The best food processors of 2024, tried and tested

Food processors can be the next best thing to having a personal sous chef in your kitchen. These appliances are simple-to-operate masters of cutting, chopping, slicing, mincing, shredding both wet and dry ingredients and even kneading dough. These culinary workhorses can simplify many meal prep tasks, offering pleasingly uniform results time and again.

To help you find the best food processor, we tested eight full-size models and three space-saving mini versions made for smaller jobs. We found two clear standouts and gave props to a mini model with a smaller work bowl we recommend keeping close at hand.

Best food processor: Cuisinart Classic Custom 14-Cup Food Processor

Lots of bells and whistles can be fun, but when it comes to food processors, high quality, simple craftsmanship and a tried-and-true design win out in the end. The Cuisinart Classic Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is basic in design and doesn’t include a ton of accessories?(it comes with a stainless steel 4-millimeter slicing disc, shredding disc and chopping S-blade, plus a recipe book and spatula), ?but?it outperformed the other machines we tested by leaps and bounds.

We especially appreciated the powerful 750-watt motor and a brushed stainless steel base, which doesn’t budge no matter how much you put it to work. Yes, it’s a sturdy 18 1/2 pounds, but it?chops, minces, slices and shreds with precision and speed.

The 14-cup bowl had the largest capacity of any model we tested, allowing you to make extra-large batches of sauces, soups and more. The recipes we tested came together quickly and beautifully with the touch of just two wide paddle buttons (on and off/pulse). The machine doesn’t come with a separate dough blade, as many of its competitors did, but we used the chopping S-blade to make the fastest and best pizza dough of the entire testing pool.

Another thing that set the Cuisinart Classic apart was the rear placement of the food chute. We liked this better than the front placement common to the other models we tested, since it makes it much easier to see what is going on inside without having to peer around the chute.

The Cuisinart Classic also comes with large and small feed tubes and pushers, which help to process different-sized foods. The wide tube, at 4 1/2 inches, is important for larger items, such as whole bricks of cheese, onions or potatoes — meaning you won’t have to spend time pre-chopping before sending them through the chute. But the smaller tube allows you to keep long, thin veggies, like carrots or celery, straight as they go through, which maintains a uniform slice.

All the parts on the Cuisinart Classic are dishwasher-safe (the manual recommends dishwasher cleaning) and fit into the work bowl for easier storage, making cleaning up and putting everything away a breeze.

Of course, it’s not perfect. We preferred the Breville’s adjustable slicing disc for paper-thin to thick cuts and we wish Cuisinart included a mini work bowl for smaller jobs. And while the warranty is good ?— a full five years on the motor and limited three years on the entire unit ?— the Breville offers a 10-year motor warranty. (Though here, we must add, an earlier version of this model I received as a wedding gift 21 years ago still works wonderfully with no replacement parts needed.) If you’re looking for a food processor that does a great job and should last decades, this is it.

Best food processor runner-up: Breville Sous Chef 12-Cup Food Processor

We loved the Breville Sous Chef 12-Cup Food Processor. With its sleek, silver stainless steel base and black feed chute parts, it looks ultra-modern on the countertop. And when it came to our tests ?— chopping and slicing veggies, shredding cheese and making salsa, pesto and mayonnaise ?— it, along with the Cuisinart, made mincemeat of the competition, with uniform results in our tests.

The Breville boasts a 1,000-watt motor, the most powerful of those tested, and comes with some well-thought-out accessories. We appreciated the adjustable slicing disc that comes with a whopping 24 settings, from paper-thin to thick, and three food chute options: 5-inch, 2 3/4-inch and 1 1/2-inch. It also has a reversible shredding disc for coarse or fine grating, a dough blade, a micro-serrated chopping S-blade, a mini 2 1/2-cup work bowl, a spatula, a cleaning brush and a storage box.

At about 16 1/2 pounds, the processor was sturdy and stayed put while in use. We also liked the retractable cord, which makes for cleaner storage. The Breville’s parts are dishwasher-safe, but it’s recommended you hand-wash them.

