I’ve always found slow cookers to be better in theory than in practice. The idea of tossing a bunch of ingredients into a device in the morning and coming home to a delicious hot meal is undoubtedly appealing, but the reality often falls short. Too many times I’ve prepared a dish in a slow cooker only to end up with mushy overcooked stews and braises that lack real depth of flavor. Plus, the promised convenience never felt worth the trouble of hauling the device out from the back of my cabinet.
Naturally, I had some initial reservations about the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker. Billed as a slow-cooker alternative with eight functions, I was curious if the Magnifique, which, as its name promises, is made from clay, could be a better alternative to the traditional slow cooker—and ultimately, whether it was worth dropping nearly $200 on another appliance and giving up valuable cupboard space.
I spent a few weeks putting the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker to the test. Here’s my honest review.
What is the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker?
The Magnifique Claypot Multicooker is a device with a removable, oven-safe clay pot and clay lid. It offers eight settings: Slow Cook, Braise, Sear/Sauté, Keep Warm, Brown Rice, White Rice, Oats, and Pasta. Which means in theory the device could replace a slow cooker, rice cooker, sauté pan, and braiser. The Multicooker is available in three earthy shades: sage, brown sugar, and oatmeal. I chose sage, which looks more robin’s-egg blue than the photos suggest.
The appliance also comes with a cork trivet, a lid holder, and a Y-shaped wood tool that’s perfect for scraping food from the edges of the pot.
How is it different from a regular slow cooker?
The Magnifique cooker is made from kaolin clay, which traps heat efficiently, resulting in faster slow-cooking (something of an oxymoron, but you get the idea). The kaolin clay pot is super durable, ranking 8.5 on the Mohs’ scale, the standard measurement of mineral hardness. (For reference, diamonds are a 10; glazed aluminum cookware ranks at 2.5.) It’s free of plastic and PFAS and is naturally nonstick.
Magnifique claims that this is the only slow cooker on the market made from 100% clay, though the existence of other products, such as the Vitaclay, challenge that assertion. And while many slow cookers now offer coated aluminum or stainless steel pots, the original Crock-Pot slow cooker that took over American kitchens in the 1970s featured a ceramic crock similar to Magnifique’s. Indeed, even today, the Crock-Pot brand still produces many slow-cooker products with removable oven-safe stoneware crocks. Unlike Magnifique’s completely clay pot, however, these stoneware crocks are glazed in a silicate made of a blend of quartz, feldspar, and clay. According to Crock-Pot’s brand site, the FDA specifies allowable amounts of lead, cadmium, and other substances, and its products meet or exceed those FDA requirements. According to Magnifique, because it exclusively uses kaolin clay for the pot and glaze, it does not contain traces of heavy metals. Do with that information as you will.
The more significant design differences that set the Magnifique apart from the Crock-Pot are the Magnifique’s oven-safe clay lid (opposed to the glass and plastic Crock-Pot lid) and its Sear/Sauté setting, which the Crock-Pot lacks. Other slow cookers currently available like the Cuisinart Cook Central, do have a Sauté/Browning setting.
What I cooked using the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker
Over the course of a few weeks, I made various things in the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker with the goal of testing all its different capabilities.
Stew
I started with a classic red wine beef stew recipe, a veritable slow cooker classic. Since the beef needs to be seared to build a good base flavor, I’d typically use my Dutch oven instead of a slow cooker or Instant Pot to make this because the appliances often don’t get hot enough to properly brown the beef, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Magnifique’s browning capability. The beef chunks took on a good amount of color and built up a nice fond on the bottom of the pot before the liquid went in.
True to its promise for faster slow-cooking, the beef was incredibly tender after three hours at the low setting.
Because the lid has a small hole for steam release, I did have to add some additional water to the pot to keep the stew saucy enough. But the result had all the concentrated, savory depth that makes beef stew so comforting and craveable.
Oatmeal
I eat oatmeal for breakfast pretty much daily, so the Magnifique’s Oats setting could potentially be very, very useful. My typical method for oats is as follows: I start by toasting rolled oats in a dry saucepan until fragrant before adding chia seeds, salt, a few chopped dates, and water. I keep everything at a simmer until the dates have melted and the oats are soft.
It was easy enough to replicate this process with the Magnifique’s Oats setting. Given the preheating time (10-ish minutes), I wouldn’t say it was any faster than my typical stovetop oats (about 30 minutes total), but it was nice to not have to worry about the unattended gas burner as I answered emails in another room. The oats did stick a bit to the bottom of the pot, and I found myself wishing there was a way to lower the temperature (the temperature control function is unavailable in oats mode). I’ve since made oats multiple times in the Magnifique, and now I simply stir them a little more to avoid any sticking or unwanted browning on the bottom.
Pasta
I tried BA’s one-pot Puttanesca recipe to test out the machine’s Pasta mode. I used the Sear/Sauté setting to cook smashed anchovy and garlic in olive oil. The Sear/Sauté function gets quite hot even on its low setting, so some of my garlic got a shade too brown while I was distracted opening the can of tomato paste. The sautéing of the aromatics also revealed the cooker’s hot spots. These weren’t a big deal when browning beef for stew, but they’re something to be mindful of when sautéing quick-to-burn items like garlic.
