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See why.Manual Nut Choppers
Could a simple manual nut chopper work faster and better than a chef's knife or food processor?
Published Aug. 1, 2011. Appears in Cook's Country August/September 2011, America's Test Kitchen TV Season 12: Chocolate Torte
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Could a simple manual nut chopper work faster and better than a chef's knife or food processor? We pitted five chopper, from $7 crank-style jars to almost $30 mills, against our favorite food processor (the KitchenAid 750) and timed ourselves chopping pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, and walnuts. The highest-priced-chopper fared the worst, procesing nuts into gritty, mushy bits, but only one did much better. Its sharp stainless-steel tines pushed the nuts through slats that gave us a coarse texture as we turned the handle in one direction, a slightly finer texture in the other. It is the only manual nut chopper worth buying. Not only that, but chopping with our chef's knife actually took twice as long for worse results, plus we had to corral scooting nuts. Nor did we love the food processor. In thirty 1-second pulses, it pulverized some nuts, left others whole, and coated all in a fine, sticky nut dust.
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Design: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Chop quality: 3 stars out of 3.
In 90 seconds, we chopped a cup of pecans into mostly even-size pieces—with minimal dust. The chopper can handle harder, fatter nuts but will crank more slowly. It disassembles easily to clean by hand or dishwasher.
Not Recommended
- Design: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Chop quality: 1 stars out of 3.
This slap-chop model chops nuts and other foods. It’s easy to use and neatly catches the nuts. But the pieces were too variable, and it produced too much dust. Dishwasher-safe.
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Chop quality: 1 stars out of 3.
This mini food processor claims to chop nuts. It easily accommodated a large load but gave us dust interspersed with whole nuts and every size in between. It was easy to operate and clean, though.
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Chop quality: 3 stars out of 3.
All went well with this chopper until it jammed on raw almonds and its tines twisted out of alignment. It balked at chopping hazelnuts, plus its glass base felt fragile. Dishwasher-safe.
- Design: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Chop quality: 1 stars out of 3.
Nuts bounced around the hopper and didn’t get chopped. Despite repeated cleaning, the grinder left machine grease on the nuts.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
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