Chopping cooked chicken breast to make chicken salad would be easy in many choppers. A medium rare steak would be more of a challenge and might not be possible in some choppers. The Cuisinart® Stainless Steel Food Chopper is great for chopping vegetables, hard cheeses, nuts, herbs, garlic and more. It wasn’t able to chop as evenly as the KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food Chopper, and it moved across the counter as it struggled to chop a tough jumbo carrot. It also tore parsley, whereas the KitchenAid produced a clean, even cut. We read a few reviews by people who disliked how the Cuisinart Custom 14’s lid locks with the feed tube in the back rather than in the front .
However, at just under 2 pounds, it has a slightly heavier base than other mini models, which helps keep it stable. And we didn’t notice any straining or stuttering of this model’s 240-watt motor, even when it was chopping a fibrous jumbo carrot. As long as you don’t try to use the Food Chopper for heavy tasks, such as making nut butter, we don’t think there’s much risk of burning out the motor. The Cuisinart’s three-year warranty on parts and five-year warranty on the motor aren’t the best among the models we tested, but they’re still pretty good.
The way the machine is assembled and then taken apart is so easy even for arthritic hands. Cuisinart® bakeware, baking tools and equipment allows you to bring the bakery home. Try your hand at homemade cupcakes, bundt cakes, mini pies, or mini loafs.
The Breville Sous Chef 12 BFP660SIL food processor did well in our tests, but it didn’t outperform the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro or our top pick, the Cuisinart Custom 14. The Sous Chef 12 wasn’t able to chop tomatoes or almonds as evenly as the Sous Chef 16 Pro. Its smaller, 12-cup capacity was also more limiting than the Cuisinart’s 14-cup bowl. After testing models with storage boxes, we cuisinart air fryer oven found that such boxes are convenient for keeping attachments organized, and they’re worth investing in if your model doesn’t come with one. You can also organize blades and disks in a designated Tupperware-style container, basket, or other receptacle. We store the Cuisinart Custom 14’s extra blades and disks inside the processor’s work bowl, but be advised that this can scratch the bowl.
We tested each model’s range by first using the Chop feature to finely dice a small onion, timing how long it took and how even the finished pieces were in size. Then we made a one-can batch of hummus to see how quickly and smoothly each machine could purée chickpeas, whole garlic cloves, and thick tahini. Finally, we disassembled and washed every mini food processor by hand. I should start by saying that I do own a full-size 12-cup food processor.
This KitchenAid comes with relatively few parts and it disassembles easily for cleaning. We especially appreciate that the bowl has a handle, since we struggled to remove bowls that didn’t have one, especially when we were working with greasy hands. The Food Chopper is covered by a one-year warranty, which is standard for appliances in this price range, and you can get the base in a wide range of colors. With some careful layering, you can store all of the Cuisinart’s blades and disks in its work bowl, with the lid on, which saves a bit of storage space . By contrast, our upgrade pick, the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro, comes with a plethora of disks and accessories, requiring more storage space.
Michael Sullivan has been a staff writer on the kitchen team at Wirecutter since 2016. Previously, he was an editor at the International Culinary Center in New York. He has worked in various facets of the food and restaurant industry for over a decade.
Perry is a main producer of Outside the Labs content at CR, where she evaluates products in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The Mini Prep Pro gives you all the performance of a serious food processor, but in a compact and user friendly size – perfect if your kitchen is small or is bursting at the seams. Cuisinart has been creating inventive and accessible kitchen appliances, cookware and accessories for nearly 50 years. Since 1995, Epicurious has been the ultimate food resource for the home cook, with daily kitchen tips, fun cooking videos, and, oh yeah, over 33,000 recipes.
Discover all new revolutionary recipes and smart test kitchen techniques that guarantee you’ll cook faster, easier, and better. The Cuisinart FP-13DGM Elemental 13 Cup Food Processor and Dicing Kit didn’t chop as evenly as our picks. Our testers were impressed with cuisinart air fryer oven the dicing kit, which chopped firm vegetables like potatoes and carrots into even cubes. However, since this was the only task this model excelled at, we don’t think it’s best for most people. The motor on the Elemental was noisy, and the base is very lightweight.