Magimix 4200XL Review

The Magimix 4200XL is a powerful, well-designed, premium food processor. It is a versatile appliance that comes with many accessories to give you the ability to process a wide range of foods and with an accessory storage case to house everything. The design is such that each piece is useful in processing and a breeze to clean. Other than its high price, we found it hard to beat when compared with some of the other models on the market.

Chopping

The Magimix produces ideal results with the quartered onions, chopping up the batch in just eight blade pulses. But it struggles with the carrots and nuts. After three pulses, the carrots were mostly still in large pieces. As we continued to pulse the blade, the carrots slowly continued to chop, but after 12 pulses, there remained a variety of sizes of pieces: some large, some minced.

Chopping the nuts delivered similar results to the carrots. After 15 pulses of the blade, around 20% of large chunks of nuts remained, and 80% had been reduced to smaller pieces and dust.

Mixing

The Magimix easily breezed through all of our mixing tests, delivering outstanding mixing performance when making pizza dough, pie crust, and mayonnaise. The pizza dough came together quickly and easily, creating a well-mixed dough that didn't seem to overload the food processor's powerful motor. We noticed a small amount of movement from the food processor while mixing the dough on the counter, but it was minimal and did not warrant any stability concerns.

We observed similarly high performance when mixing up the mayonnaise and pie crust. When we mixed mayonnaise, the ingredients were effortlessly incorporated into a beautifully textured final result. The near-perfect pie crust produced by the 4200XL came together without any signs of butter chunks or unmixed flour. The pulse button was very responsive and an ideal example of what we would expect from a high-end food processor.

Pureeing

Our puree test proved a simple feat for the 4200XL, delivering a nearly flawless performance across all five types of foods. The hummus came out smooth and creamy after less than a minute, and the motor showed no signs of any load throughout the process. This was the fastest food processor we tested, taking only three minutes to produce smooth and consistent nut butter, beating the average of all others by nearly 15 minutes.

The tomato and apple sauce tests yielded similar results, quickly producing a great consistency in only thirty seconds with no signs of struggle or missed chunks. The Magimix uses a rubber seal to prevent leaks, a feature not found in some of the other food processors we tested. The gasket worked well during our leak test, and we had no spills or leaks.

Shredding

The Magimix 4200XL comes with two different-sized discs, allowing for 2mm or 4mm shreds. After cutting it in half lengthways, we were able to fit a full 2-pound block of cheese in the machine without emptying the container midway through. We tested the 2mm and 4mm cutting discs when shredding the cheese, and only a few chunks made it through to the pile of otherwise perfectly shredded cheese.

When we started on the potatoes, we found they fit just fine without any further cutting, and the shreds produced were perfectly uniform, leaving behind only one unshredded slice per potato. We observed similar results when shredding the carrots. Consistent pieces were created by the discs, leaving behind only one unshredded slice per carrot.

Slicing

Similar to the grating discs, two slicing discs are included with the Magimix, a 2mm and a 4mm. And if you'd like more variety, additional sizes of slicing discs are available for purchase from the manufacturer. We started testing with tomatoes and found that a full fruit (no, not vegetable) fit in the feed tube with no issues. It produced excellent, uniform slices, created minimal juice, and caused no mutilation of that tomato.

After being peeled, the potato fit in the feed tube as well and was sliced with ease. We noticed that the potato slices seemed to have a small taper to them, which was exacerbated when we switched from the 2mm disc to the 4mm disc. The taper was also apparent on the zucchini slices but was very minimal overall.

Cleaning

The 4200XL is a well-designed appliance, and you can tell that the manufacturer kept the user in mind while designing it. The shaft lengths were long enough to be able to get a good grip and allowed us to handle the blades safely. Even the smallest blade was easily cleaned without any concern for safety.

The bowls are simple but thoughtfully designed and have no hard-to-reach crevices where food may get stuck. A bottle brush is your best friend when cleaning the chute accessory, but again, the smooth plastic makes it simple to clean after processing any type of food.

Should You Buy the Magimix 4200XL?

The Magimix 4200XL is one of the greatest food processors that money can buy in today's market. If your budget allows it, we would feel confident recommending you add it to your shortlist. It excels at every aspect of food processing and is an efficient and powerful kitchen appliance. When it comes to tidying up, the design is well thought out and simple to clean. But, if you're on a tight budget, this might not be the best option, and we can recommend a few budget models that still have reasonably good performance.

What Other Food Processors Should You Consider?

If you like what you see with the 4200XL but aren't feeling 100% confident in making a decision, check out the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro. The Breville comes in at the same price as the 4200XL but performed marginally better overall in our testing. Both offer state-of-the-art features, various accessories, and professional-level performance. The Magimix edged ahead in puree performance, and the Breville stood above the rest in our chopping testing. If you're looking for something more budget-friendly but don't want to sacrifice too much on performance, the Cuisinart Custom 14 is worth looking at. The Cuisinart Custom 14 delivered an adequate performance across all our testing metrics, doing notably well in puree evaluation. It doesn't have the largest motor of the food processors we tested, and it doesn't offer some of the included accessories we found with higher-priced models. However, it has the largest capacity, at 14 cups, and is considerably cheaper while still being a capable appliance.