With a food processor, effortlessly create incredibly fresh and flavorful entrees in minutes. Chop vegetables with ease or grind meat for delicious burgers – the possibilities are endless! Whip up mayo that’s sure to turn heads, plus check out pestos you won’t find at your local store- all at less than retail prices.
I put seven food processors to the test by slicing potatoes and grating parmesan for a cheesy delight; creating batches of basil pesto from scratch; grinding beef like nobody’s business; shredding mountains of mozzarella cheese in short order. Making mayonnaise was easy as pie due to its emulsifying power – it wasn’t long before I had eight creamy mixtures ready to go! Pizza dough needed mixing? No problem: these blenders were up to the challenge with ease. On top of all that, they diced onion, celery, and carrots without hesitation – 7 pounds each plus an extra pound just felt right! Now THAT’S what I call culinary multitasking at its finest.
Our guide is jam-packed with info, from our top picks to models we tested and our testing process. We’ve also included answers to frequently asked questions for good measure!
Here are the best food processors:
Best food processor overall: The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor is the perfect appliance for anyone who loves to cook. Its powerful motor means you’ll be slicing and dicing in record time. At the same time, its large feed tube offers convenience by eliminating the need to precut ingredients repeatedly – an absolute lifesaver! Add all that together with valuable extras like custom attachments, and it’s hard to go wrong.
Best budget food processor: For the price-conscious foodie, you won’t find a better option than Hamilton Beach’s Food Processor. This dependable machine provides all the features an amateur chef needs to create delicious meals while staying within budget – plus, its simple cleaning and scraping tool makes quick work of messes!
Best blender food processor combo: If you’re looking for the perfect companion to your Vitamix blender, there’s nothing better than the Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment. From churning out perfectly processed ingredients in next-to-no time to its effortless use, this attachment is an ideal choice that promises a smooth and efficient cooking experience with every service!
Best food processor for dough: If you’re looking for a kitchen essential to help improve your pizza-making skills, then the Cuisinart 14 Cup Food Processor is an excellent choice! Not only did it outperform its competitors in our tests by quickly and efficiently creating delicious doughs and pestos, but it ran quietly – so there was no need to worry about any annoying clatter. Get ready to savor some homemade pizzas with this top-pick food processor!
Best food processor overall
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor is a must-have for any kitchen! The powerful motor enables effortless and efficient food processing, while the large feed tube saves time by eliminating tedious ingredients pre-cutting. Add some handy extra features to this, and you’ll be making quick meals in no time!
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor is the perfect chef’s companion! With its vast capacity, separate storage case for attachments, and an incredible 24-setting slicing disc, there are no limits to your culinary creations. I love the mini bowl and blade included – ideal for smaller tasks requiring extra precision. A must-have kitchen essential!
Breville Sous Chef Pro 16 Cup Food Processor
- It comes with 5 multi function discs and three blades out of the box
- 5.5 inch super wide feed chute reduces the need to pre-cut most fruits and vegetables
- Includes 2 BPA-free processing bowls: 16 cups (3.8 L) large bowl; 2.5 cups (600 milliliters) small processing bowl
- LCD displays count up and count-down auto timer; Voltage: 110 to 120 Volts
- Accessory storage box can be stored horizontally or vertically based on storage space; Stainless Steel Blades; Plastic Spatula
Pros
- Pros: It is easy to use, operates quietly for an unobtrusive cooking experience, and is even dishwasher-safe so that cleanup won’t be a hassle. It is equipped with excellent blade placement and quick-start pulse capabilities. Many useful accessories are included and conveniently stored away in the accompanying storage case. With its extended warranty.
Cons
- Cons: Didn’t knead the dough nicely, pulse comes to a slow stop, shredding discs are difficult to clean.
Best budget food processor
With its affordable price tag and features such as the helpful side scraper tool for easy cleaning, it’s no wonder why the Hamilton Beach Food Processor is a top choice for many frustrated cooks looking to simplify meal prep.
