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My first food processor had a weak motor that tended to push and tear food instead of chopping evenly. I pulled it out for large projects like canning, but otherwise would rather grab a sharp knife than clean all of its plastic parts. The bulky appliance took up precious kitchen storage space longer than I care to admit—even after the motor began to grind and wheeze.
I splurged to replace it with a high-quality food processor, and within the first week, the new machine was paying me back. A good food processor pairs a powerful motor with a sturdy sealed bowl that lets blades whirl at high speed while containing the mess. It can manage in seconds what takes me tens of minutes to prep by hand—and can be used in other surprising ways.
I’m not just talking about chopping vegetables. Many food processors also come with discs for slicing, grating, and shredding, while others have special blades for mixing and kneading dough. Through experience and research, I picked the best food processors for prep tasks large and small in a range of styles. The Allrecipes Allstars, our team of expert home cooks, then tested a few favorites in their own kitchens.
My Top Pick
Cuisinart Food Processor
Why It’s Great: No-frills design; easy to use and assemble; chops and purees evenly
Grain of Salt: Comes with just three blades
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
Allrecipes / Julie Laing
Allrecipes / Julie Laing
Allrecipes / Julie Laing
Allrecipes / Julie Laing
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Why It’s Great: Holds up to 12 cups; snap-lock lid opens and seals easily; reversible slicing and shredding disc
Grain of Salt: Less wattage than similarly sized competitors
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
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Best Mini
Cuisinart 4-Cup Mini Chopper
Why It’s Great: Powerful for size; works quickly; smoothly blends in liquids
Grain of Salt: No feed tube or accessories beyond a spatula
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
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Best for Dough
Breville Sous Chef 12-Cup Food Processor
Why It’s Great: Powerful; highly adjustable slicing blade; trio of feed chute sizes
Grain of Salt: Expensive
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
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Allrecipes / Terri McHugh
Best Mid-Sized
Ninja Professional Plus Food Processor
Why It's Great: Includes preset and manual programs; dishwasher-safe parts; versatile functions
Grain of Salt: Small food chute
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
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Allrecipes / Renee Pajestka
Most Versatile
Ninja Foodi Power Blender Ultimate System
Why It’s Great: Dispenses with a separate chopping bowl; includes five blades and discs; high-watt motor
Grain of Salt: Lots of parts to keep track of and store
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
Why It’s Great: Portable; fully charges in two hours; works when partially recharged
Grain of Salt: Won’t operate while charging
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
Why It’s Great: Attaches to several Vitamix blender models; stacks and snaps together; two reversible cutting discs give four size options
Grain of Salt: Pricey even on its own
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
My Takeaway
My sister’s Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor remains a reliable workhorse after 10-plus years, and I expect my 5-year-old model to last at least as long. If you don’t need a full-size processor, I’ve found that the Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper excels at small jobs.
About Our Tests
Allstars Renee Pajestka and Terri McHugh put five food processors through a round of testing in their very own kitchens. Each home cook tried a number of recipes (including pesto, tzatziki, salsa, soup, hummus, and more) and critiqued the food processors in the following categories:
- Design: Would it be comfortable to use for repeated batches? Are there any extra features or attachments that are particularly useful?
- Performance: Does the motor feel powerful enough to work through denser ingredients? Is the feeding tube or drizzle hole well-sized? Did the blade remain sharp throughout testing?
- Ease of Use: Are the controls intuitive and easy to use? Is the base heavy enough to keep the food processor steady on the counter while in use?
- Cleanup: Is the food processor easy to clean? Are there any hard-to-reach nooks and crannies where food got stuck? Are there any dishwasher-safe components?
How I Pick the Right Food Processor
Efficiency
How well a food processor does its job usually comes down to power, especially in relation to size and speed. The machine’s power is usually listed as its peak wattage. The higher the number of watts, the more formidable the motor. This might be less important in a small-capacity processor, whose speed chops evenly while using less energy, than when filling a large machine with thick dough or dense beans.
Many food processors have just two speeds—low and high, sometimes labeled chop and grind or puree—and pulse control to pause the blades every few seconds. And really, that’s all they need. Most models with additional speeds and settings also act as blenders or smoothie makers.
Weight and Volume
A processor bowl loaded with chunky food takes a few seconds to balance its contents, so the most durable models have a heavy base to keep them from dancing around. Small choppers often weigh less but can shift on the countertop, especially ones with an outsized motor. It’s always a good idea to keep one hand on any food processor while it’s running.
