Ditch Your Weak Food Processor—This Model Is My Secret for Easier Food Prep

My Top Pick

Cuisinart Food Processor

$250 at Amazon Orig. $250 $200 at Target $250 at Walmart

Before buying Cuisinart’s 14-cup food processor more than five years ago, I deeply researched and considered both larger and commercial-grade models. I’ve never regretted sticking with this classic design. My sister has used the same machine for 10-plus years, but Cuisinart actually introduced it more than 50 years ago as the first food processor on the American market. Since then, the company has made few changes to its straightforward functionality. It does exactly what a food processor should do—chops, shreds, slices, purees, and mixes—and does it all extremely well.

In my kitchen, the heavy-duty motor turns dried, soaked chickpeas into delicious homemade falafel that doesn’t fall apart when fried or baked. It neatly shreds zucchini and carrots for quick breads and cakes. It emulsifies salad dressings and pesto until they are thick and creamy. It smoothly purees fruit for often-requested fruit leather.

This processor’s simplicity is one reason it has remained so popular for decades. The separate pieces are easy to clean yet fit back together in seconds. It comes with a slicing disc, shredding disc, and chopping blade, sufficient for my widely varied needs, but you can also add others for finer grating, French fry cuts, and more.

Allstar Renee Pajestka also admires the processor's simplicity, calling it "a powerful machine without any frills." Of the three machines she tested, the Cuisinart model was by far and away her favorite. "It has a powerful motor able to do most jobs easily and efficiently," she says. "It's a great and helpful asset for any cook looking to cut prep time down."

The Details: 14-cup capacity; 7.9 x 11 x 14.8 inches; 16 pounds; 720 watts

Best Budget

Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Stack & Snap Food Processor

Orig. $60 $51 at Amazon

Well-built food processors can be pricey, but Hamilton Beach’s design makes a large processor more affordable. At 450 watts, it’s not as powerful as the competition, so it may not be the best choice for tasks like kneading dense bagel dough. Still, it holds up to 12 cups of food, allowing you to dice a mound of onions or puree multiple batches of pizza sauce with fresh tomatoes.

The lid snaps onto the bowl, rather than twisting and locking, making it easy to assemble and disassemble even with wet hands. When the motor’s running, the feed tube’s wide mouth accepts blocks of cheese and whole tomatoes. A second, smaller pusher helps process garlic cloves, or it can be removed to pour in liquids without splattering.

Two speed settings control slicing and chopping, and a pulse button fine-tunes dicing and mincing. To save storage space, the processor comes with a chopping blade and just one reversible disc that both slices and shreds. All parts except the motorized base are dishwasher safe, but you’ll get the longest life and keep the blades sharpest by washing everything by hand.

As previously mentioned, the machine has a generous 12-cup capacity, which Renee definitely appreciated when it came to chopping up big batches of onions, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. However, she notes that trying to chop up a small amount of parsley was more trouble than it was worth since the fine leaves kept getting stuck beneath the blade. She doesn't recommend using the processor for smaller tasks like that.

The Details: 12-cup capacity; 9.55 x 8.76 x 16.25 inches; 6.6 pounds; 450 watts

Best Mini

Cuisinart 4-Cup Mini Chopper

Orig. $50 $44 at Amazon $50 at Williams-Sonoma $44 at Wayfair

When my mom wore out her family-size food processor after decades of use, she downsized to this mini chopper and soon declared that it met all of her empty-nester needs. When I visit and use it to chop nuts for her favorite baked granola or blend a streusel topping for my dad’s favorite rhubarb crisp, I see her point. This little machine gets the small jobs done.

As I pile in whole almonds and set the chopper’s blade whirring, I’m always impressed by how quickly the small motor turns the hard nuts into granola-ready pieces. Like my larger Cuisinart, it has a pair of wide paddle controls that makes it easy to start and stop, even with arthritic hands. When I’m making salad dressing, vinegar and oil slide through one of the lid’s drizzle holes without overflowing or splattering. It doesn’t have a large feed tube or alternate blades, but that makes it compact enough to tuck into a cupboard or even a deep kitchen drawer when not in use. My dad prefers washing the parts by hand, but everything except the motorized base is dishwasher safe.

Allstar Terri McHugh really appreciated just how quiet the motor is while running. "It's a quiet blade, chopping and grinding are not overtly loud and I can do it easily while the baby sleeps," she says. Other notable highlights for Terri were the compact size, the intuitive controls, the dishwasher-safe parts, and the affordability. On the downside, however, Terri says the drizzle spout is "the size of a pinhole," which lead to an overflow mess if she poured too quickly. She recommends the processor for everyday fruit and vegetable chopping, but not heavier tasks such as processing dough or mincing meat.

The Details: 4-cup capacity; 7.2 x 5.6 x 9.29 inches; 3.7 pounds; 250 watts

Best for Dough

Breville Sous Chef 12-Cup Food Processor

$300 at Amazon $300 at Target $300 at Williams-Sonoma

I’ve been impressed by every Breville product I’ve owned, including my well-loved and long-used immersion blender. I bake with sourdough regularly but like mixing my long-ferment doughs by hand; otherwise, this model may well have replaced the slightly larger Cuisinart as my top pick.

It has slightly more watts, which doesn’t make a lot of difference for most chopping and shredding tasks, but could be significant when mixing a dense peanut butter cookie dough or an entire batch of burger buns. It comes with both a chopping blade and a dough blade, the latter of which you’d need to buy separately for the 14-cup Cuisinart. The Breville model costs a bit more but balances out if you start adding blades and discs to a Cuisinart setup.

