We Tried It: The Chefrobot Ultracook

Can one appliance replace other kitchen appliances?

Consumer Reports Home & Trends Writer, Jodhaira Rodriguez.

By Jodhaira Rodriguez
Home & Trends Writer

June 3, 2025

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ChefRobot Ultracook on kitchen counter with vegetables, butter, and eggs — Automated cooking machines like the Chefrobot Ultracook are starting to become available, but they haven't reached a Jetsons' level of functionality yet.

Before I started seriously cooking about nine months ago, I viewed it as a time-consuming, difficult task and preferred takeout from any of the hundreds of restaurants near me. After looking at how much money I was spending, I decided it was time to learn to cook.

I’m now making dinner nearly every night and enjoying it so much that I joined a cookbook club. I don’t love how much time I have to spend to make a single dish, though, so when there are appliances that will cut my time in the kitchen, I’m willing to try them.

In this article

The Chefrobot Ultracook Experience: Product Specs How I Tested Was the Food Good? Some Good Things Cooking Challenges Did I Save Any Time in the Kitchen? The Bottom Line

Of course, kitchen appliances that expedite cooking aren’t a new concept; there are dozens of products that make the experience faster. Our labs regularly test multi-cookers, air fryers, and toaster ovens that help you cook meals with little need for standing over the appliances as they work. Using them may require a bit of prep work (like chopping or blending ingredients), but they can make cooking quicker and easier.

We’ve also tested newer kitchen appliances, like the Suvie Kitchen Robot, which cooks meal kits from the company at programmed times, even when you’re away from the kitchen, and the Tovala Smart Oven, which has its own single-serving meal kits and allows you to cook food with your own ingredients.

While at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, I saw two devices I’d never seen before: the Tineco Chiere One (unavailable in the U.S.) and the Chefrobot Ultracook, which its manufacturer says can do nearly everything.

The complete list of functions listed in the user manual and on the Chefrobot site says it can steam, cook, heat, weigh, knead, mix, whisk, thicken, blend, ferment, slow cook, sous vide, stir-fry, chop, mince, and self-clean. Cooking time, temperature, and the spin speed of the blades inside the appliance’s mixing bowl, where all of the cooking is done, are preset to the ideal settings for each recipe in the device’s app. Considering the limited space in my tiny kitchen, I liked the idea of one appliance that could replace most, if not all, of the appliances I regularly reach for, plus reduce the often tedious tasks of chopping, mincing, and whisking before cooking even begins.

I ordered the Chefrobot Ultracook Max but received the Ultracook instead. Because the model name isn’t listed in the user manual or anywhere on the product packaging, I didn’t notice this error until after I had finished testing it. When reviewing a PDF of the user manual for the Ultracook Max downloaded from the Chefrobot site, I noticed it was a different manual from the physical copy I received. After closely inspecting the model in our lab and comparing it with pictures of the two models from the Chefrobot site, I realized that I had not been cooking on the Max as I originally thought. If you purchase a Chefrobot, make sure you get the product you ordered.

According to a marketing director with Chefrobot, the main differences between the two models are their capacity (it’s 4 liters for the Max and 3.5 liters for the standard model) and their “layout and aesthetics.” But they said the recipes designed for Ultracook were fully compatible with the Ultracook Max.

Product Specifications

Weight: 19.8 pounds
Dimensions: 14x16.8x12.7 inches (HxWxL)
Capacity: 3.5 liters (according to a company representative)
Maximum cooking temperature: 320° F
Price: $649.99

What’s in the box: main unit, mixing bowl, mixing blade, mixing bowl lid, measuring cup, basket, spatula, butterfly whisk (a flat beater attachment), steamer base, steamer bottom, steamer tray, and steamer cover.

How it works: Most of the cooking is done inside the mixing bowl on the Chefrobot Ultracook. Food cooks as it comes in contact with the heated bottom of the bowl. Blades at the center spin continuously at different speeds, cutting the ingredients and making sure they aren’t sticking to the bottom of the bowl. With some recipes, the blades spin in reverse to avoid further cutting vegetables while still allowing the food to move around the bowl. When making one of the recipes, the temperature, spin speed, and cooking time are automatically set for each step in the cooking process. Steamed dishes are cooked in a steamer tray that sits on top of the mixing bowl. Water is heated in the bowl to create the steam.

How I Tested the Chefrobot Ultracook

After downloading the Chefrobot app, I browsed the list of recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. Because my goal was to see if I could cook all of my meals with just this appliance, I only selected recipes that could be made entirely from scratch without other kitchen appliances. This proved to be a difficult task because most of the recipes required some use of my stove or oven.

I tested 12 recipes. While the plan was to forgo cooking on my stove and use the Ultracook to make all my meals for one week, I ended up cooking just two days’ worth of meals after running into a couple of problems. During the first day of testing, the appliance caused a circuit breaker in my kitchen to shut off twice, so I did the rest of my cooking in one of our labs. A Chefrobot representative said they had not received any reports from other users with this issue, but suggested that we use a dedicated outlet when using the device.

After all that cooking, I found that the Chefrobot excelled at recipes such as smoothies and oatmeal. Side dishes, pasta, proteins, and desserts were a toss-up. Read on to see photos of each dish I made, our tasters’ reviews of them, plus all the details about using the Chefrobot—the good and the bad.

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Jodhaira Rodriguez

Jodhaira Rodriguez is a senior multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports. Before joining CR, she tested and wrote about cleaning and organizing products and major appliances like washing machines and dishwashers at Good Housekeeping. In her free time, you’ll find her reading, listening to true crime podcasts, or working on her latest hobby of the month.