“It’s great for chopping a lot of vegetables,” says Shilpa. “You can chop cheese in there. You can make dough in there, you can make batter in there. You can make soft serve in there. I think it’s more practical than a blender. For Vitamix fans, these might be a Hot debate, but food processors can handle many jobs that even the best blenders can’t. The reason is that A) food processors don’t require a certain level of liquid to work properly, as blenders do, and B) food processors rely on it. The central chopping blade processes everything in the work bowl simultaneously. The blender has a fixed slicing blade that works from the bottom up, gradually pureeing the ingredients as they sink. The food processor can perform with consistency and speed. Everything from rough chopping to pureeing.
For Uskovich, making falafel is the perfect example: “When I make falafel at home, I only use a food processor. You can’t get the same chopped but still fine texture from any other device. .You have to chop it all up by hand – it’s too much trouble.
Cuisinart sells a variety of food processors with different bowl capacities, but if you want to get the most out of your machine, Uskokovic strongly favors the 14-cup capacity. This is especially true if you’re interested in using it for kneading dough, as anything smaller really won’t be able to handle the amount of ingredients required for typical bread recipes.
Bigger food processor upgrade: Breville Sous Chef, 16-cup
One thing that we product testers have come to learn about Breville is their attention to detail. The Breville Sous Chef motor is more powerful and quieter than the Cuisinart motor. It also has the widest feed tube of any food processor we’ve tested. Its handling and ergonomics make it one of the most comfortable out of the box, and the overall design is intuitive. The work bowl snaps easily into place without latches or locks, and has a streamlined design with fewer nooks and crannies, making cleaning less of a pain. (This is important because no food processor is actually dishwasher safe, even if they claim to be.)
The Sous Chef comes with several food processor accessories, including a dough blade, reversible shredding disc and an adjustable slicing disc (with 24 settings ranging from 0.3mm to 8mm). This last accessory allows the Sous Chef to function similarly to an automatic (and arguably safer) mandolin slicer.
The main disadvantage of Sous Chef (and most Breville appliances) is that they can be expensive, and a 16-cup Sous Chef will cost significantly more than a 14-cup Cuisinart. However, the extra capacity means you can do almost anything without worrying about overflowing.
Food Processor Used by Professional Chefs at Home: Cuisinart 7-Cup Food Processor
One might expect professional chefs to choose the most durable equipment possible. But at least at home, chef Anita Lo prefers the convenience and simplicity of a small Cuisinart food processor. “If you’re only processing a small amount of food, a large processor isn’t going to cut it,” Rowe says. “Sometimes you just need a few tablespoons of something, or something, and that doesn’t work in a big bowl.”
Lo has used the same 10-cup Cuisinart food processor for 25 years and recently purchased a 7-cup model for her place in a city where storage space is limited and is pleased with its performance. Most days, Lo uses the food processor to puree fruit, mince pesto, chop bread crumbs, and prepare small batches of ingredients. In these cases, a larger, more full-sized model would be overkill.
