The Breville Sous Chef diced tomatoes and onions evenly, and it chopped nuts to 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 cuisinart toaster costco 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. In terms of pure performance, the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro was hands down the best food processor we tested.
This was the most expensive model we tested, and in our opinion, not worth the cost. The Cuisinart® Stainless Steel Food Chopper is great for chopping vegetables, hard cheeses, nuts, herbs, garlic and more. A food chopper can run you anywhere from $10 to $50, so understanding what you want out of this appliance is crucial to making the right decision when shopping.
From blending flavored butter and pureeing homemade baby food to grinding spices and chopping fresh veggies, your everyday small-batch food prep tasks can be completed with one compact appliance. The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor has been our top pick since 2013 because it does everything a great food processor should do, without any unnecessary extras. Unlike those of some other models we tested, the Cuisinart’s base remained stable on the counter, even when processing double batches of dough.
We have a guide to the best countertop blenders if you’re interested in getting one. In testing, we found this machine to be the fastest and most powerful. It finely chopped an onion blindingly fast, and puréed the smoothest hummus of the bunch. If you often spend time finely chopping produce or only need single batches of pesto or romesco, it’s the ideal tool to add to your collection. If you do happen to have more space than apartment dwellers like me, choose from the 8-, 11-, or 13-cup sizes of this grinder.
A food processor is the best tool for chopping and mincing, because its wide base allows the blades to slice through more at once, so you can coarsely chop ingredients quickly and evenly. Most full-size food processors also come with blades for slicing and grating, which a blender can’t do. This little chopper has a 3.5-cup bowl that is big enough for serious food cuisinart air fryer oven prep when a full-sized food processor is too big for the job. It has two speeds and operates when the top is pressed down at the handle, so it’s easy to pulse or to run continuously. The work bowl is tall rather than wide, so in testing it did a good job chopping small amounts of garlic. It also did well chopping onions, nuts, tomatoes, carrots, and mushrooms.
You can quickly pulse breadcrumbs, craft homemade hummus, and puree soups without a blender. You can put the blade and cup in the top rack of your dishwasher for easy cleanup. This multipurpose mini chopper makes a big difference when it comes to small-batch food prep.
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. Just the right size for small batches of sauces, slaws, fruit purees and salad dressings, this mini chopper speeds cuisinart air fryer oven along your prep and cooking. With a sleek countertop presence in bright white accented with stainless steel, the processor features a durable Tritan work bowl. The blade automatically reverses direction for thorough chopping and grinding, then stays securely in place when you pour out your creations. They make light work of heavy meal prep jobs, and they’re user friendly and easy to clean.
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 took note of any special features on the various mini food processors we tested, but overall they had to prove more than just a kitchen one-trick pony.
In testing, we found that this tool was efficient at cutting onions, and unlike cutters with moving blades, this one made neat, even cuts. All we had to do was load a halved onion and push down to shove it through the blades. Plus, if you don’t feel like cleaning your cutting board, you can attach the base and chop. This is great for chopping small ingredients, like garlic cloves or fresh herbs. You can use this device to make a salsa, prepare ingredients for a soup, cut up cheese for a charcuterie board or chop onions without crying your eyes out.
One Wirecutter staffer, who was initially skeptical of the large, 14-cup bowl capacity, has said that so far their Cuisinart hasn’t been too small or too large for any preparations. Another staffer replaced her Cuisinart with a new one after 11 years of use. Meanwhile, senior kitchen and appliance editor Marguerite Preston still uses a decades-old Cuisinart Custom 14 that she inherited from her parents.