The Best Food Processors

Thirteen cups is the size most kitchens actually need. Good Housekeeping Institute testing found that processors under 8 cups turned out uneven hummus once a batch got past a cup of dried chickpeas, forcing you to run it again in halves. Thirteen cups clears that bar with room left over. You can shred a whole block of cheese, build a double batch of salsa, or prep vegetables for the week without stopping to empty the bowl.

The 3-in-1 feed tube cuts out most of the pre-cutting. KitchenAid sizes it for tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and the other awkward round things that usually need a knife first. That matters more than it sounds. Pre-cutting is the part of processor prep that eats your time and dirties a cutting board, and skipping it is the difference between grabbing the machine and deciding it isn't worth the trouble.

You can change slice thickness without shutting it down. The ExactSlice lever sits on the outside of the housing and adjusts from thick to thin while the machine runs. So you can start with thick potato rounds for a gratin and dial down to shaved fennel without pulling the lid, swapping a disc and washing anything in between. It's a small convenience you'll use constantly.

Setup and cleanup don't fight you. The bowl goes on with one click, no twisting, and the lid latches. All the blades and discs live in an in-bowl storage caddy, so you're not hunting through a drawer for the shredding disc. For a quick clean, KitchenAid says to add warm water and a drop or two of dish soap to the leak-resistant bowl and run it, which knocks the worst of the mess off the blade.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's too tall to hide. At more than 17 inches assembled, it won't slide under standard upper cabinets, so it either lives out on the counter or you break it down every time. That's true of nearly every full-size processor here, but it's worth knowing before you clear a spot.

KitchenAid doesn't publish a wattage for it. For chopping, shredding, slicing and soft doughs, published reviews and owner feedback don't flag it as underpowered. But if you plan to knead stiff dough or grind hard nuts week after week, a bigger, spec'd motor like the Breville's is the safer bet.

It comes with more cutting options than anything near it. Along with the usual chopping and mixing blade, you get a dough blade, small and large S blades, a spiralizer and a dicer. Spiralized squash and neatly diced onion are jobs most processors simply can't do. If you've been eyeing a separate spiralizer, this covers it and takes up no extra cabinet space.

It handles dips and spreads cleanly. Tom's Guide clocked the Elemental finishing a four-cup batch of hummus in under 90 seconds with no whole chickpeas left sitting at the base of the bowl. That's the failure mode that ruins homemade hummus — a smooth top layer hiding grit underneath. If dips and nut-based spreads are why you want a processor, this one earns its spot.

The wide-mouth feed tube comes with three pushers. Small, medium and large pushers let you match the opening to what you're feeding it, so a single carrot doesn't rattle sideways and a whole potato still fits. You get straighter slices and less waste at the end of each piece, and you skip most of the knife work before you start.

The controls are simple and the machine is quiet. It's a touch panel — high, low, off and pulse, lit in blue — instead of a row of stiff mechanical buttons. Owners consistently describe it as one of the calmer full-size processors to run, which matters if you're prepping early while someone's still asleep down the hall.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The motor is rated at 550 peak watts, and peak isn't continuous. That's fine for vegetables, cheese, dips and soft dough. It's less reassuring for stiff bread dough or a long run through dense root vegetables, where a stronger motor holds its speed better. Keep batches moderate and it'll hold up.

More attachments mean more to wash and store. The spiralizer and dicer are the reason to buy this one, but they're also two more sharp assemblies to clean and find a home for. If you know you'd never use them, our top pick gives you the same bowl size with less clutter.

It's fast at the everyday jobs. The Spruce Eats named it their top budget pick after it shredded 8 ounces of cheddar and finely chopped a whole onion in under 30 seconds each. That's the bulk of home processor work right there. If you bought a processor mainly to stop grating cheese by hand, the 450-watt motor is enough.

The built-in bowl scraper saves you the lid-off shuffle. Slide the lever side to side and it pushes food off the bowl wall, running or not. Anyone who's made pesto knows the routine: stop, unlock, scrape with a spatula, reassemble, repeat. This skips all of it, and it's the feature owners bring up most often.

It's small and light enough to put away. At about 6 pounds and 16 inches tall, you can lift it out of a lower cabinet one-handed and put it back after. That's a real advantage over the 20- and 30-pound machines here, which effectively become permanent counter residents.

Two speeds plus pulse give you enough control. Use high for hard vegetables and cheese, low for softer mixing, and pulse when you want a coarse chop instead of mush. The 10-cup bowl and wide feed chute mean you're still skipping most of the pre-cutting on a weeknight.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

You only get two attachments. There's a reversible slicing and shredding disc and a chopping and pureeing blade — no dough blade, no French fry disc, no mini bowl. For most people that covers it, but bakers who want to pulse pastry dough or knead in the bowl should look at the picks above.

The motor is the weakest here. Consumer Reports has found that motors bog down in dense mixtures like thick dips and raw root vegetables, and a 450-watt machine has the least headroom of anything on this list. Work in smaller batches and it's fine. Load it to the brim with raw beets and you'll hear it complain.

The 5.5-inch feed chute changes how you prep. Serious Eats found it wide enough to take whole tomatoes, onions and most hard vegetables with no knife work first. The 3-in-1 chute narrows to 1.7 inches when you want a single carrot held straight. Over a big prep session, skipping the cutting board is the difference between twenty minutes and forty.

A 1450-watt direct-drive induction motor holds its speed under load. Consumer Reports has found that direct-drive machines keep blade speed steadier in heavy mixtures than belt-driven ones, which visibly drop RPM in thick dips and raw root vegetables. This is the pick if you shred pounds of cheese at a time, grind nuts into butter, or knead dough more than once in a while.

The attachment set is the deepest here. You get a 24-position adjustable slicer, a reversible shredding disc, a French fry disc, a micro-serrated S-blade, a dough blade, and a nested mini bowl and blade. The mini bowl matters more than it sounds — small jobs like a garlic-and-herb paste get lost in a 16-cup bowl and come out fine in the little one.

Breville backs the induction motor for 30 years. That's as long as any term in this category. Induction motors run cooler than the brush motors most processors use, which is why the brands that build them are comfortable warranting them for decades. If you want to buy one processor and stop thinking about it, that's the argument.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's the biggest and heaviest thing here. At over 30 pounds and nearly 18 inches tall, this isn't a machine you lift into a cabinet after brunch. Plan on giving it permanent counter space, and check that it clears your upper cabinets before you commit.

It's the most expensive unit in this guide. You're paying for power, the chute and the disc set. If you mostly chop vegetables and shred cheese in normal home quantities, our top pick does that job well and costs a fraction as much.

All those attachments need somewhere to live. Six discs and blades plus a mini bowl is a lot of sharp hardware. Breville includes storage, but it's another box on your counter or another shelf given up.

The Sous Chef 16 carries a 30-year warranty on its induction motor.