The Hamilton Beach Food Processor was the most budget-friendly model we tested and exceeded expectations for its reasonable price tag. In addition to impressive performance, it featured a convenient scraper tool that made ingredient retrieval hassle free–no more hands in blades! This is your go-to processor if you’re on a tight budget without compromising quality.
Hamilton Beach Food Processor
- The bowl scraper attachment on this food processor keeps ingredients close to the blades for more consistent results, saving you time when chopping or pureeing.
- This model has a 10-cup capacity, making it great for large volumes of food.
- The large feed chute can fit whole blocks of cheese for quick and easy processing with less prep time.
- This food processor is also a chopper and vegetable chopper, with a reversible stainless steel disc that slices and shreds, while the stainless steel s-blade chops, mixes, and purees.
- With two speeds plus pulse and 450 watts of power, this food processor gives you the control you need for various recipes.
Pros
- Pros: The grinder is easy to operate and clean. It grinds beef well and comes with a great bowl scraper. It is easy to store and quick-starting pulse.
Cons
- Cons: Works loudly, failed at producing mayonnaise, insufficient job of shredding cheese
Best food processor blender combo
For those looking to take their Vitamix experience even further, the 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment is an excellent choice. Its ease of use and superb performance will make your blending adventures a breeze!
Featuring an easily upgradable design, the Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment has earned rave reviews by processing food with lightning speed. From slicing potatoes in a matter of moments to ensuring minimal pre-cutting due to its large feed tube, this piece is truly one you need for your kitchen setup!
Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor
This innovative food processor extension is a great addition to any kitchen. It eliminates having to store another stand-alone appliance and takes up minimal space with its intuitive storage design, making it perfect for those who are short on countertop room. The 12 cups dry/9 cup wet capacity makes it ideal for handling large ingredients while the clear bowl, lid, and pushers provide convenience in operation without sacrificing safety. Easily assemble and disassemble – this fantastic tool makes cooking hassle free!
Pros
- Pros: Easy to clean and use, large feed tube, comes with disc storage case, 3-year warranty, outstanding job slicing potatoes, passed other food processing tests, great blade placement
Cons
- Cons: Loud operation, pulse starts and stops slowly, may not fit under above-counter cabinets, only compatible with five Vitamix blender bases
Best food processor for dough
With its cutting-edge technology, the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor is a must for those who love making delicious homemade meals. It impressed us with how effortlessly it made perfect pizza doughs, pestos, and shredded mozzarellas while running quietly in the background!
We tested a variety of food processors for their dough-making prowess, and the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (model DFP-14BCNY) came out on top! The traditional S–blade works just as well as any dedicated dough blade, according to Nicki Sizemore, author of “The Food Processor Family Cookbook.” Our tests proved her right – this processor mixes pizza or pie dough into uniform smoothness with ease.
Cuisinart Custom Food Processor
The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is the ultimate kitchen machine for large meals or ambitious baking projects. The extra-large feed tube and powerful mixing blades make kneading bread dough a breeze, while its massive capacity of up to fourteen cups makes prepping ingredients faster than ever before. For any chef looking to optimize their recipes, this food processor could be just what they need!
Pros
- Pros: Its versatility is outstanding, from mozzarella shredding and pesto making to easy grinding meat! Not only that, but we tested how quiet it was – one of the least noisy models on offer – and how well its large blade reaches right up against the sides of the bowl when mixing pizza dough or whatever else your heart desires. With an impressively fast-reacting pulse button too? Game set match in our books!
Cons
- Cons: Easy to accidentally put the lid on wrong, left some big pieces of vegetable when making mirepoix, hard to wash waste from discs
Other food processors we tested
After testing seven food processors for this guide, we found that none of these disappointments could reach the mark. We’ve compiled a list of all those who still need to make it into our top recommendations – so save yourself from unsatisfactory culinary experiences and steer clear!
What we don’t recommend and why:
Magiccos 7 in 1 Food Processor: The Magiccos 7-in-1 Food Processor certainly has its positives – it is easy to clean and performs exceptionally well when shredding mozzarella. However, this processor needs more storage for the various attachments included and subpar performance on other kitchen tasks such as chopping mirepoix or making dough. Additionally, the pulse function was not responsive, and the blades failed to reach close enough to the bowl sides/bottom while slicing potatoes. All-in-all an average product overall!
