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Food processors are full of promise. And the best food processor delivers on that promise. It slices! It dices! It shreds! It makes pie dough and hummus! But depending on which model you choose, the large base can weigh as much as a small child and come with such a dizzying array of attachments that ingredient prep feels less like cooking and more like an IQ test. Finding the right food processor means considering both performance and features—all the ones you want and none that you don’t. For a kitchen appliance purchase at this price point, it’s all in the details.
We first reviewed food processors in 2018, putting a small fleet of the beloved appliance to the test to measure efficiency, versatility, and ease with cleaning and storage. Every year since then, we’ve added to the review, pitting past winners against new models to ensure we always have the highest-performing machines listed as our top picks. Scroll down for the best food processors of 2022, plus details on how we tested and the other models we put to work.
Table of contents
The best food processor
The upgrade pick
How we tested
What we looked for
When to use a food processor, when to use a blender
Other food processors we tested
The takeaway
The best food processor: Breville Sous Chef 12
With a sturdy build, simple controls, and useful array of attachments, the Breville Sous Chef 12-cup food processor is a high-quality appliance that lives up to its name: It’s the right-hand man you’ve always wanted in the kitchen. This food processor has a 1,000-watt motor and 12-cup dry capacity (8½ cups for liquid). It readily handled every test we threw at it, and the included grater, slicing blade served us well.
Though Breville is not as big a name in food processors as Cuisinart, the Australian kitchen appliance company is a leader in intelligent design—and indeed, beyond the Sous Chef 12’s mere power, its assortment of thoughtful, user-driven design tweaks made it stand out from the pack. Sitting snug on the base like a blender, the work bowl is very easy to attach and detach, never leaks, and doesn’t require the latching, turning, and locking that’s common with other brands. Also, from a purely tactile standpoint, all the Sous Chef 12 components feel great in the hand, especially the smooth ergonomic handle on the work bowl and the lid. We also liked how the work bowl is clearly marked with measurements in both cups and milliliters, and how the neat pour spout makes it feel like a nice big measuring cup when maneuvering it from the base to the counter.
The Breville sports a wider “feed chute”—the opening in the top of the lid that you push ingredients through—than many of the other food processors we tried, which makes shredding and slicing easier because you don’t have to precut any food into smaller pieces. It’s the quietest machine we tested, and its slicing disc is adjustable from 0.3 mm to 8 mm, upping its versatility.
The base is quite heavy (about 16 pounds), and the processor bowl, lid, pusher, and attachments can deteriorate if regularly cleaned in the dishwasher (this may also potentially negate Breville’s one-year limited warranty). Thankfully, it’s not too difficult to hand-wash due to its streamlined design.
The upgrade pick: Cuisinart Elite Collection 2.0 14-Cup Food Processor
Cuisinart is the Kleenex of the food processor market; in a lot of cooks’ minds, the name Cuisinart means food chopper, and one of the brand’s many models tops reviews across the internet. In our test, the Elite model really blew the competition out of the water in terms of versatility and effectiveness. For $50 more than the Breville Sous Chef 12, you get two more cups of bowl capacity and a lot of extras, which we consider worth the splurge—especially for a machine that’s sure to last you a very long time.
A 14-cup bowl capacity means that the Cuisinart Elite can handle just about any food prep task you throw at it. Triple batches of soffritto for pasta sauce? Quadrupled pie crusts for Thanksgiving? This machine is made for the challenge. We loved the light-up display and that, like the Breville Sous Chef 12, the pieces click into place rather than turning and locking. This model comes with a special case for holding all of the attachments (a benefit if you’ve ever reached into a kitchen drawer and cut yourself on a loose shredder blade) and a nifty cord that retracts into the base, which eliminates the need to rubber-band an unruly plug. Best of all, it includes a smaller stainless-steel blade and 4.5-cup bowl insert for when you have smaller projects to complete and don’t want to make a mess of the whole machine. In that way, it’s a bit like a full-size and mini food processor in one.
The Elite is quite heavy. At 20 pounds, it’s a beast to lug out onto the countertop and, despite the case’s neatness, you’ll have to find a large storage space for it as well. In our opinion, the plusses outweigh the minuses, but it may not be a the best gadget for a small kitchen.
How we tested
We focused our testing on three of the most commonly used food processor functions: chopping, shredding, and processing. For the first, we used the chopping blade on two onions with the pulse function and examined the results for consistency and quality; points were deducted for uneven pieces or watery, pulverized results. For the second, we used the shredding disc to dispatch a large block of sharp cheddar cheese, taking note of the texture and consistency of the shreds and how much (if any) waste was left over. We also considered how hard it was to wash and clean the shredding blade. To test the processing power, we prepared a batch of hummus and our favorite pie dough in each machine, swapping out the metal blade for the dough blade if included. We kept an eye on the performance of the motor, the ease of use and cleaning, and the quality of the finished product.
