The Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender: A Vital Tool for Any Kitchen

For those of you who frequently rely on a blender, the Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender will be an unstoppable, powerful mainstay on your kitchen counter!

Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender in Black, available on Amazon

It is definitely an expensive purchase. But don’t hide your wallet just yet.

While it does cost quite a pretty penny, this is one of the most popular blenders, due to its superior quality and performance.

It is an essential piece of equipment to add to a bustling home kitchen for countless of food prep tasks, and is well worth the high price tag.

Continue reading our review now – you won’t want to miss these details!

The Industry Standard

Outside of the home, Vitamix is definitely an industry favorite.

In many kitchens where I have worked, from bakeries to restaurants, it is the pride and joy of these operations and the most fought over piece of equipment among the staff.

I have witnessed cooks guard the Vitamix at their prep station, growling like a mother bear protecting her young when other cooks walk by or try to take it. This blender is precious.

Smoothie shops rely on it to instantly blend hard ingredients, like ice cubes and frozen fruits, with a flick of the switch.

Pastry kitchens use it over and over again for creating smooth food items like fruit purees, and nut butters or milks. Restaurants love how it blends infamously difficult emulsions like mayonnaise with ease.

The Whole Package

Here are all the parts that come with your purchase:

  • Motor Base
  • 64-ounce Container
  • Classic Tamper Tool
  • Getting Started Guide

The entire appliance, including both the motor base and the 64-ounce container, weighs 10 pounds, 9 ounces.

The container is 13 inches tall. With the container installed on the motor base, the entire appliance is 20.5 inches tall and 8.75 inches wide, and has a diameter of 7.25 inches.

If you’re looking for more details, read on to learn all about this model’s many stellar features!

In More Detail: Vitamix Features

Below, I’ll go over what each of these features offers so you can learn all the fine details about this mighty machine.

Assorted Base Colors

The blender is currently available in 3 colors: black, red, and white.

Image of the Vitamix 5200 Standard Model in Red.

Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender in Red, available on Vitamix

The pitcher maintains the same black color handle and lid across all available color options. Only the motor base is available in different colors.

The motor base, feet, control panel, and dials of the black color option are all black.

The red color option has a black control panel and dials, and the feet of the motor base are also black.

Image of the Vitamix 5200 Standard Model in White.

Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender in White, available on Vitamix

The white color option has a white control panel and black dials, and the feet of the motor base are black.

Radial Cooling Fan and Thermal Protection System

The radial cooling fan and thermal protection system work together to prevent the motor from overheating. The motor will automatically shut off if it reaches passes a certain temperature threshold.

These features ensure that the motor keeps running properly and help to extend the motor’s life expectancy.

Following the instructions Vitamix provides, you should allow about an hour for the motor to cool before continuing to blend if it does automatically shut off.

Friction Heat Potential

The blades can actually reach a speed fast enough to create heat due to friction.

Within about six minutes, cold ingredients can become steaming hot. Smooth sauces and soups can be ready to serve within minutes – better than any instant ramen from a Styrofoam container!

This feature is ideal if you’re in a serious time crunch, like if you planned a last-minute soup and salad lunch party, or if you ran out of tomato sauce in the middle of dinner service. All of these emergency troubles can be blended away to steamy perfection in a flash.

But don’t be worried the next time you are making summer favorites like frozen beverages. Depending upon what cold food items you are making, it should never take six minutes to completely blend the ingredients.

When I used to work in a bustling smoothie shop, we would use the Vitamix to make countless cups of cool, refreshing smoothies and slushies for thirsty customers. It would take no more than a minute to fully mix these beverages, even with solid ingredients like frozen fruits and ice.

The Hammermill and Blades

Vitamix features a laser cut, stainless steel hammermill and cutting blades measuring 3 inches in diameter.

What do these words of weaponry mean?