Ninja Professional Plus Food Processor, Model BN601: The Ninja Professional Plus Food Processor is an efficient machine capable of quickly grinding beef and crisply chopping mirepoix. However, the four-blade system can prove challenging to clean without coming into contact with them—even though they are dishwasher safe. Additionally, this model suffers from a small feed tube and limited blade reach when it comes to more delicate tasks like pureeing pesto or shredding cheese; slicing potatoes also proved difficult for this device.
Ninja Foodi Power Blender & Processor System, Model SS351: The Ninja Foodi Power Blender & Processor System is a great idea but needs work. You’ll be hard-pressed with no slicing blade or shredding disc to get the perfect diced vegetables for your dish. Cleaning up can also be a safety hazard due to sharp edges that are difficult to reach and maneuver by hand.
Our food processor testing methodology
Here are the main attributes we look for and how we test them:
Ease of use: Testing the food processors was a breeze – not only did I encounter heavy bases, but each one stayed firmly in place and provided clear visibility of contents. To top it off, setting up couldn’t have been easier, with all components fitting together quickly for simple storage!
Food processing: I tested the processing capabilities of various items and was quite impressed with how well they performed in terms of homogeneity. I rated each one on a scale from 1-5, where 5 indicated excellent uniformity and anything below that meant irregularities were present. Let’s say these processed foods hit close to perfection:
- Pesto, ground beef, mozzarella cheese, onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes are needed for the recipe.
- Pizza dough and mayonnaise are also included in the ingredients list.
Noise: It wasn’t quiet when I put the food processors to the test! Only two could stick out from the crowd and avoid making me turn off my audiobook: Cuisinart and Breville. These models registered at less than 85 decibels, even with a sound meter just 2 feet away – impressive indeed!
Pulse speed: With the perfect pulse, it’s now possible to achieve consistently successful results – and Cuisinart takes the lead! Our tests found that the powerful blender starts up speedily with a single press of its special pulse button. On top of that, it stops at just as swift an instant. Not all blenders are made equal, though: while superior in comparison, Vitamix came out last when testing its quick start-stop ability on this crucial feature.
Blade position: To ensure perfectly-processed ingredients, I conducted a penny test on the blade positioning of this food processor. To considerable success: The blades could get as close as 1.5 millimeters away from the sides and bottom–the perfect distance for optimal performance!
Cleaning: Cleaning up after using a food processor doesn’t have to be a challenge! After testing the dishwasher and hand-washing method, I found that cleanup was surprisingly swift – no more excuses for skipping this convenient kitchen tool!
Food processor FAQs
What sets a food processor apart from its blending sibling?
Nicki Sizemore, cooking connoisseur and author of “The Food Processor Family Cookbook,” claims that food processors have the edge over blenders due to their more comprehensive bowl design. This allows users to stir without adding liquid while also making it easier to scrape out ingredients – a real-time saver!
Are you shopping for a food processor? Keep an eye out for certain key features!
Shopping for a food processor doesn’t have to be complicated. As Sizemore recommends, look for one with a sturdy work bowl and heavy base that won’t move around when in use. The most important feature is the size of the blade – make sure it’s an extra-sharp “S” type! And stay focused on all those flashy attachments; you’re better off spending your money on essential features rather than extras which may not contribute much towards overall performance.
Figuring out your budget for a food processor can be tricky
But it doesn’t have to be! Before you splurge on the ultimate kitchen appliance, carefully consider how much money suits your culinary needs.
Are you trying to decide what food processor is best for your kitchen? Our reviews indicate that you should spend at least $200, as higher-priced models usually have more features and perform better. We found the pricier options were quieter, too – essential if you don’t want all of your neighbors waking up early each morning!
What size is the food processor best?
When it comes to food processors, size does matter. Don’t let yourself get stuck with one too small for the task at hand – 10-cup models proved more than capable in our tests and offer an outstanding balance of power and portability!