One of the unsung heroes of the electronic kitchen revolution is the humble food processor. While not as common as electric ranges and microwaves, a food processor is one of those appliances that will leave you wondering how you ever lived without one.
If you regularly cook for multiple people, like to concoct your own sauces and dressings, or need to make healthy homemade baby food for a little one, then this often overlooked tool can greatly simplify your meal prep.
1. Cuisinart Food Processor (Best Over-all)
This food processor has a large 14 cup working bowl that’s secure as well, with reviewers reporting little to no lid leakage, even with wet and powdery ingredients. The extra-wide feed chute is a nice time-saving touch that allows you to easily insert larger ingredients like whole potatoes.
Operation is simple and intuitive: Two large paddles or press to turn the machine on and off. The “off” paddle doubles as the processors “pulse” functions for quick jobs, where you don’t want the blades spinning consistently.
The Cuisinart stainless steel blades and strong motor make short work of most ingredients without binding up or getting too hot. Being a large food processor, the Cuisinart is rather chunky at around 16 pounds, so be prepared to reserve some counter space.
| What we Like (Pros) | What we don’t Like (Cons) |
| Stainless steel standard slicing disc | Shredding and slicing blades are not adjustable |
| Well priced | |
| 720-Watt large-capacity food processor with intuitive | |
| Powerful motor doesn’t get too noisy |
Value: Check the Amazon price here
Verdict: If you’re making food for multiple people and you want the best jack-of-all-trades food processor for the money, then this food processor is the one. It’s simple and rugged motor housing, great build quality, easy to use design and versatile functionality offer almost everything you need to prepare larger meals.
2. Hamilton Beach’s 10 Club Food Processor (Best Budget Food Processor)
The Hamilton Beach food processor features a pretty standard design. It comes with a stainless steel disc, that’s reversible for shredding and slicing, plus a steel S-disc for chopping everything from nuts to vegetables.
The food processor is lightweight, so the motor does get noisy, but the trade-off is that it’s not too large and heavy to move or store between uses. Suction cups on the base also keep it from “walking” around. One notable and incredibly convenient feature on the Hamilton beach food processor is a handy built-in scraper, which most other designs lack.
Instead of having to scrape the insides of the working bowl with a spatula, this food processor has a scraper that’s integrated into the lid.
| What we Like (Pros) | What we don’t Like (Cons) |
| Large feed chute | The motor does get noisy |
| Reversible stainless steel disc slices and shreds | |
| 10 cup capacity | |
| Lightweight machine |
Value: Check the Amazon price here
Verdict:
If you’re looking for a solid no-frills food processor to handle basic tasks, or you want to make sure that you actually need something like this in your kitchen and want to start off with a cheap one, this one’s for you. You don’t have to empty your wallet for a good food processor because this one proves it.
3. Ninja Master Prep Professional (Best Hybrid Food Processor And Blender)
You can tell just by looking at the Ninja Master Prep, it is not your standard food processor. There are no traditional base or control buttons, there are three different working bowls, and the motor housing goes on top.
Yet, this unique design is exactly what makes the Master Prep one of our favorites. It effectively doubles as both a food processor and a blender. The tall pitcher is perfect for making shakes and smoothies, and the 40-ounce bowl is better for more traditional food processing tasks.
The Ninja Hybrid design is great for making purees, sauces, dips, baby food, smoothies, and so on. But if you need slicing and shredding functionality then a traditional processor, like our other picks might be better.
| What we Like (Pros) | What we don’t Like (Cons) |
| Interchangeable 450-watt power pod | Limited shredding and slicing capability |
| Dishwasher safe and BPA free | |
| Large containers | |
| Versatility and blending capabilities |
Value: Check the Amazon price here
Verdict: If you need a hybrid three processor that can chop food, as well as make smoothies, then this one is a great option.
4. Kitchenaid 3.5 Common Food Processor (Best Mini Food Processor)
You’re obviously not going to be preparing large meals with it, but a miniature food processor still deserves a place in your kitchen. A smaller unit is ideal for homes where counter space is limited and times when you’re only making food for one or two people. It also serves particularly well as a dedicated machine for making sauces, purees, and baby foods.
