If you’re a cook who needs to get dinner on the table quickly, a food processor can feel like an additional pair of hands in the kitchen. It will allow you to prep a range of food—whether you’re grating cheese, chopping nuts, slicing vegetables, or kneading dough—at lightning speed. We’ve been testing food processors since 2013, and we remain convinced that the simple, sturdy, and powerful Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is the best choice for most home cooks. The Cuisinart® Elite Collection™ 4 Cup Chopper/Grinder handles food preparation such as chopping, grinding, and puréeing effortlessly, making your kitchen tasks easier. The superior BladeLock™ System feature keeps you safe by securing the blade in place during processing and pouring.
This processor would be ideal for making baby food, thanks to its small size and effective pureeing capabilities. More convenient than ever, the Cuisinart Elemental Collection 4-Cup Chopper/Grinder effortlessly handles a variety of food Preparation cuisinart toaster costco tasks such as chopping, grinding, and pureing. The SmartPower blade has a patented auto-reversing ability with a sharp edge for delicate chopping and pureeing soft foods, while the blunt edge grinds through spices and harder foods.
Christine Cyr Clisset is a deputy editor overseeing home coverage for Wirecutter. She previously edited cookbooks and craft books for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and she started reviewing kitchen gear back in 2013. She sews many of her own clothes, which has made her obsessive about high-quality fabrics—whether in a dress or bedsheets.
This mini processor by culinary appliance leader KitchenAid is our best overall choice for its high functionality and versatility. Buy it alone, or bundle it with an immersion blender or hand mixer in a matching color. At 3.5 cups, it takes up minimal counter space; even snug kitchens should be able to fit this on the counter without issue. The Cuisinart FP-13DGM Elemental 13 Cup Food Processor and Dicing Kit didn’t chop as evenly as our picks. Our testers were impressed with the dicing kit, which chopped firm vegetables like potatoes and carrots into even cubes. However, since this was the only task this model excelled at, we don’t think it’s best for most people.
Generally speaking, a manual food chopper will cost less than an electric version, so if you’re wanting something that’s more budget-friendly, go for the former. If you plan to use it a lot, you may want to spend a few extra dollars for an electric version. Not only can it process more food at once, it’s also as easy to use as the push of a button, so there’s no need to crank or press down on anything to chop the food. Great for prepping ahead, this compact chopper has a 3/4-cup capacity, although the chopper cup has measurement marks up to one cup so you can measure ingredients without needing a separate measuring cup. Even better, there’s a cover for the cup, so foods can be prepped ahead and stored in the same container.
We appreciate that Breville provides a storage case for the attachments, but the box takes up almost as much cupboard space as the machine itself. We recommend the inexpensive KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food Chopper for anyone who wants to make small batches of dips, spreads, or mirepoix. On top of that, its handled jar with push-button activation was the most convenient to use. And this KitchenAid is a great option for people who don’t want to invest in a $250 machine. You can’t knead dough or shred ingredients in it, but you can grind or chop small portions of vegetables or nuts, which is more tedious to do by hand.
The Sous Chef is solidly built, with a hefty base that weighs about 15½ pounds (excluding the bowl). This processor also comes with a limited one-year product warranty and has a 25-year warranty on the motor—by far the longest warranty on a motor of any of the models we tested. Another drawback to the Sous Chef is that it made a slightly looser mayonnaise cuisinart choppers than the Cuisinart Custom 14 and the mini processors we tested. Also, its mini bowl insert did not chop almonds evenly, so we recommend using its 16-cup bowl for this task. We read a few reviews by people who disliked how the Cuisinart Custom 14’s lid locks with the feed tube in the back rather than in the front (which is standard for most models).