So, why did it only take runner-up honors? It was incredibly close, but the Breville didn’t do quite as well kneading pizza dough, has a smaller 12-cup work bowl capacity (there is a 16-cup version of the Sous Chef as well that’s more expensive) and, while it has a better motor warranty, it only has a 1-year limited warranty on parts. And, while the black food chute looks chic, you can’t see as easily into the work bowl, which is important for checking the progress on things like?mayonnaise. Finally, it costs more than the Cuisinart Classic.

But if aesthetics and the flexibility of an included mini work bowl are important, then you can’t go wrong with the Breville Sous Chef.

Best mini food processor: KitchenAid 3.5-Cup Food Chopper

While full-size food processors are serious time-savers for chopping and shredding large amounts of food or making big-batch recipes, they’re not always useful with smaller jobs. This is where the Kitchen Aid Food Chopper comes in. A perfect supplement to a full-size machine, it has a stainless steel S-blade that stays locked in place. It’s small, light and easily stowed in a cupboard for easy access.

This model stood above its competitors in all the chopping and recipe tests we put it through. Nuts were reduced to uniform pieces, salsa ingredients were chopped evenly and quickly with just a few quick pulses and pesto came together with lightning speed, with a thick and creamy consistency incorporating all the oil.

The 240-watt motor is slightly less powerful than its competitors’, but we didn’t notice a difference, and the 3 1/2-cup work bowl was a perfect size for smaller needs. We also liked the work bowl’s small pour spout for serving. A switch toggles between two speeds ?— chop and puree ?— and an ample basin in the lid made it easy to drizzle in oil without worrying about messy overflow.

Another thing we liked was its pulse control, which is located in the lid handle and works by simply pressing down on it with your thumb. The 36-inch cord also wraps around a groove inside the base, allowing you to tuck it away when not in use.

Available in more than a dozen colors, it will fit right in with any kitchen decor.

How we tested

Our testing pool included full-size and mini food processors that came with a variety of attachments. Yes, all were able to chop and slice. But ease of use, consistency, uniformity and recipe results varied quite a bit.

We tested 11 food processors ranging in price from $40 to $450, with work bowl capacities as small as 3 cups and as large as 14 cups. In addition to noting the machines’ performances while chopping and slicing various vegetables, grating cheese and chopping nuts, we tested how well each machine made four recipes: salsa, pesto, mayonnaise and pizza dough.

We also assessed the selection and quality of accessories and attachments, feed tube size, ease of storage and cleaning, motor power and warranty. We focused on the following criteria when testing each model.

Performance

Build and design

Care

How to choose a food processor

A full-size food processor can transform your meal prep routine, but will also take up coveted space in your kitchen. So before you toss those graters, knife sets, garlic presses, mandolines and other savvy tools, you’ll want to consider how often you might need it, how much food you plan to process and whether you’ll be storing it away in a cabinet or leaving it on the countertop.

Food processors can make quick work of many food prep tasks. A block of cheese? Shred it in seconds. Need an onion chopped? Get tear-free, perfectly uniform slices in no time. Chopping Brussels sprouts, carrots or celery? Just send them through the chute and you’re one and done.

If recipes such as salsas, pestos, tapenades, chimichurris and nut butter are in frequent rotation in your home, a food processor will return fast, homemade results in seconds. The same goes for recipes that involve breadcrumbs and lots of mincing, chopping, dicing and slicing. For those who make a lot of soups, ragouts and stews, a food processor could quickly become your new BFF. The machines also make quick work of doughs ?— see how fast you can whip together a basic pizza dough and you’ll never opt for a store-bought crust again.

It’s important to ask yourself how much chopping, slicing and shredding you’ll do regularly. If you plan to use a food processor to prep large meals and think you might use it for dough or other heavyweight tasks, you’ll probably want a full-size machine. If you have other tools for those things or prefer to do a lot of prep by hand, a mini version, made for simple chopping, will handle nuts, small-batch sauces and spreads.

Other food processors we tested

With 650 watts, the Magimix 12-Cup Food Processor finished third in motor power behind our winning and runner-up picks. It did well during our slicing, shredding and chopping tests, though it didn’t hold up to the Cuisinart Classic and Breville models. While its pizza dough eventually came together, the machine labored to get there.

