The Best Food Processors

Our previous favorite still excelled with power; precision; and a compact, streamlined design that takes up less space than most food processors, despite having one of the largest capacities, all at a moderate price. Its smooth, simple bowl and blade design are easy to handle, monitor during use, and clean. Its unusual feed tube placement allows for increased bowl visibility. It comes with just three blades for chopping, shredding, and slicing that can all be stored inside the bowl, with no accessories box to deal with. However, since we last tested it, the chopping blade was redesigned and leaves slightly bigger gaps between it and the bottom and side of the bowl, so it couldn’t effectively incorporate egg yolks into single-batch mayonnaise. We didn’t discover any other adverse effects from these slightly bigger gaps, which were still narrower than those of lower-ranked models. It did chop mirepoix uniformly and was one of only two models to give us perfectly green-colored yogurt in our dye test. Although it lacks a mini bowl for very small jobs, a double batch of mayonnaise worked well.

This powerful food processor handled nearly every challenge we threw at it, doing an especially fine job of mincing parsley and grinding beef. Its pulse function is strong, responsive, and short. We loved the ability to set precise thicknesses from 0.3 to 8 millimeters when slicing, the reversible shredding disk that offers two sizes, and the helpful indicators on the bowl for aligning the lid. It also comes with a 2.5-cup mini bowl for small jobs. While the main bowl has a leakproof gasket, the lid still slides on and off fairly easily, unlike other models with this feature. However, its mixing and chopping fell a bit short of ideal; with slightly too-big gaps between the blade tips and bowl walls, it left small streaks in our yogurt dye test, a bit of yolk in the mayo, and a few big chunks of carrot in mirepoix. Its tall profile and its accessories box took up storage space, and the gray tint of its bowl made it a bit harder to monitor progress. We found its two-part S-blades trickier to handle and clean than other models’ single-piece S-blades, and its bowl and parts are hand-wash only.

We loved the simple lines of this powerful machine by Magimix, whose parent company, Robot-Coupe, is known for its commercial food processors. Its pulse duration is short, though slightly longer than that of the two highest-ranking models. (Its control buttons feel surprisingly flimsy, however.) It came with tons of accessories, including three sizes of bowls, a ringlike Blendermix tool to help puree without leaks, and a whisk to whip egg whites or cream, with options to buy many more, including dicing, juicing, and spiralizing kits. While it sliced, kneaded dough, and processed pie dough perfectly, it surprisingly did not perform other tasks quite as well—something we’d expect at this price. It left big streaks of color in the yogurt, several irregular pieces of ground meat in the hamburger, a handful of oversize carrot chunks in the mirepoix, and several larger pieces of cheese and carrots after shredding that we discovered in the bowl. We found it frustrating that the lid twists off in the same direction as the bowl so that they both swing loose with the lid still attached.

This compact model had a bowl and lid that were simple to snap together without twisting, and it did a terrific job on most tasks, engaging quickly with food and chopping, shredding, and blending well (though a bit loudly). We liked that it was fairly easy to clean, didn’t trap food, and offered good visibility. All parts are easily stored in the bowl, a space-saving boon, and it’s light and portable. However, its extra-narrow feed tube forced us to trim food extensively to fit, slicing was a bit messy, and we wish the whole thing was larger: maxing out at 3 cups of flour, it couldn’t accommodate double batches of dough; we had to clean it between single batches, so it took more than twice as long as bigger models. The motor also stalled, shutting down temporarily just as each batch of dough was done, which gave us concerns for its power and durability. We figured out that the bowl can hold about 5 cups of liquid, but the manual frustrated us with its lack of specifics. Finally, until we learned to remove it first, the feed tube insert fell out every time we opened the lid and popped up as we pressed down on food; there’s no way to lock it in place.