The Best Food Processors for Creative Cooking

What makes this Cuisinart 4-cup mini chopper stand out is the fact that it’s cordless. It’s surprisingly powerful for a design that can be recharged with a USB cord and takes around two hours to charge fully. While this may not appeal to everyone, it does give you a continual cordless run time of 20 minutes, which is enough to chop nuts for your homemade granola or whiz up ingredients for guacamole. It performed well for me on both of these tasks, and I was able to whiz up chickpeas just enough to achieve a nice grainy texture. The flexibility of the cordless meant I could move it around freely from the main countertop to my kitchen island.

While the 4-cup capacity is small, it does provide enough space to cook decent portions for up to six. With two buttons—one for chopping and one for grinding—the controls are easy to use here too. I found its power and tempo surprisingly even, until, naturally, it ran out of power and needed a recharge.

Note: The US and UK versions of this processor differ slightly in color range and name, but performance is otherwise the same.

Magimix appliances have been handcrafted since 1971 in Burgundy, France—a region known for its gastronomy. Beautifully sober in its styling, this food processor, with a body made from metalized plastic, BPA-free plastic, and stainless steel, looks good on the countertop and is wonderfully compact.

The 4200XL comes with three bowls (6 cups, 12 cups, and 14 cups) that conveniently stack inside one another. There’s also a separate storage compartment to house all its blade accessories so they don’t get lost in your cupboard. It comes with a good range of attachments and has a stainless steel Sabatier knife blade for chopping, crushing, mixing, and blending, as well as two slicing discs, two grating discs, an egg whisk, and a dough blade. That sounds like a lot, but I found it easy to switch between attachments.

The Magimix’s 950-watt motor really packed a punch, but it’s also one of the quieter models I’ve tried. Simple control buttons, including Auto, Pulse, and Stop, make operation simple, and the machine can automatically adjust the power to suit ingredients in the bowl. Carrots and zucchini sliced effortlessly inside, while the chickpeas whizzed up in seconds to make a hummus with a lovely silky texture.

Breville has really nailed its designs lately, balancing a look of brushed stainless steel, ease of use, and high performance, and I won’t lie, this food processor looks so good next to my Breville toaster and juicer.

Unpacking the parts—which are all cleverly tucked into its body—felt like a puzzle, but I soon came to grips with how everything slots into place. Neat storage goes a long way in food processor design, so I was pleased to see Breville trying hard here.

The last time WIRED reviewed a Breville food processor, results were disappointing. The larger Paradice 16 was cumbersome and didn’t dice well enough, but here, with a smaller, and cheaper design the Paradice 9 is a far more enticing buy.

There are five color-coded blades here that work with the brushless induction motor base to make it easy to identify which blade does what. The machine can do it all, and do it well, whether you’re dicing, chopping, blitzing, or blending. The direct-drive high-torque motor produced fast and effective results, although dicing remained a little imprecise if you love your cubes perfect. It’s quieter than other food processors I’ve tried, so easier on the ears too.

Finely chopping carrots and celery took a matter of minutes, while the wide 4.7-inch feed chute was perfect for drizzling oil into my hummus dip while the device was on and crushing the chickpeas. If standard food processing functions are what you’re after—in a premium well-built design with excellent onboard storage—I’d say this premium design is one for the wish list.

Despite only having a 250-watt motor base, this compact kitchen food processor is surprisingly powerful. It comes with an 28-fluid-ounce (830-milliliter) work bowl with feeding chute and pusher, which can take either a chopping blade or a reversible slice/shred disc. It doubles up as a blender too and has two separate 16-ounce tall cups, one with a steel cross blade and one with a flip lid for smoothies on the go.

Vegetables sliced speedily when used with the reversible slice/shred disc here and the feeding chute is large enough to take one big carrot, large slices of pepper, onion, and celery halves. Using the chopping blade I made a hearty sofrito for some soup in no time. Making hummus in the blender jug with the cross blade wasn’t so successful, so I switched to the work bowl with the stacked chopping blade and had deliciously smooth humus for lunch.

If I’m honest, I tend to avoid this type of processor as I’ve been disappointed in the past, but the build and performance here genuinely impressed me. It’s not luxurious but is great value for the money and easy to store. It’s not large enough if you’re into batch-cooking or have a handful of kids to feed, but it remains a versatile option loaded with features. All the parts fit together with a simple click, and the On, Off, and Pulse buttons keep functionality head-ache free. The blades are sharp, so you’ll need to take care while washing up, but all parts aside from the motor base are dishwasher safe.

In our pick of the best food processors, we’ve included a range of tall and small designs to suit both large and small kitchens. To assess the performance of each food processor, I made hummus with chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, tahini, and sea salt. I also chopped carrots, celery, and peppers to evenly hide in Jamie Oliver’s Versatile Meat Ragu recipe, which is delicious in a homemade pie or served with pasta and rice. We’ve scrutinized each food processor on flexibility, design, ease of use, and how many useful attachments each set includes.

Garrett Rochowiak, chef de cuisine at Miami’s Bouchon Coral Gables Restaurant shares his tips on Getting the Best From Your Food Processor.

Stay cool: It’s important to control the heat of your ingredients. Heat is created by friction, and the longer you run your food processor the warmer your product will become. Foods such as meat and cheese do better in the processor when they are chilled beforehand, for example. Depending on the recipe, you could chill your food processor bowl in the refrigerator before using it to buy yourself more time.

Check your pulse: By using short sharp bursts of power there’s less risk of overprocessing certain foods such as nuts, seeds, and herbs.

Be measured: It’s important not overfill your food processor, because then it will struggle to process your food. In our restaurant, we base our recipes on the size of our food processor to ensure we get the best possible end result.

Don’t avoid the clean up: After using your food processor, it’s a good practice to remove all the attachments and clean them individually with warm soapy water. This will keep all the different accessories in excellent condition and ensure you have a fresh start project after each project.