You can't beat a home-cooked meal — adjusting flavors to your liking and having delicious aromas fill your home. Yet, the necessary steps of chopping vegetables and prepping other ingredients are unappealing after an exhausting workday. Fortunately, a food processor minces your prep time, making cooking at home easier to swallow.
I shredded cheese, chopped vegetables, ground beef, kneaded pizza dough, and emulsified mayonnaise in 10 units to find the best food processors. Our top pick is the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor; it ran quietly, excelled in all our tests, and isn't too expensive. For a budget option, we recommend the Hamilton Beach Food Processor. It's under $100 and has a built-in side scraper, but it operates loudly and did poorly in two of our tests.
Learn more about how Insider Reviews tests and researches kitchen products.
Our top picks for the best food processors
Best overall: Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor - See at Amazon
Best budget: Hamilton Beach Food Processor - See at Amazon
Best large capacity: Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor - See at Amazon
Best attachment: Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment - See at Amazon
Best versatile: CookingPal Multo - See at Cooking Pal
Best overall
The Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor was the best at making pizza dough and pesto in our tests. The large working bowl, wide feed chute, powerful motor, and high-quality blades can handle everything from slicing and mincing to grating and even pureeing.
What we like
What we don't like
The Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (model DFP-14BCNY) best mixed smooth and uniform pizza dough in our tests. The processor doesn't come with a dough blade, but according to Nicki Sizemore, the author of "The Food Processor Family Cookbook," dough blades are pointless anyway. She used both the dough blade and the traditional S-blade to make pizza and pie dough with this processor, and there was no difference in performance.
The Cuisinart food processor is Sizemore's favorite and also won our top spot. It was the best at shredding mozzarella and making pesto, excelled at grinding beef, and did well at slicing potatoes and emulsifying mayo. The only food test it struggled with was chopping mirepoix. It diced up most of the ingredients, but left some larger chunks of carrots.
The Cuisinart 14-cup food processor operated the quietest in our tests at just 58.8 decibels, quieter than a normal conversation. It only has two buttons: on and off/pulse. The pulse function started and stopped faster than any other unit. We also liked that the S-blade gets close to the sides, making it hard for ingredients to avoid its reach.
It's worth noting that the Cuisinart isn't as easy to use as the Breville Sous Chef. The Cuisinart's lid has a counterintuitive fit with the feed tube at the back of the machine, the shredding discs trap debris, and the accessories don't store easily with the unit. If you want to splurge, the Breville is as near perfect as an appliance can get. Still, we chose the Cuisinart as the best food processor because it was neck-and-neck with Breville in our tests and is $200 cheaper.
Best budget
The Hamilton Beach 70730 Food Processor is a great pick for home cooks who want solid and simple functionality without investing a ton of money. It features a helpful tool for scraping the sides of the bowl without stopping.
What we like
What we don't like
The Hamilton Beach Food Processor (model 70730) was the cheapest model we tested, and while its performance was noticeably inferior to our other picks, it performed admirably for a sub-$60 processor. One unique feature was a scraper that sits in the bowl and operates using a lever on the lid. It lets you free ingredients stuck to the sides without stopping the unit.
Operating the Hamilton Beach processor is simple. It did a great job grinding beef, but it struggled shredding mozzarella, producing a mix of shreds and chunks. It also failed to emulsify the mayonnaise. The appliance did an OK job of processing pesto, potatoes, dough, and the carrot, onion, and celery mix.
This processor was the loudest we tested at 98.5 decibels, almost as loud as a chainsaw. On the plus side, the pulse starts at a high speed when you turn the knob. The chopping blade comes close to the sides of the bowl, though there's a wide gap between the blade and the bowl's bottom. All components are dishwasher-safe and can be stored in the bowl when not in use.
Best large capacity
In addition to coming with lots of useful extras, the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor has a powerful motor that makes quick work of most tasks and a large feed tube so you don’t have to precut ingredients.
