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. cuisinart choppers Downsize from 4 full separate appliances to a single base with 4 attachments. The Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab has tested more than 30 food processors, including mini food processors in recent years.
The blade was effective in chopping mode, and when using the grind setting — perfect for spices — the blunt side of the blade is engaged for more gentle processing that helps crush rather than chop. The lid has two holes and a long well so you can add liquid when making dressings or mayonnaise. The Breville Sous Chef diced tomatoes and onions evenly, and it chopped nuts to cuisinart choppers a more consistent texture than the Cuisinart. The Sous Chef’s grater disk shredded soft mozzarella cheese easily. And though we’re not huge fans of the mini bowls on most of the big processors, we liked the Sous Chef’s 2½-cup bowl best among the ones we’ve tried. Deeper than the others, this bowl has a design that seemed to make uniformly mincing fresh parsley easier.
The Cuisinart totally failed to impress, delivering an abysmal showing even after tons and tons of pulses. Even after we spent a ton of time chopping, there were still a ton of whole leaves left behind. Additionally, the chopped cilantro was very watery, essentially bludgeoned into small pieces by the Cuisinart, rather than cleanly chopped.
That said, if you only use a food processor occasionally, the Breville’s high cost probably outweighs its benefits. And given that this processor is huge—more than 18 inches tall and nearly 20 pounds—you’ll need a big counter to keep it on. We note how quickly each model performed these tasks and whether any food was left unprocessed. In our Lab tests, we found this KitchenAid mini food processor very easy to use. The controls were intuitive, and the lid locked tightly (though note that some found the lid difficult to remove). The lid includes a “drizzle basin” that acts as a funnel to slowly incorporate oils and other liquids.
Depending on your needs, you might choose one over the other, or you might want both. We have a guide to the best countertop blenders (as well as to the best handheld immersion blenders and the best personal blenders) if you’re interested in getting one. Iconic Cuisinart® food processors chop, purée, slice, and shred with ease. For our final food tests for these products, we attempted to finely dice up about a half-cup of cilantro.
Ease of Assembly
The Cusinart Mini Prep Chopper is very easy to assembly. Ease of Cleaning
The Cusinart Mini Prep Chopper is very cuisinart air fryer oven easy to clean. Durability
While this model is small in size but it feels durable enough that it won’t break within a year.
And we didn’t notice any straining or stuttering of this model’s 240-watt motor, even when it was chopping a fibrous jumbo carrot. As long as you don’t try to use the Food Chopper for heavy tasks, such as making nut butter, we don’t think there’s much risk of burning out the motor. The Cuisinart has a strong motor and a heavy base (roughly 18 pounds with the bowl on) that keeps it stable. Though its 750-watt motor is less powerful than those on some other models we tested, such as the 1,200-watt Breville Sous Chef (our upgrade pick), this didn’t negatively affect the Cuisinart’s performance. Making pizza dough was our most motor-intensive test, and the Custom 14 kneaded it effortlessly, without wiggling across the counter like some other processors we tried. As a private chef, I can say this brand’s mini food processor is worth the splurge, as I’ve owned one for over two decades.
The Sous Chef is the only model we tested that had an LCD timer (which counts up and down), and this model also has retractable cord storage. We didn’t try the machine’s french fry disk, julienne disk, or emulsifying disk attachments, but we did use the handy cleaning brush, which did a great job of getting trapped bits out of the slicing disk. The obvious drawback to all of these attachments is that they take up a lot of space, and they may not get much use (how often do you make fries, for example?). 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.