Food processor bowls, lids, and blades are far lighter than the base so that they can easily twist or snap into place. Small models only hold a few cups of food, but large ones can have a 14-cup or greater capacity. That said, filling the work bowl to the rim or packing it tightly can stress the machine or cause overflow. As a rule, the bowl should be only two-thirds full—or less with mostly liquid contents.
Design
I choose a food processor for functionality rather than style. A sturdy machine that feels like it’s meant to last might not be the sleekest appliance on the countertop, but I appreciate its bulk every time I use it.
Many food processor bowls and lids twist and lock into place, but some use a stack-and-snap design. Mini choppers might have fairly flat lids with just an opening or two for pouring in liquids, which makes them short and easy to store. Larger designs often have a feed tube, sometimes with inserts that come out in one or more sections for dropping or pushing solids into the machine while it’s running. This makes them more versatile but also adds several inches to their height, with more parts to clean after each use.
Ease of Cleaning
Food processors often have at least some dishwasher-safe parts, but check the owner’s manual to see which ones should be hand washed, placed in the dishwasher’s utensil holder, or set on the top rack. The motorized base should be easy to wipe clean before any spills have time to harden, but never submerged in water. Blades and cutting discs usually stay sharper longer when washed and dried by hand.
The cutting parts can be deceptively sharp, so store these where family members won’t accidentally run a thumb across them. It’s usually safest to just store the food processor fully assembled, with the cutting blade inside, and any extra discs in an included storage rack or sealed container. With enough headspace, the work bowl can be stored right on the motorized base, with the lid locked into place.
Common Questions
What is the difference between a food processor and a blender?
Food processors and blenders can handle a few of the same tasks but function best on a spectrum. Food processors usually have a short, squat work bowl that helps them evenly chop everything from a large dice to a fine mince; some include discs for slicing and shredding and blades for mixing and kneading. They even turn quite dry food, like bread, into crumbs. They can mix dressings and puree dips, but the texture often remains a little coarse.
Blenders also create purees, usually smoother ones than a food processor. A tall, narrow jug keeps liquids like soups and beverages circulating and combining and has a pourable spout. Some high-powered blenders coarsely chop fruit or crush ice, but even the best blenders are designed with liquids in mind.
How do you clean a food processor?
Many food processors have bowls and lids that can be safely washed in the top rack of a dishwasher, and some have blades and accessories that are dishwasher safe too. But in general, you’ll extend the life span of a food processor by hand washing all components.
Wiping down and then hand drying the motorized base should keep it clean. To avoid stuck-on food that won’t wipe off easily, clean all food processor parts as soon as you’ve finished using the appliance. Motorized and electrical parts can fail if submerged in water.
Can you grind coffee beans in a food processor?
The blades of a coffee grinder and food processor have similar action, so a food processor can stand in if you need to grind coffee beans without a grinder. The result won’t be quite as fine or consistent, making the food processor a better option for beans that will go in a French press than ones destined for an espresso machine. When grinding coffee beans, or other foods like nuts and seeds, run the food processor in short bursts and stop every few pulses to scrape down the bowl and check the progress.
Why Take Our Word For It?
Julie Laing has been a writer and editor for 25-plus years, focusing on original recipes, kitchen tools, and the stories around them. She is the author of “The Complete Guide to Pickling,” the Flathead Beacon food columnist, and a reviewer and recipe developer for numerous other publications. She didn’t really see the value of a food processor until she bought one so powerful it dices enough peppers and onions for dozens of pints of salsa faster than she can by hand. She now pulls out her food processor at least weekly, using it to chop herbs and aromatics for curry paste, mince vegetables for veggie burgers, grind nuts and vanilla beans for cookies, and puree apples and berries for her nephew’s and niece’s favorite fruit leather.
Allison Wignall updated this article using the testing insights of two Allstars. Her work has been featured in the Spruce Eats, Food & Wine, Southern Living, Travel + Leisure, and more.
Allstar Renee Pajestka's love of cooking started with an Easy Bake Oven when she was five. She now has over 30 years of self-taught experience and loves to share her passion through her recipes and blogging. Terri McHugh is an author, lifestyle blogger, and professional photographer on top of being an Allrecipes Allstar. She shares many incredible recipes, including creative party snacks and desserts, on her site xoxoterri.com.