With a 12-cup capacity, it earned points for its 30-year motor warranty and a three-year warranty on parts, and we appreciate that it comes with three work bowl sizes to accommodate various needs.

In addition to the S-blade, this model includes two 2-millimeter and 4-millimeter stainless steel slicing and grating discs, a dough blade, blender mix, egg whisk, spatula and recipe book and a handy storage box. It also weighs roughly 24 pounds, which is quite heavy. Between the machine, work bowl and storage box, you’ll need extra cabinet space to store it.

There was a lot we liked about the Cuisinart Elemental 13-Cup Food Processor. If you’re looking for all sorts of bells and whistles, this model may interest you. It comes with both large and small work bowls, a chopping blade, a dough blade, a reversible shredding disc for fine and medium shreds and an adjustable slicing disc and touchpad controls.

It also comes with a dicing kit, which other models did not include, complete with a dicing disc with a 10-millimeter grid and a cleaning tool. We tested it with carrots, celery and onions and all three turned out uniform dices, working surprisingly well. Even with the included tool, the grid was a pain to clean by hand, but all the parts are dishwasher-safe, so it wasn’t much of a problem.

The KitchenAid 13-Cup Food Processor fell in the middle of the pack of the machines we tested. It worked well on basic chopping, slicing and shredding, though it required more time to get the results we wanted. Mayonnaise, for instance, took significantly longer to hit the right creamy consistency than it did with our winning picks, and the machine labored while kneading pizza dough. We appreciated that the included caddy fits inside the work bowl for a smaller storage footprint and liked that the work bowl snaps straight onto the base, unlike other models we tested, which must be twisted into place.

With its 10-cup work bowl, the Oster 2-Speed 10-Cup Food Processor was smaller and lighter than many of the full-size food processors we tested. With a 500-watt motor and plastic housing, it uses suction cups to stay put while working, though ours still jumped around on our counter. The large feed tube means carrots tip over as they go through the blade, leaving odd-shaped pieces.

And while the Oster did an OK job shredding cheddar, it struggled with mozzarella as the machine whirred and turned much of the soft cheese into coils, rather than shreds. Recipe results were similar: The salsa was soupier, the pesto chunkier, the dough didn’t come together well and the mayonnaise didn’t cream.

Featuring a 12-cup work bowl along with a handy 4-cup mini work bowl and touchpad controls, the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Duo 12-Cup Food Processor has a 500-watt motor and comes with a reversible slicing/shredding disc, chopping S-blade and 3-inch feed tube. But it couldn’t handle shredding mozzarella, spitting out coils rather than shredded pieces before the motor overheated and stunk up the whole kitchen. We ended testing there.

We had better luck with this Hamilton Beach model, but it still fell toward the bottom of our rankings. The Hamilton Beach 10-Cup Food Processor has a 450-watt motor that lets it chop and slice, but the results were uneven, with some pieces of food left sticking above the disc. It’s quite loud and labored even on cheddar, eventually spitting out an uneven shred and leaving a huge chunk of cheese above the disc. One thing we did like, though, was the included work bowl scraper attachment, a plastic tool that worked?well to get all the extra food off the work bowl.

Available in several colors, the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus 3-Cup Food Processor is a mini chopper that did a good job on simple chopping tasks but did the least uniform job of the three mini food processors we tested. Its base is smaller than the others, but it comes with a 3-cup work bowl. Like the Cuisinart Elite Collection 4-Cup Chopper, it has a 250-watt motor along with a recipe book and mini spatula.

If you’re looking to chop one onion or make a fast cup of pesto, then the Cuisinart Elite Collection 4-Cup Chopper is a petite food processor that’s a decent choice. Its results were less consistent than the KitchenAid 3.5-Cup Food Chopper’s, but the Cuisinart Elite, with its 4-cup work bowl and 250-watt motor, did a fine job chopping veggies and nuts, and the pesto came to a nice consistency. We like that this machine has a recipe booklet and a handy plastic spatula.