As the weather warms fresh ingredients are back on store shelves and food processors and choppers are ready for the summer entertaining season. Food processors can shred fresh veggies, whip up savory sauces, and grind ground beef for burgers without the mystery meat. Consumer reports found 12 strong performers in its tests of food processors and choppers, starting at just $40. Consumer reports testers chopped, sliced, shredded, puréed and grated nuts, herbs, vegetables, meats and more with 45 food processors and choppers and found that a high price tag doesn’t guarantee a spot on slice. The full report is available in the may issue of consumer reports available on newsstands april 5 and online at w.consumerreports.org. Food processors are a summer staple for any kitchen, especially if you want to get more fresh food in your diet, said home amp yard editor bob markovich.

And mini choppers are good for small jobs such as mincing garlic and chopping nuts. Testers found that the cuisinart dlc 2011chb $200 one of two top scoring models from that brand has a large bowl and scored impressively across the board with a wide feed tube plus a hole in the pusher for, say, drizzling oil into homemade hummus or mayonnaise. For less money and very good chopping, shredding and pureeing, try the cr best buy kitchenaid kfp715 wh $100 , the only food processor or chopper that scored excellent for noise. The waring fpc14 $450 adds commercial features for a bit more cash, including heavier stainless steel processing disks with metal hubs instead of the usual plastic hubs. Consumer reports also tested some food processors that work double duty: converting to blenders, but none were top performers. Subpar chopping and grating kept one delonghi model off the list, and although a wolfgang puck model has a reamer for juice, it scored only fair for grating. Ads for the ninja qb1004 $60 say it incorporates ancient asian metal working secrets.

But consumer reports best buy, the cuisinart mini prep plus dlc 2a $40 , is nearly as good for $20 less. The magic bullet express $50 is another infomercial standby but didn’t perform quite as well. It struggled with basic tasks, despite promises that it zips through any job in 10 seconds or less. Incorporating a food processor or chopper into meal preparation could be a step towards more healthful eating.

Some models come with additional features, like a mini bowl, juicer attachment or interchangeable blades. For best results and easier cleanup, keep these tips in mind: to prevent spillage pour in less and make soups and sauces in smaller batches. A wide feed tube saves you the trouble of cutting up potatoes, cucumbers, and other large items. We will match the price, at the time of purchase, on a price match guarantee product if you find the same item at a lower price at a designated major online retailer or at a local retail competitor's store.

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Exclusions apply including, but not limited to, items sold by marketplace vendors, competitors' service prices, special daily or hourly sales, and items for sale thanksgiving day through the monday after thanksgiving. The cuisinart custom is a great value for the amount of performance it offers, but if you plan to use your food processor several times a week, need a more powerful machine to cook for large groups, or use a scale for most recipes, consider investing in the $400 16 cup breville sous chef. Its 1,200 watt motor and its smart design save you time in use and cleaning in fact, despite its many accessories, it was the easiest to clean of all the models we tested. That said, if you use a food processor only occasionally, the breville’s high cost probably outweighs its benefits.

And given that it’s huge over 18 inches tall and nearly 20 pounds you’d need a big kitchen if you want to keep it on the counter. Over the past two years, i’ve written the sweethome’s guides to blenders and immersion blenders. I’ve spent many hours using our top food processor pick in my own kitchen, shredding pounds of cheese, making slaws, slicing veggie chips, and whipping up dips.

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To suss out the features to look for in a great food processor, we turned to two best selling authors of food processing cookbooks: jean anderson, the james beard–award winning author of process this. Both women were early adopters, purchasing their first cuisinarts shortly after the company introduced the appliances in the 1970s. And we examined user reviews on amazon, macy’s, and other sites in our efforts to figure out which models to test. An mit trained engineer, introduced the first cuisinart model to american cooks in 1973 poaching the idea from the original french magimix processor. So if you have an older but quality machine that still works well, stick with it. If your current machine’s motor base is so lightweight that the appliance stutters across the counter when in use, you’ll appreciate a model with a heavier build. And if your processor is on the smaller side 11 cups or smaller but you cook for more than two, you might prefer a model with a larger bowl for blending wet ingredients or making bigger batches of shredded veggies or grated cheese.

Some newer machines also offer specific dough speeds, which can come in handy if you often make bread and pizza doughs and pie crust our favorite processor, however, doesn’t have this speed yet aces such recipes. Food processors will blend wet ingredients tomatoes for pasta sauce, for instance , but if you’re looking to purée velvety soups or to crush ice for smoothies, you’ll need a blender. A blender acts like a centrifuge everything gets sucked into the center and makes a purée more silky, norene gilletz told us. If you often make things like homemade mayonnaise, vinaigrette, or small batches of bread crumbs, you might want to pick up a mini food processor even if you have a full size version.

A mini model will process smaller quantities more efficiently, and its diminutive size means it’s easier to move around a counter, to store, and to clean. At its most basic, a food processor consists of a work bowl that sits on a motorized drive shaft. The bowl’s lid has a feed tube for inserting food to be chopped, diced, sliced, ground, or even kneaded in the case of dough. Most food processors come with s shaped blades and various disks for grating and slicing, but a host of other attachments such as julienne disks and citrus juicers are also available. It has a heavy base, a solid 14 cup work bowl, just a few attachments, and simple controls.

marshall troy anderson and gilletz agreed that an 11 to 14 cup processor is most useful for most cooks. I informally polled friends who cook, and a lot of them seemed happy with their 7 or 9 cup machines, but most of them cook for only one or two people. If you cook for a family, or if you simply cook a lot, a bigger machine makes more sense. Mini food processors also called mini choppers have bowls ranging in size from around 1½ cups to 6 cups, but the highest rated ones hover around 3 cups. These machines are most useful for small jobs, such as chopping up one onion, making a curry paste, preparing salad dressing, or a doing small batch of pesto.

They are much smaller and lighter than a full size food processor, so theyre easier to tuck into a cupboard and bring out when needed. Both anderson and gilletz keep mini processors, and gilletz swears by her cuisinart mini prep not to be confused with our mini processor pick, the cuisinart mini prep plus. The best models should chop vegetables and herbs evenly without pulverizing them , grate veggies and cheese uniformly, slice cleanly, and finely grind bread crumbs, nuts, and other dry ingredients. That means the blades and grating disks need to be sharp out of the box, and must remain sharp over years of use.

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The better quality machines with heavier bases will also grind meat such as for these mouthwatering ground sirloin and butter burgers from america’s test kitchen subscription required. High quality food processors have strong motors and heavy bases that anchor them to the counter so that they can mix sturdy yeast doughs. Low quality machines, which also happen to be lighter, will often skid across the counter when processing dough, or the motor might even seize up.

But if you don’t have that speed, just do a little dough and pulse, and you won’t need the dough speed, she said. Gilletz said it’s more important that the machine have a pulse speed, which gives more control than just on and off buttons. Most companies have redesigned feed tubes, widening them to accommodate blocks of cheese, potatoes, and other hunks of food. Models usually come with two food pressers: a larger one that fits in the wide feed tube, and a smaller one nested inside that will keep carrots and other thin objects upright during slicing. Various models come with nesting bowls, so you can attach a smaller bowl that essentially acts as a mini chopper.