After adding the pasta and liquid, I switched to the Pasta function on the Magnifique. It wasn’t clear to me whether or not the device would shut off automatically, so I set my own timer and checked it. (The time and temperature aren’t adjustable in pasta mode.) However, my ditalini was perfectly al dente in 10 minutes—the exact time the recipe suggested it should cook.
I contacted Magnifique to learn how the Pasta setting functions, and a brand rep told me that the cooker automatically adjusts heat and timing during the Pasta, Oats, and White and Brown Rice settings, and that it will finish the cycle once it senses the liquid is absorbed. Great, but to be on the safe side and avoid overcooked pasta, I think I’ll continue to set my own timer rather than trust the device.
Braising
I waited for a snowy day to test the braising function with a whole chicken soup with leeks. Because this setting doesn’t require you to sear the chicken first (Magnifique’s user manual doesn’t instruct users to sear meats before braising), I wasn’t sure how it differed from slow-cooking on high. Regardless, the chicken cooked through in around 90 minutes and the soup turned out great.
After chatting with a Magnifique representative, I learned that the Braise setting does indeed run at a similar temperature to the high Slow Cook setting, and that it’s designed to be used after searing your protein using the Sear/Sauté setting—would’ve been nice to know!
Rice
The Magnifique claims to be able to replace a rice cooker. I cooked medium-grain rice using the suggested rice measurements in the user manual on the White Rice setting. The rice was cooked, but much of it stuck to the bottom of the pot and browned a bit. I suspect the device’s shape contributes to quicker water evaporation, and that cooking a larger amount of rice might help with this issue. Personally, I don’t find the Magnifique to be a great swap for a rice cooker.
Yogurt
Finally, I saw a recipe for homemade yogurt in the Magnifique pamphlet that came with the device and wanted to give it a try. The instructions ask the user to cook a half gallon of milk on the low Slow Cook setting until it reaches 180°F—something that never happened for me, although I confess this was user error, as I failed to put the lid on for the first hour of cooking as instructed.
Once that phase is complete, you let the milk cool to 110°F before whisking in a bit of yogurt to inoculate the rest of the milk. The recipe then suggests wrapping the entire pot in a pair of insulating beach towels and letting the yogurt set over the course of eight hours.
After all this, my yogurt came out very thin and runny. This was partly my own fault because I didn’t get the milk to the 180°F temperature, which is when the whey proteins denature to form a thicker consistency. But if I wanted to try this again, I’d probably expedite the process by bringing the milk to 180°F using the Sear/Sauté function before switching it to the Slow Cook setting for yogurt.
What I liked
The low, wide shape of the Magnifique Multicooker results in far superior sauté and browning compared to the Crock-Pot and Instant Pot I’ve used in the past. The high walls of an Instant Pot seem to always cause steam that cooks the food, and its sauté function never gets hot enough—not a problem with the Magnifique, which reaches 450°F with its Sear/Sauté function. The heating unit did have some hot spots, I found that occasional stirring was necessary to evenly distribute the heat.
The slow-cooking is quicker and more effective compared to a Crock-Pot. The Magnifique clay pot has a bottom and side heating element, and, thanks to the heavy-duty clay pot and lid, it seals in heat well. I also really appreciate that the clay pot is oven-safe and aesthetically pleasing enough to take to the table to serve your food instead of moving it to another dish. While it isn’t entirely nonstick, any stuck-on bits of food came away easily. I used Bar Keepers Friend to remove stubborn spots after searing beef for stew and the pot looked new again.
What I didn’t like
The Sear/Sauté function was one of my favorite parts of the Magnifique, but it’s not without its problems. As I mentioned, the cooking surface can heat unevenly, so I recommend frequent stirring.
With the Pasta, Oats, and dual Rice settings, the unit is supposed to sense when the food is done and beep to let you know. This wasn’t necessarily intuitive, and the beeps aren’t very loud, so I found myself just setting timers. These settings also don’t give you the option to adjust the time or temperature function.
The only difference between the Slow Cook and Braise settings, from what I can tell, is that Slow Cook has two temp options (high and low) and can be programmed for up to 12 hours, while Braise has a single temperature and maxes out at six hours. The manual says the Slow Cook setting is meant to “cook your food at a lower temperature for a longer period of time” while Braise is to “transform tougher cuts of meat into tender, juicy meals,” but I still don't think I fully understand the difference.
Should you buy the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker?
At $180, the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker is a premium product with the price tag to match—but it’s worth it. It’s come to replace my Dutch oven for soups and stews, and it’s convenient for grains and simple sautés as well (though I wouldn’t say it necessarily should be used instead of a good rice cooker.)
People with small kitchens should take note that the device’s footprint is not small. But I feel like giving up the counter and cabinet space is justified because the clay pot can also function as an oven.
Overall, the Magnifique Claypot Multicooker is functional and versatile enough that I’d recommend it to anyone—even slow-cooker skeptics, such as myself.