A hammermill is designed to shred and crush a range of hard materials. Intended for more heavy-duty, large-scale applications like pulverizing rocks and shredding automobile scraps in other applications, a hammermill is also widely used by farmers and wholesale manufacturers for milling grains and juicing large quantities of fruits.

Now imagine what it can do to just a few cups of nuts or ice cubes! And combined with the blender’s sharp blades, you will be able to achieve a consistent blend every time.

Not only will your mixture be perfectly smooth, it will also be super fast to make. The sharp blades will only take a few seconds to blend together your favorite smoothies and milkshakes. Thicker items like nut butters and doughs will naturally take a longer amount of time to come together, but they are still very easy to make.

Container and Tamper Tool

The Classic 64-ounce plastic container is a great size for mixing up medium and large batches of your favorite recipes. The pitcher is BPA-free, meaning it is not made with the industrial chemical Bisphenol-A, known for potential adverse health effects.

Every Vitamix container is also designed to create a vortex with the ingredients being processed. This causes a systemic pattern of mixing where the ingredients are repeatedly brought back to the blades for faster, smoother blends.

All Vitamix blender models come with a long, black plastic tamper tool. This tool is designed to push down ingredients, to help process thicker mixtures easily.

With the tamper, you can finally banish that annoying ring of food that remains stubbornly clinging around the sides of the blender container. This handy tool will push it all down to the blades while the motor is running, ensuring even blending.

Variable Speed Control Dial

The motor base is home to very simple, straightforward mechanisms that are easy to understand.

Vitamix 5200 blender controls | Foodal.com

In addition to the Off/On switch, there is a numbered variable speed control dial so you can adjust the speed to achieve a variety of textures. The dial can be rotated at any point during the blend. You have the control!

Getting Started Guide

Vitamix provides a Getting Started Guide as part of your purchase.

This hard copy volume is a detailed reference for the machine that includes instructions, safeguards, and a breakdown of each machine part.

You can also access a digital copy of the owner’s manual for free on the Vitamix website.

Additional Accessories

Looking for more accessories for your blender? Vitamix has plenty to offer!

The platform for this model is a C-Series, and it’s compatible any of the Legacy Series accessories.

If you prefer a smaller size and yield, you can buy a separate 48-ounce container that is much shorter (at the expense of capacity of course).

Vitamix 48-ounce Container, available on Amazon

Vitamix also sells a 32-ounce container exclusively designed for blending, grinding, and milling dry goods, which comes in handy when you’re grinding whole grains and nuts into fresh flours. Specially designed blades that are shorter and angled upwards create a reverse vortex, pushing dry ingredients away from the blades to prevent packing.

Image of the 32-ounce dry grains container.

32-ounce Dry Grains Container with Whole Grains Cookbook, available on Vitamix

If you are the type of cook who likes to process your own flour on a daily basis, I do recommend that you purchase the separate dry goods container. However, you can certainly use the original blender for dry foods if you don’t need to use it all the time and you typically process smaller amounts.

The blades of the standard container are designed to pull food down to the blades rather than pushing ingredients up and away, like the blades on the dry container do. Grinding dry grains in the standard container can still be done, but the ingredients will compact more quickly while blending. You may need to stop the process more often to break up the food particles if this is what you’re using.

Vitamix also sells other accessories separately, such as travel cups with lids and tamper stands.

Limitless Performance

This machine is the reliable best friend you can always count on to complete an assortment of kitchen prep tasks. Take a look at this sampling of the many things this blender can be used to make in your kitchen:

Nutrient-Packed Juices

Do you hate seeing all that nutrient-rich pulp being discarded when you finish using your juicer?

Unlike a juicer that separates the pulp, skin, and fiber from fruits or vegetables, the Vitamix will not waste any edible part of your fresh produce when you use the blender for juicing.

The blades help to smoothly blend your produce into a juice, maintaining all of the nutritional benefits of whole foods.

Need some juice ideas for your Vitamix? Try our spinach apple juice recipe, our green carrot juice, or these spring-inspired juice ideas.