The blade mechanism is also somewhat unique. The S-blade attachment locks into the bottom of the bowl itself rather than directly into the motor housing, allowing you to remove the entire working bowl, blade at all, and pour your mix right away.
There’s no reaching into the bowl to remove a messy attachment until you’re ready to clean up, which is easy enough considering the bowl and blades are dishwasher-safe.
| What we Like (Pros) | What we don’t Like (Cons) |
| Compact, lightweight and the perfect size for everyday use | Limited space inside food processor |
| Price affordability | |
| Available in a wide array of colors | |
| Unobtrusive and surprisingly feature-rich |
Value: Check the Amazon price here
Verdict: If your processing needs are relatively small, or you just need something to whip up dressings on the go, then this unit from KitchenAid is just the ticket. There are a number of popular mini food processors out there, and this food processor is just as good as any other for making meals for yourself.
5. Breville Sous Chef (Best High-End Food Processor)
You can probably tell just by looking at it, that the Sous Chef is a big machine, and heavy at 26 pounds. Breville has included eight attachments with the sous chef as well. Along with three different escalates, large and small steel blades and one plastic hook for kneading dough, you get five specialized slicing and shredding discs.
These include a julienne disc for fun slicing, a whisking disc, a French fry cutter, and an adjustable disc that can create slices ranging in thickness from point three to eight millimetres. Another nice design feature of the sous chef’s bowls is that they are totally sealed.
This is in contrast to other processors, which often have an opening at the bottom of the working bowl to interface with the motor. This is a potential leakage point. Some additional conveniences include an LCD screen with a built-in timer that can count up or down.
| What we Like (Pros) | What we don’t Like (Cons) |
| Stainless Steel Blades | Motor easily gets hot when in use for a while |
| LCD display | Pricey |
| Comes with 5 multi function discs and 3 blades | |
| 5.5-inch super-wide feed chute |
Value: Check on Amazon price here
Verdict: This is a high-end unit with a price tag to match, but if you’re a serious home chef and want to “buy the best and only cry once”, then the sous chef is the one.
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Ingenious Ways To Use Your Food Processor
We use these in the test kitchen a lot, but there’s more to these machines than just pesto and hummus. You probably never thought of your food processor, as a tool to help make cocktails, but it’s perfect for crushing ice.
First, pour two cups of ice into your food processor. Then pulse eight to 10 times until the ice is finely ground. We tested using one-second pulses. Now you’re ready for some margaritas on the rocks.
To make whipped cream, combine one and a half cups of heavy cream, two tablespoons of sugar, and a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, continue processing until soft peaks form.
In the end, you have a super quick sweetened whipped cream, perfect for your favorite pie. A food processor can also prevent your hands from cramping and save you time by needing pizza dough in under two minutes.
Knead for Speed
For this technique, it’s important to use the regular metal blade. The plastic dough blades tend to drag the dough or leave it stuck to the sides of the bowl, out of reach of their stubby blades.
First, add three cups of bread flour, two tablespoons of sugar, and a half teaspoon of instant, or rapid rise yeast into your food processor, then post about five times until combined. With the processor running at one a third cups of ice water and process until the dough is just combined, and no dry flour remains about 10 seconds.
Chill the Beast
We use ice water to protect the yeast from the heat caused by the friction of the food processor. After you let the dough rest for 10 minutes at one tablespoon of vegetable oil, one and a half teaspoons of the salt process until the dough forms a satiny sticky ball that clears the size of the bowl. 30 to 60 seconds. Now you’re ready to roll.
Making your own breadcrumbs to the food processor is easy, you’re able to control the size, and you can use any kind of bread you want to begin simply tear the bread into pieces, then post in the food processor until the bread comes around to the desired texture.
There are several different ways to process nuts in a food processor from simply chopped to a coarse meal to completely ground to a paste.
The difference is in how long you process the nuts. I’ll use pistachio nuts as an example of how to make nut flour. Add to cups of pistachios to the food processor process until finely ground 16 to 20 pulses finished, you’ll end up with about two and a half cups of flour.
Have fun using one of the most versatile tools in the kitchen.
Editor’s note:
So, that sums up our top food processors on the market. We hope you enjoyed reading.
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