What we like
What we don't like
The large-capacity Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro Food Processor (model BFP800XL) has a separate storage case to organize the many attachments. My favorite attachment is the variable slicing disc with 24-width settings. For smaller jobs, I also like the 2.5-cup mini bowl and blade.
The Breville Sous Chef is simple to use. The only food test it didn't excel in was mixing and kneading dough, though it was still usable. The processor's emulsifying attachment made the best mayonnaise. The Sous Chef was also one of the best at grinding beef, slicing potatoes, and making pesto. It did a good job of chopping mirepoix but left a few large chunks of carrot and celery. Uniformity was also an issue when shredding mozzarella.
The Breville was one of the quietest processors at about 67 decibels, quieter than a shower. Its S-blade came the closest to the sides and bottom of the bowl, allowing it to reach its contents easily. All of the Sous Chef elements aside from the base are top-rack dishwasher-safe.
After two years of regular use, the Sous Chef has become my sous chef. I've emulsified countless batches of mayo with great results each time, quickly julienned zucchini and cucumber for a cold Thai salad, pulverized nuts for sugar-free nut butter, and performed several other tasks efficiently. We recognize it has a lofty price tag, and while we think it's worth the splurge, the cost kept it out of our top spot.
Best attachment
If you own an Ascent or Venturist series Vitamix blender or are thinking of buying one, the Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment is your best bet with its exceptional performance and ease of use.
What we like
What we don't like
The Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment works with Ascent and Venturist motor bases (sold separately), so you can upgrade an already great Vitamix blender to one of the best food processors. The Vitamix attachment was the best at slicing potatoes, producing consistent slices in a split second. Thanks to its large feed tube, the potatoes required minimal pre-cutting.
The attachment's weakest performance was shredding cheese. The results were not uniform, and I had to stop and free up chunks that jammed the disc. Yet, with the pesto, ground beef, mirepoix, dough, and mayo, it produced consistent, quality results. One factor that likely helped with performance was the excellent placement of the S-blade, which comes within 1.5 millimeters of the sides and 3 millimeters of the bottom of the bowl.
The Vitamix 12-Cup Food Processor Attachment was loud at 86.9 decibels, similar to a noisy restaurant. Also, when pressing the pulse button, the processor took a beat to ramp up to high speed and slowly twirled to a stop when I released the button. Clean-up was a snap since all of the components are dishwasher-safe. Even when I washed them by hand, the debris came off easily.
Best versatile
The CookingPal Multo is the best smart cooking food processor we tested, allowing you to cook a main course and sides simultaneously.
What we like
What we don't like
All-in-one food processors do more than just slice and dice ingredients. They can also cook food so that you can make entire meals without needing other appliances or tools. For our guide to the best all-in-one kitchen appliances, I tested three smart food processors: the CookingPal Multo, Thermomix TM6, and the since-discontinued Cuisinart Complete Chef. While I recommend all three, the $800 Multo was the top performer, costing almost half as much as the TM6.
The Multo has a tablet that lets you remotely monitor and control the cooking process. You pick from dozens of recipes and follow the interactive directions. The built-in scale measures your ingredients at each step. Or, you can choose from the many manual operations: stir, boil, slow cook, grate, whisk, keep warm, emulsify, sous vide, mix/blend, grind, chop, knead, and saute.
I was impressed with the steamer set that steams or bakes sides while you cook. I tested this by making vegetarian chili and cornbread. In the bowl, I whipped up the cornbread batter, which I transferred to a loaf pan. Then, I prepped the chili ingredients in the bowl. As the chili simmered in the bowl, the rising heat baked the cornbread in the steamer basket above. The cornbread came out moist and fluffy, and my family couldn't get enough of the chili. I was similarly impressed with other recipes, including creamy chicken fricassee with rice and cauliflower pizza.
The Multo's cleaning mode wasn't enough to remove stuck-on debris, but the parts are dishwasher-safe, which gets the job done. The CookingPal Multo struggled to chop ingredients evenly. Typically, I had to stir the contents and rerun the chopping cycle to properly cut all the vegetable bits. Still, this is an impressive all-in-one unit that can do the work of several kitchen appliances.