The three feeding chutes truly minimize mess, whether you’re pouring in oil to emulsify into aioli, shredding skinny carrots or fat cucumbers, or dropping in handfuls of berries. The reservable shred disc lets you alternate between coarse shreds and finer gratings. In contrast, the slicing disc is adjustable, letting you choose from so many thicknesses that this machine might just replace a handheld mandoline slicer.

"It's a heavy-duty food processor for sure! This can hold a significant amount of food within the basin," says Terri. "You can repeat batches very easily." The large footprint, however, was a con for Terri. She laments that it takes up quite a bit of space, especially with the myriad of attachments. "It's quite a heavy base and large in size which are cons for me," she says. "However, I know when it comes to the holiday season and it's time to whip up large batches baked goods and side dishes, it will be perfect!"

The Details: 12-cup capacity; 7.5 x 8.5 x 17 inches; 15.9 pounds; 1000 watts

Best Mid-Sized

Ninja Professional Plus Food Processor

Orig. $120 $100 at Amazon $100 at Wayfair $131 at Office Depot

Allstar Renee also tested the Professional Plus Food Processor. In terms of capacity, it's a nice middle-of-the-road option at 9 cups, meaning it can handle more than a mini processor without taking up a huge amount of space like a 14-cup model. Renee notes that the machine base is heavy enough to keep it in place while running but isn't too heavy to maneuver in and out of the cupboard.

One thing that sets this Ninja apart from other food processors is the four Auto-iQ presets. The intelligent programs—Chop, Puree, Dough, and Disc—allow you to prepare ingredients with just the touch of a button, leaving your hands free to take care of other tasks. That said, Renee finds that she prefers the control offered by the manual buttons (Low, High, and Pulse) instead.

Renee greatly admired the versatility and power of the Ninja Professional Plus. In fact, it was very nearly her top pick, if not for one downside. "For the money, this is a good machine and is fairly easy to use," she says. "Of the three I tested, this one came in second only because the feed chute is a little small."

The Details: 9-cup capacity; 7.76 x 9.88 x 16.02 inches; 7.65 pounds

Most Versatile

Ninja Foodi Power Blender Ultimate System

Orig. $240 $200 at Amazon $236 at Walmart $200 at Wayfair

I chose my first-ever food processor because both a blender jug and a chopping bowl screwed onto its motorized base, but I soon regretted how much space the separate containers took up in my studio apartment’s kitchen. Ninja solves this problem with its Foodi Power Blender Ultimate System, which fits all blending and chopping blades and discs in the blender pitcher, making the chopping bowl obsolete.

The Foodi system comes with enough other accessories that you won’t save much in storage space but will gain plenty of versatility. For smaller tasks, it has both an 18-ounce cup for drinks and a 24-ounce cup for thicker spreads and spoonable foods. The reversible shredding and slicing disc does double duty, while the separate grating disc has finer holes. A trio of blade assemblies chop, mix, and puree.

It all runs with a 1200-watt motor, enough oomph to mix bread dough or crush ice. You can use manual mode, adjusting the speed or pulsing as needed, or choose a preset program that blends and pauses as needed and stops automatically when done.

The Details: 9-cup capacity; 8.3 x 8.7 x 16.14 inches; 12.35 pounds; 1200 watts

Best Cordless

Cuisinart EvolutionX Cordless Mini Chopper

Orig. $80 $52 at Amazon View on Perigold.com $99 at Office Depot

If your kitchen island or peninsula countertop lacks a power outlet, you likely covet cordless prep tools. This cordless model has many features of Cuisinart’s corded mini chopper with the freedom to use it anywhere—even in a camper van or RV. It has a similar 4-cup bowl and drizzle hole-dotted cover but a slightly tweaked control design, with large push buttons instead of paddles. Hold down the button for the chosen speed (chop or grind), and it immediately cuts into herbs, vegetables, crackers, and more.

The lithium-ion battery can run continuously for up to 20 minutes, allowing plenty of short chopping sessions over several weeks before it needs a top-up. When the juice runs low, simply connect the included USB cord to the base and the power adapter and plug it into a wall outlet. The battery takes a couple of hours to fully charge, but you can plug it in briefly to get a little extra runtime mid-project. The cord only acts as a charger, though—you can’t use the chopper while it’s plugged in.

The Details: 4-cup capacity; 6.85 x 7.5 x 9.42 inches; 4 pounds; 7.4 volts

Best Attachment

Vitamix Food Processor Attachment

Orig. $250 $223 at Amazon $250 at Target $193 at Walmart

If you already own a heavy-duty motor base, a food processor attachment that can clip right onto it saves storage space. This Vitamix add-on attaches to all models in its Ascent and Venturist series, giving you a full-featured food processor running on one of those 1440-watt motor bases.

The lid of the 12-cup processor’s bowl has a full width and a smaller round pusher for its food chute, letting you feed in everything from peach halves to blueberries. Instead of twisting and locking, the lid, bowl, and base stack on the motor unit and snap together smoothly. The slicing disc and shredding disc are both reversible, giving two sizes for each function, and a storage case keeps them clean and sharp when not in use. The attachment uses one blade setup for chopping, kneading, and mixing.

Vitamix products carry high price tags but have a reputation for durability and lifetime use, and this attachment is no exception. You can save a bit overall if you bundle it with even more features, like extra cutting discs or a blender pitcher, but you’ll need to set aside more storage room.

The Details: 12-cup capacity; 11.75 x 8.5 x 12.75 inches; 6.17 pounds