What we looked for
Besides examining the results of the individual prep tests explained above, we considered the following for all food processors we tested:
The whole point of a large food processor is to make daunting prep tasks more manageable, so we were looking for models that could easily accommodate generous batches of dough, small mountains of shredded cheese, and an oversized Dutch oven’s worth of stew ingredients. We also paid attention to the strength and smoothness of the motor: Did it strain when working at high speeds or processing thick and sticky mixtures? When chopping, were its pulses firm and even?
Most food processors have similar standard parts: a motorized base to which a food processor bowl attaches and a small selection of blades and shredders that rotate from a spindle inside of the bowl. We made note of extras like dedicated dough blades, bowls that doubled as measuring cups, and adjustable slicing discs that went the extra mile. While a dishwasher-safe model is nice, we didn’t let that factor in too strongly, because we suggest hand-washing food processors to preserve the longevity of the gaskets.
When to use a food processor, when to use a blender
The desire to avoid redundancy in your kitchen tools is a common one, which is why many people make the mistake of thinking that food processors and blenders are relatively interchangeable. As nice as that would be, the two appliances are suited for very different kitchen tasks, and frankly, are subpar at doing the job of the other. Food processors are great at chopping and mincing veggies, grating blocks of cheese at high speed, kneading pizza dough and bread dough, or making thick dips and sauces like pesto or hummus. However, because a food processor’s bowl is so wide, it can’t thoroughly blend ingredients for a super smooth purée. Blenders really only function well for tasks with high amounts of liquid due to their long and narrow shape. They are perfect for puréeing soups and smoothies. but a consistent rough chop is nearly impossible, even in a high-end blender like a Vitamix. That being said, heavy-duty blenders with powerful motors are great for making nut butters. Liquids or ultrafine consistencies? Go for the blender. Anything chunky, choppy, or thick? Food processors are the better choice. And, given their totally different design, this should go without saying, but neither make a particularly good juicer. You can find our list of the best blenders here.
Other food processors we tested
This is the newer model of the iconic food processor, once called the Classic Series. We found this to be a totally workable processor at a more affordable price point for people who want a straightforward machine with no extras. The Breville was simpler to set up, quieter, and came with a wider range of attachments, so ultimately this model lost the top spot.
This one is even simpler than the Custom 14-cup model above and comes at a reduced price. It’s noticeably flimsier than its more expensive siblings, which we noticed is called out in a significant number of Amazon user reviews. Additionally, the machine’s pulsing function allows for less precision than other models because the blade doesn’t stop spinning abruptly; after the motor stops, it continues spinning for a few split seconds until it loses momentum on its own.
This is our winner’s big sister; it comes with a number of additional attachments and four extra cups of bowl capacity, making it the largest processor we tested by two whole cups. It was also the heaviest (at 26 pounds) and tied for the most expensive. We found the Cuisinart Elite 2.0 lighter, more streamlined, and easier to use, so it won out in the luxe category.
This was the least expensive model we tested and also the smallest—though the 9-cup work bowl was more than enough for a batch of hummus or single pie crust. Each of the two included blade attachments (one for chopping, one for dough) had a unique double-decker design that helped integrate all the ingredients without stopping and scraping them down with a spatula. But the reversible slicing blades weren’t as effective as some of the other models we tested, leaving large unsliced chunks of onion and hunks of cheese.
This pricey processor didn’t live up to its promise. The volume and violence of the motor while processing onions was off-putting, it leaked flour into the base when prepping pie dough, and left large chunks of cheese untouched when shredding cheddar. And the whole thing—a giant base and huge battery of attachments—took up so much counter space it seemed impractical for all but the most zealous home cooks with enormous kitchens.
This one fell to the bottom of our list in terms of both aesthetics and user experience. We found the base and accessory box needlessly bulky, and the performance, though satisfactory for basic chopping tasks, inconsistent for shredding and pastry.
The takeaway
If you’re a serious cook who regularly tackles recipes that require significant prep, the Breville Sous Chef 12 is a great investment and a joy to use, and it can seriously help cut down on tedious prep tasks. If you’re willing to spend $50 more for a few additional bells and whistles, you can do no better than the Cuisinart Elite Collection 2.0. It’s a hefty appliance, but has a larger capacity and tons of extra attachments, including a bowl insert that turns it into a mini chopper for smaller projects.
