Best Food Processors and Choppers of 2024
Models from Breville, Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Magimix, and Ninja all chop, slice, and shred their way to the top of our ratings
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Whether you’re dicing celery, carrots, and onions for a pot pie or cutting in butter for a crust for pecan or apple pie, a food processor can be a handy helper in the kitchen.
“Even experienced home cooks who prefer to slice and dice by hand find plenty of uses for their food processor,” says Tara Casaregola, the engineer who oversees CR’s kitchen appliance testing. The full-sized food processors we test come in a variety of sizes and capacities, ranging from 3 cups to an impressive 18 cups. They’re too big for processing small volumes of food, such as minced garlic or chopped herbs and nuts. Some food processors come with mini chopping bowl attachments to accommodate lighter loads, but if you’re only chopping small batches, all you need is a food chopper. They cost as little as $20, a fraction of the price of processors—which can cost as much as $500.
In the lab, we evaluate each model’s ability to chop almonds and onions uniformly, grate Parmesan cheese, and purée peas and carrots into a smooth mixture. We also measure noise, because while all models are noisy, some are much more grating than others. If the food processor comes with slicing attachments, we test the slicing blade using mushrooms and celery, and the shredding blade with cheddar.
Read on for reviews of the top food processors and food choppers from Consumer Reports’ tests, listed in alphabetical order. Check our complete food processor and food chopper ratings and buying guide for more details. We’ve also rounded up the best food processors and choppers for under $100 if you’re looking to spend less.
CR’s take: The 650-watt Cuisinart Pro Custom 11 DLC-8SY receives excellent ratings for slicing and shredding, but it’s only middling when it comes to puréeing. It has an 11-cup capacity and lever controls, and it’s more compact than many of its brandmates (weighing in at around 12 pounds and measuring 15 inches tall). There’s a three-year parts warranty, and the motor is covered for five years.
CR’s take: The 960-watt Breville Sous Chef BFP800XL/A, which aces CR’s chopping, slicing, shredding, and grating tests, is also one of the few models that earns a strong rating for puréeing. It’s loaded with accessories, including a dough blade, a whipping attachment, a french fry/julienne blade, and a mini bowl insert. The touch buttons are easy to wipe clean. This food processor is 18 inches high and weighs a hefty 19.3 pounds, factors to consider if you plan to lift it out of a cupboard or cabinet with each use. Add the accessory storage case (included), and you can see how this model will eat up storage space in addition to a chunk of money. The parts warranty is for a year, but the motor is covered for a generous 25 years. This food processor is available in brushed aluminum, red, and black.
CR’s take: Cuisinart introduced the food processor to Americans in the early 1970s, and it has been a recognized brand in the category ever since. The 720-watt Cuisinart Custom 14 DFP-14BCNY garners a top rating for chopping, meaning it consistently chopped onions and nuts into midsized pieces in our lab. It’s also a strong performer when it comes to shredding, slicing, and grating, and it’s one of the quietest models we’ve tested. It has a 14-cup capacity and stands almost 16 inches high. Many of the food processors we’ve evaluated operate with touch buttons, but this one has levers—one for on, the other for pulsing and off. The warranty covers three years for the parts and five years for the motor. This nearly 15-pound machine is available in brushed stainless, copper, and stainless mixed with black or white.
CR’s take: The 7-cup, 600-watt Cuisinart Pro Classic DLC-10SY is far from the best at grating, but it’s a champ at chopping and slicing, according to CR’s lab testing. It also nabs a strong rating for shredding, a passable rating for puréeing, and a stellar rating for noise. This 11-pound model comes with separate shredding and slicing blades, a three-year parts warranty, and a five-year motor warranty.
CR’s take: You’ll need some muscle to operate the Breville Sous Chef 16 BFP810, a nearly 21-pound food processor that packs a powerful 1,450-watt punch. That’s more than the similarly rated Vitamix processor, and it’s much quieter. The two-speed appliance aced our celery and mushroom slicing tests, and it’s also very good at chopping, shredding, and grating. It’s less proficient at pureéing peas and carrot ingredients for thick and creamy soups. With a 16-cup capacity, it comes with lots of extras, including a mini bowl, julienne fry disc, dough blade, mini bowl insert with chopping blade, disc organizer, and a spatula.
CR’s take: The 500-watt KitchenAid KFP1318BM food processor masters our tests for chopping and shredding, and it’s one of the lower-priced options to boast a fairly large capacity of 13 cups. Of the big guys, it’s the lightest, tipping the scales at just 8.3 pounds (less than half the weight of the Breville and Magimix listed here). That makes it a compelling choice if you plan to store it in a cabinet and lift it out for each use. One knock: The parts and motor are covered by just a one-year warranty.
CR’s take: Robot-Coupe, the French company that developed the first food processor, took the technology of its commercial models and applied it to the high-performing Magimix 4200 XL for home cooks. This 12-cup food processor garners respectable ratings in our chopping, slicing, shredding, and grating tests. The only test it doesn’t excel at is puréeing. (It wasn’t able to get peas perfectly smooth.) The heavy 950-watt machine weighs 17.5 pounds and comes with all the extras: mini chopping bowls, a dough blade, a shredding disc, a grating disc, a whipping attachment, and a case to keep them organized. The warranty lasts three years for parts and 30 years for the motor, the longest in our ratings. It’s available in chrome, black, white, cream, and red.
CR’s take: The Ninja Master Prep Professional QB1004 food chopper has a slightly smaller 2-cup capacity but is far more versatile. Included in this set are a larger 5-cup processing bowl and a 6-cup blender jar. The chopper features a top-mounted motor that you push down to operate. It earns an impressive rating for chopping, turning out nicely chopped veggies and nuts in our tests. It also aces our grating test and delivers solid puréeing performance.
CR’s take: The second-best chopper in our ratings, the KitchenAid KFC0516BM is a solid choice if you’re grating cheese to top off a pasta dish. It’ll do a decent job of chopping up to 5 cups of onions for salsa, pureéing peas, and blending salad dressing, too (the two-speed appliance comes with a whisk accessory). But if you’re into pureéing hearty soups, the Pioneer Woman Fiona Floral Stack & Press Glass Bowl by Hamilton Beach performs this task better from its glass bowl.
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