Dough Distress

A few words of caution on making dough in this machine: Vitamix is quick to advertise that you can prepare dough. However, after reviewing some of the complaints from customers, I advise that you should not try to make your homemade pizza or pie dough in this blender.

Due to the thick consistency of doughs and the slender design of the containers, the motor will be overworked as it’s trying to mix, increasing the risk of breaking or damaging your hard-earned dream machine.

My recommendation is that doughs should be mixed in machines that are more applicable to dough-making, that can knead more effectively and produce a better gluten structure, like a bread maker or KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook attachment. Or, quite simply, this prep work may be done by hand!

Spare the blender on your next pizza night and pull out the bread machine instead. This countertop appliance from Vitamix useful for so many other tasks, and will still be worth every cent.

Easy Cleaning

Cleaning is as easy as making your favorite smoothie! Because the blades are attached to the container, you don’t have to disassemble too many parts.

Even though the container is not recommended for the dishwasher, it is still a breeze to clean.

All you need to do is place warm water and a drop of dish soap in the container and blend them at the highest speed. The canister will self-clean in 60 seconds or less, and simply needs to air dry on your dish rack after rinsing.

Cleaning the lid can be a bit of a nuisance, as flecks of flyaway liquids stubbornly stick to the inside. This component will need a little more attention, by hand scrubbing with soap and water. For best results, remember to at least give it a rinse immediately after using it you won’t be washing it more thoroughly right away.

Warranty Protection

Vitamix comes with a 7-year warranty. It covers all parts including the motor blender base. When treated with proper care and cleaning, the blender should last you well beyond these seven years. Some reviewers have owned their Vitamix blender for much longer with no reported problems.

Be aware that the warranty does not cover aesthetic changes that do not affect its performance. For example, discoloration due to food buildup of certain abrasives and chemical cleaners might alter the appearance of the blender canister, but not how well it operates.

Through multiple uses and cleanings, the container attachment does tend to become cloudy over time and may lose its transparency. Depending on how often you use it and what you are blending, the cloudiness may take just a few months to form. But I assure you this does not interfere with its phenomenal function in any way.

While not a common problem, some customers did have the motor break while still under warranty. Overall, customers were thoroughly satisfied with the customer service and rapid action they received when they reported mechanical issues to the manufacturer.

Customers were able to send the broken piece or pieces to the manufacturer, and they were quickly replaced at no additional cost for shipping and handling or the parts being replaced.

Standard Name, Superior Results!

The Vitamix 5200 Standard Blender is a long-term investment that will definitely prove its worth to you with each use.

You will appreciate the consistency of every smoothie, milkshake, and any other food item you choose to make thanks to the blender’s mighty motor, sharp blades, and multipurpose design.

Busy home cooks and professional chefs never miss a beat during their kitchen prep when they’re using this blender. Time is vital. A fast, multi-use blender like the Vitamix will always be a quick assistant that you can rely on at any moment.

Start saving your pennies now and get ready to purchase your next blender, available on Amazon and directly from Vitamix.

Or add it to your wedding registry and cross your fingers that a gracious guest will buy it for you!

Looking to upgrade more of your kitchen appliances? Then check out all of Foodal’s reviews of a wide range of gear and gadgets, starting with these:

Do you already own a Vitamix? What are your favorite recipes to make with it? Tell us about your own experiences and share your opinions in the comments below!

© Ask the Experts, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. See our TOS for more details. Originally published by on July 18, 2016. Last updated on September 10, 2022. Product photos via Amazon and Vitamix.

About Nikki Cervone

Nikki Cervone is an ACS Certified Cheese Professional and cheesemonger living in Pittsburgh. Nikki holds an AAS in baking/pastry from Westmoreland County Community College, a BA in Communications from Duquesne University, and an MLA in Gastronomy from Boston University. When she's not nibbling on her favorite cheeses or testing a batch of cupcakes, Nikki enjoys a healthy dose of yoga, wine, hiking, singing in the shower, and chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

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