It can also blend small amounts of food into purees or emulsify your salad dressing. We tested it with onions, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, nuts, and garlic, and it worked well with all of them. This processor would be ideal for making baby food, thanks to its small size and effective pureeing capabilities. While these manual choppers still require a little bit of elbow grease to chop down into the veggies, it’s still much easier and quicker than chopping all of these veggies by hand. They are quite compact as well, so if you don’t have a ton of extra kitchen space, you’ll likely still be able to fit a manual food chopper into a drawer or cabinet.
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 cuisinart choppers chopping small amounts of garlic. It also did well chopping onions, nuts, tomatoes, carrots, and mushrooms. It wasn’t perfect at chopping green peppers, but it was acceptable for recipes.
Cuisinart® food processors take the tedious tasks off your plate. They make light work of heavy meal prep jobs, and they’re user friendly and easy to clean. Donna Currie is a product tester and writer for The Spruce Eats. She’s also a prolific food blogger and the author of “Make Ahead Bread,” which is aimed at demystifying the art of bread making.
It is all plastic, so no worry about dropping it [and] glass breaking. Every part that touches food can be washed in the dishwasher,” they added in their review. And this mini Cuisinart model is the perfect one to snap up — not only is it a convenient size, but it’s also on sale for just $30 right now. A small price to pay for a lifetime of quick work, if you ask us.
We also made sauces and purees and considered the final texture of the results. The zigzag blade in this chopper performs more cuts per push than choppers with an X-blade, and the blade rotates with each push so food is chopped more evenly. We found that it did well with onions, carrots, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and a little less well with green peppers. This mini food processor won’t knead dough like a big food processor can, but it will make quick work of chopping everything from apples to nuts to zucchini.
Cuisinart also sells replacement parts, if you damage any of the components. Soaking the parts in hot soapy water is a great way to remove any remaining residue. If you can, it’s a good idea to get into the nooks and crannies around the blade, inside the food pressers, and around the tube with a bottle brush or toothbrush. In the case of electric food processors, make sure cuisinart choppers that the device is cooled down and unplugged if you are going to wipe the base with a hot, damp cloth. There’s no need to worry about any shards of steel ending up in your food and you won’t have to replace your blade for a long time because they can really withstand the test of time. Most blades are made of stainless steel, because they can withstand rust or corrosion.
They should last you a long time, but not forever, so if you notice a blade dulling, it is probably time to replace it. Certain brands offer part replacements, so look first to see whether you can just replace the blade before buying a new appliance. Between your food chopper and your bench scraper, you will save a lot of time with ingredient prep, and you won’t have to worry about chopped food scattered all over your kitchen. Food choppers can hold anywhere from 1 to 6 cups of food (in comparison, full-size food processors can hold anywhere from 11 to 16 cups), but the most common size is a 3-cup processor. Determining how many people you’re typically cooking for and how much vegetable prep you are generally doing are great ways to figure out what will work best for you.