopping (this model doesn't have disks) and individual serving size blender cups I use for grinding spices, coffee on occasion (for decaf, since our burr grinder is for caffeinated coffee), pancake batters, cold drinks, etc. I think Vitamixes are great products, not denigrating them at all, it's just the price is over the top for my budget, and I feel like I'm getting good value for my Ninja. I bought it because when adding up the price of buying a jar of almond butter vs. making my own, it paid for itself in a very short time. Good deal!