What to look for in a food processor
Accessories: The best food processor doesn't need every blade attachment, but there are a few useful ones to look for. An extra-small blade and work bowl are great for fine textures or small batches, and an adjustable shredding disc gives you more control over your ingredients. Most processors will come with either separate slicing and shredding blades or a combination of the two.
Size: Since you don't want to be caught with a food processor that's too small for the task you're performing, it's better to go with a larger model. In our testing, a 10-cup capacity was large enough for most jobs. Of course, if you're cooking for one or two and don't have a ton of storage space, smaller capacity models will have the same functionality as larger ones.
Cleanup: Shredding, dicing, and emulsifying are messy tasks, and cleaning the nooks and crannies of a food processor bowl can be a nightmare. Dishwasher-safe bowls and blades make the best food processors much easier to clean. You'll be more likely to use the appliance knowing you can throw parts in the dishwasher at the end.
How we tested food processors
Ease of use: When testing the best food processors, I focused on what made setting up and using each unit complicated or straightforward. I looked for specific characteristics: a heavy base, whether the base stayed put or slid around, if it was easy to see the contents, and if the base, bowl, and attachments could be stored together effortlessly.
Food processing: I processed the following foods and noted how uniform the results were on a scale of 1 (virtually no uniformity) to 5 (perfectly uniform)
Here are our test results for the best food processors:
| Food Item | Breville Sous Chef | Hamilton Beach | Vitamix Attachment | Cuisinart 14-Cup |
| Pesto | 4 | 3.5 | 4 | 4.5 |
| Ground beef | 5 | 5 | 4.5 | 5 |
| Shredded cheese | 3.5 | 2.5 | 3.5 | 4 |
| Chopped vegetables | 4 | 3.5 | 4 | 3 |
| Sliced potatoes | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 4.5 |
| Pizza dough | 3.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5 |
| Mayonnaise | 5 | 1 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
Noise: I held a sound meter 2 feet from the food processor as it ran at high speed. All but two of the units registered over 85 decibels. The Cuisinart and Breville units were the only two that didn't drown out my speakers as I listened to an audiobook.
Pulse speed: Some tasks require a pulse function that starts and stops quickly to achieve uniform results. I pressed the pulse and observed whether the blade immediately hit top speeds or ramped up. I also looked at how quickly it slowed down. The Cuisinart was the best food processor at starting and stopping, while the Vitamix attachment was the worst.
Blade position: The blades need to reach as much of the bowl's interior as possible so you don't end up with big, unprocessed pieces. Using pennies, I measured how close the blades got to the sides and bottom of the bowl. A penny is approximately 1.5 millimeters thick. Armed with this information and five cents, I measured the positioning of the blades.
Cleaning: One of the main reasons people shy away from food processors is that they don't want to clean them afterward. I washed all of the food processors in the dishwasher (top rack only) and by hand and assessed how easy the process was.
Food processor FAQs
What's the difference between a food processor and a blender?
Nicki Sizemore, the author of "The Food Processor Family Cookbook," said the main difference is the food processor's wider bowl which allows ingredients to circulate easily without the use of liquid. It's also easier to scrape food out of the bowl.
How do I choose a food processor?
Sizemore recommends simpler food processors, and our testers agree. Look for a sturdy work bowl with a heavy base to keep the unit in place. Also, you want a sizeable, sharp S-blade. Don't be wooed by extra attachments since they don't add much to the unit's functioning.
How much should I spend on a food processor?
The food processors we recommend cost between $55 and $400. We noticed that the more expensive models tended to perform better and operate quieter in our testing. So, if you can afford it, we recommend budgeting at least $200.
Is it worth buying a food processor?
If you're tired of chopping, dicing, slicing, shredding, or mincing ingredients by hand, a food processor may be worth it. It can also grind meat, emulsify ingredients, and knead dough. A good processor can even replace your blender and mixer.
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Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at reviews@jkmperu.com.
