The Best Food Processors, Reviewed by Our Experts

The best food processors can blitz, chop, and puree all sorts of ingredients with speed and precision. Like a proper stand mixer, these appliances are a bit of a space commitment in the kitchen. However, a food processor is a truly versatile kitchen appliance that can save you precious time—in more ways than you’d think.

• Best food processor according the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen: Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor, $250 on Amazon
• Best food processor according to expert home cooks: Breville Sous Chef 16-Cup Food Processor, $375 on Amazon
• Best food processor according to restaurant pros: Cuisinart 7-Cup Food Processor, $100 $130 on Amazon
• A great budget option: Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Duo Plus 12-Cup Food Processor, $65 on Amazon

Food processors are probably best known for their veggie chopping capabilities, but a good food processor is a whole lot more than just a food chopper. Bust out some creamy hummus and nut butters, grate a large hunks of parmesan, make pie crust, zoodle a zucchini, puree soup, julienne potatoes for homemade shoestring french fries. You could even make a smoothie in a food processor, if you really wanted to, we won’t judge!

The food processors in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen have quite a bit of milage on them, so trust that we know a thing or two about which models are the best of the best. Each of the three top picks below are excellent gadgets, so read on to find out what sets them apart from one another.

No editor in the Test Kitchen feels quite as strongly about food processors as Shilpa Uskokovic, whose machine of choice is the original Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor. “I got it 10 years ago, and I use it at least once a week,” she says, and it still performs as well as it did the day she first used it.

The Cuisinart food processor was the first food processor introduced to the American market in 1973 and in many ways occupies the same space Kitchenaid does in the stand mixer world. While Cuisinart has broadened their line with more complex models and attachments, the original no-frills design has remained largely unchanged over five decades. It has a powerful 720 watt motor, a wide feed chute for larger ingredients, and comes with a slicing disc, shredding disc and a dough blade. As far as functional controls are concerned, though some newer Cuisinarts have settings like high and low speeds, this one just features a simple on/off switch and a pulse button.

“It’s great for chopping vegetables in bulk.” Says Shilpa, “You can shred cheese. You can make dough in there, you can make batters in there. You can make soft serve in there. I think it's much more functional than a blender.” Fighting words these may be for a Vitamix fan, but food processors can handle a lot of jobs that even the best blenders simply can’t. The reasons being that A) food processors don’t need a certain level of liquid to function properly like blenders do, and B) Food processors rely on a central chopping blade that processes everything in the work bowl simultaneously. Blenders have a fixed slicing blade that works from the bottom up, gradually pureeing ingredients as they sink down. Food processors can execute everything between a rough chop and a puree with consistency and speed.

To Uskokovic, this is best exemplified by making falafel: “When I make falafel at home I only use my food processor. You can’t get that same finely chopped but still bitsy texture from anything other appliance. You would have to chop it all by hand—which is a bitch to do.”

Cuisinart sells multiple food processors with different bowl capacities, but Uskokovic strongly endorses the 14-cup capacity if you want to get the most out of your machine, especially if you are interested in using it for kneading doughs, as anything smaller really cannot handle the volume of ingredients that typical bread recipes require.

Dimensions: 9.38"(L) x 12.5"(W) x 15.0"(H)
Weight: 17 lbs
Capacity: 14-Cups
Accessories: Shredding or grating disc, 4mm slicing disc, spatula
Warranty: Full 5-year for the motor, limited 3-year for the entire unit

One thing we product testers have come to understand about Breville is that they really pay attention to the details. The 12-cup Breville Sous Chef is the best food processor according to our product test, because it managed to edge out the Cuisinart in a couple of ways.

The Breville Sous Chef motor is both more powerful and quieter than the Cuisinart’s. It also has the widest feed tube of any food processor we’ve tested. It’s handling and ergonomics make it one of the most comfortable to use right out of the box, and the general design is intuitive. The work bowl clicks into places easily without latches or locks, and it has a streamlined design with fewer nooks and crannies that makes clean up less of a pain. (This matters, because really no food processor is dishwasher safe, even if they claim to sort of be.)

The Sous Chef comes with several food processor attachments, including a dough blade, a reversible shredding disc, and an adjustable slicing disc with 24 settings that range from 0.3 mm to 8 mm. That last attachments allows the Sous Chef to function like an automatic (and arguably safer) mandoline slicer.

The primary drawback to the Sous Chef (and most Breville appliances) is that they can be expensive, and the 12-Cup Sous Chef will cost you $50 more than the 14-Cup Cuisinart would. Whether or not those refined touches are worth the price tag is up to you. Breville also makes a Sous Chef 16, with a very generous 16-cup capacity as well, if you think bigger is better.

Dimensions: 8.5"(L)x 7.5"(W) x 17"(H)
Weight: 16 lbs
Capacity: 12-Cups
Accessories: Shredding or grating disc, adjustable slicing disc, dough blade,
Warranty: 10-year motor warranty and 1-year limited product warranty

One might expect a professional chef to opt for the most heavy-duty appliances out there. At least at home though, chef Anita Lo prefers the convenience and simplicity of the smaller Cuisinart food processor. “If you’re just processing a small amount of food it just doesn’t work in a big processor.” Lo says, “sometimes you just need a few tablespoons of something pureed or whatever and that doesn’t work with a big bowl.”

Lo has had the same 10-cup Cuisinart food processor for 25 years, and recently purchased a 7-cup model for her place in the city where storage space is limited, and has been pleased with its performance. Most of the time, Lo reaches for her food processor for making purees, mincing pestos, dicing bread crumbs, and prepping small batches of ingredients. In these instances a larger model would be overkill.

Lo recommends a smaller size food processor for people who predominantly cook for themselves, or who have limited countertop or storage space. The smaller capacity might limit the capabilities of the type of food processing you can pull off, especially for bulky projects like bread or pizza dough, otherwise it will serve you well.

Do note that there are also mini food processors out there, but those are even smaller than what Lo is talking about and typically come with a three- or four-cup capacity and are best used for potentially tedious tasks like mincing a lot of garlic or an onion.

Dimensions: 7.5"(L) x 9.0"(W) x 14.0"(H)
Weight: 10 lbs
Capacity: 7-Cups
Accessories: Reversible shredding/slicing disc
Warranty: Limited 3-year for the entire unit