Sarah (she/her) is a deputy editor for the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she tests products and covers the best picks across kitchen, tech, health and food. She holds a certificate in professional culinary arts from the International Culinary Center (now the Institute of Culinary Education). The Sous Chef is solidly built, with a hefty base that weighs about 15½ pounds (excluding the bowl). This processor also comes with a limited one-year product warranty and has a 25-year warranty on the motor—by far the longest warranty on a motor of any of the models we tested. You can use a food processor for pureeing dips and sauces too, but it will yield coarser textures than a high-powered blender—it’s best for things like hummus and pesto. You’ll need a blender if you want to make silky smoothies or to puree liquids like soup, which can splatter and leak out of a food processor’s doughnut-shaped bowl.
I bought this little addition originally to make baby food for my 6 month old. I needed something to process medium batches of food into a liquid/ baby food consistancy. I would steam apples, carrots, pears, potatoes, everything and then puree it with the Cuisinart Mini Food Processor. The motor in the appliance may be small, but it is extremely powerful.
You can usually purchase everything from a juicing attachment to julienne disks separately, but such extras often go unused. Both cookbook authors we spoke with essentially said these add-ons were a waste of money, so we didn’t test any. Take a hands-on approach with a manual mini food processor, which can be used anywhere — no need for charging or plugging in. Lab Director Papantoniou likes this model because it has “an oversized handle that’s easy to pull and use, and it is overall simple to clean.” She notes that it’s great for garlic and other quick jobs. Because you must pull a cord to operate it, it could pose the risk of fatigue for some users and requires some dexterity. The Cuisinart EvolutionX Cordless Mini Chopper ($80) was the only cordless mini chopper we tested, which was intriguing.
However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. The battery life of the Cuisinart Cordless Chopper can vary depending on usage. However, on average, a fully charged battery can last for multiple chopping sessions before requiring a recharge. cuisinart choppers Below is the user manual for the Cuisinart Elemental 4-Cup Chopper & Grinder. Read it before you buy it, or come back and download it if you have any questions after getting your grinder home. Our favorites provide a lot of power, functionality, and versatility with a small footprint.
The performance of the Cuisinart rebounded in our garlic mincing challenge, doing the best job of preserving the appearance of the garlic while mincing it extremely finely. We also like that you can remove the work bowl cuisinart choppers with the lid attached. The Cuisinart FP-12DCN Elite Collection Food Processor also has this handy feature, but most models (including the Cuisinart Custom 14) require that you loosen the lid before removing the bowl.
The Sous Chef is more than twice the price of the Cuisinart Custom 14, and it’s more powerful (and much bigger) than most people need. This is one of Cuisinart’s most basic models, but it consistently chops, slices, and kneads better than any other food processor we’ve found for under $250. Despite our overall lack of enthusiasm about this chopper, we must admit that it did quite well in this tests, actually doing the best job of the group. This manual chopper gives you the most control over chopping, allowing you to actually chop the onion, rather than turning it into mush. However, you can only fit about half of a small onion inside and it doesn’t always cut all the way through it, usually leaving a residual skin with the last layer of the onion.
You’ll find replacement bowls, food pushers, blades, and various other attachments for the Cuisinart Custom 14 and the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (though we should note that they can be quite expensive). You can sometimes find cheaper, secondhand parts on eBay, but just be sure you get the right model number. We read a few reviews by people who disliked how the Cuisinart Custom 14’s lid locks with the feed tube in the back rather than in the front (which is standard for most models). However, we think it’s actually easier to see the ingredients in the bowl when the feed tube is positioned in the back of the lid. We recommend this large, 16-cup processor only if you’re cooking for a crowd multiple times a week.
Pulse activation gives maximum control for precision processing, whether chopping or grinding. Although there’s some overlap in what they can do, food processors and blenders aren’t interchangeable appliances. 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 model is a scaled-down version of our winning full-size Cuisinart food processor, both in appearance and in power.