The Best Food Processor Reviews in 2018 – Make the Cooking Process Far Easier
Food processors are incredibly useful kitchen appliances that can save you plenty of time, whether you’re a seasoned veteran chef or someone who’s just learning how to cook. They allow you to chop up food, slice it, or make it into paste without any need to put in extra effort or risk your fingers by using a knife. The best food processors can do almost anything you can ask of them and more, and can replace multiple other appliances with ease.
If you don’t already have one, here’s why you should buy one as well as what to look for when purchasing an appliance like this.
Why Buying a Food Processor?
Food processors are just immensely useful machines that can easily replace a lot of other appliances you use in the kitchen. They can also save you a lot of time and effort when preparing food, allowing you to relax a bit and make the cooking process far easier.
One of the main selling points of a food processor is the fact that they’re so versatile and can perform a variety of different functions. They can shred, grind, chop, slice, mix, and much more. They also usually have plenty of various attachments that can make them even more versatile. They can easily replace things like blenders, choppers, mixers, smoothie makers and so on. Some of them can even knead dough for you!
They’re also easy to use and take all the effort out of chopping up large pieces of food. With a food processor you can just put in large blocks of cheese, pieces of zucchini or entire carrots in and get nice, small pieces in a matter of seconds. If you think you spend too much time in the kitchen, or you’re just past the age where you can put in a lot of effort while cooking, these machines will spare you from the hard work and save you time.
It’s also safer to use a food processor than cutting food with a knife. Most food processors have sharp spinning blades, but they can’t turn on until the lid is closed and after that, you can easily put more foodstuffs in through a chute at the top.
In short, they are great to have and are useful in a wide variety of situations. Possibly one of the best kitchen appliances you can get.
Young Woman Using a Food Processor to Make a Dough
There are plenty of different food processors out there, though, and most of them are not good at all. With so many moving parts various things might be wrong with a food processor, and you might not be able to tell right away. Choosing one might be difficult, so we decided to help by testing an incredible amount of products and making this article. Here, we will review the top three products we chose as well as talk about what you should look for in a good food processor. So, let’s get it all started with the best three food processors.
Meet the Best Food Processors
The Good: Large capacity, ample power, and loads of good attachments.
The Bad: Flimsy parts, the scraper add-on is almost useless, and the chute is a bit small.
The Bottom Line: Overall, this is probably the best food processor you’ll find for a price this low and its flaws can easily be ignored in favor of its great performance.
The Good: Incredibly powerful and comes with a few decent add-ons.
The Bad: Flimsy and expensive, making it potentially unsafe. It’s also noisy.
The Bottom Line: When it comes down to it, this processor does excel in power, and it might be worth buying just for that. It has significant flaws though, so it’s difficult to recommend.
The Good: The cheapest product out there with decent capacity and a few good accessories.
The Bad: It’s shoddily made and underpowered while being a possible safety hazard.
The Bottom Line: This is not a food processor that excels in any area, but it is the best you can get for a price this low. If you don’t have a lot of money, it is worth a look.
All of the Factors Considered
Deciding which food processor to buy can be difficult, even for experienced people. These are quite complex appliances, and there are plenty of things to consider when buying them, but it is difficult to find a machine that excels in all possible areas. So, you should focus on a few core things – but which ones? Well, after plenty of testing here’s what we came up with.
Power
The power of a food processor is difficult to determine without using it, but you can look at some aspects of it to get a good idea. Larger units will be more powerful, usually, but you should also look at the wattage of the motor. The speed of the blades is also a good judge of overall power, and that is expressed in RPM – rotations per minute.
Getting a food processor that’s not strong enough to handle what you put in is a great problem, and it can make the machine almost useless, or require you to already chop the food into small pieces before putting it in. If you can, test the machine on the spot before buying it, preferably with something like a block of hard cheese. If it goes through that, it is usually good enough for most things.
Size
Here we have to separate two different things – the size the food processor takes up on the kitchen counter and the capacity it has.
The size of the entire appliance is important because, if it’s too bulky, you will have trouble using it on a regular basis. If you have a small kitchen, or you want it to be portable so you can use it elsewhere, you should carefully consider the size and weight.
Then there’s the capacity of the bowl itself, signifying how much food can fit in the processor. You might think you always want a larger capacity, but that is not necessarily true since large processors might have trouble cutting up small amounts of food. So, if you don’t need a larger processor, you shouldn’t buy one, but if you think you will slice and chop lots of food on a regular basis, go for it.
Durability
Since food processors are machines that will go through a lot, you need them to be sufficiently durable, especially if you want to use them on some harder foodstuffs. The blades should be made of durable and rust-resistant metals, thick enough to withstand constant use and sturdy enough to retain their sharpness over a long period.
However, it’s also important for the other parts, like the lid, the bowl and the base of the appliance to be durable and preferably made of metal. If any of those parts breaks, the machine becomes quite useless. Moreover, it becomes a potential safety hazard. By getting a cheap food processor, you might be risking more than the food you put in it.
Accessories and Attachments
There are various add-ons that a food processor can come with and they are usually quite useful – but that depends on what you want as well. Most of them come with different bowls, smoothie cups or other containers. Some of them also come with a few different types of blades that can be exchanged and used for chopping, slicing or mixing and so on – whatever you may need.
Having a wide range of options when it comes to your food processor is almost never a bad thing.
Safety
With appliances like this, there are always some safety concerns to be had because they use a set of sharp, metal blades that spin at high speeds. Getting any part of your body even near them is something you never want to happen. To that end, most food processors have a safety feature that prevents them from spinning the blades if the lid isn’t on. They can have other safety features as well.
Another thing important for safety is not just how well those systems function, but also how well-made the entire thing is since the lid or the bowl breaking can be a large safety hazard as well. You should be careful when buying cheaper food processors because of this.
Now that you’re aware of all this let’s see how our top three products ranked in all these aspects.
In-Depth Reviews of 3 Food Processors
Key Features
Packs Quite a Punch
It has a 400-watt motor that has two different consistent speeds, plus a pulse feature allowing for short bursts of strong chopping power. It can go through almost anything with ease.
Large Capacity
This unit features a 10-cup capacity while not being much larger than similar products with a smaller capacity. It can prepare quite a lot of food on one go. However, the chute is smaller than you would expect.
Decently Durable Construction
Most parts of this machine are sturdy enough, and the blades are made of high-quality stainless steel. However, some parts, like the handle of the bowl, are not so well-made and tend to break easily.
Plenty of Good Add-ons
This food processor comes with a variety of attachments – chopping blade, slicing disc, shredding disc, and so on. It lacks a different bowl though. The scraper add-on also doesn’t work that well.
Safe and Sound
This is quite a safe machine, the bowl is made out of rather durable parts, and there’s not much risk involved. The safety trigger works well, and the blade won’t turn on until the lid is closed.
Customer Reviews
Who Should Buy This Product
Are you looking for a spacious food processor at a decent price? Well, look no further, this is the product you should get. It’s quite a large one with a 10-cup capacity, but it doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s also fairly powerful and can handle large and hard pieces of food without a hitch.
What to Watch Out For
The main problem with this unit is the fact that it has some parts which are suspiciously flimsy, probably owing to its low price. The handle of the bowl is especially prone to breaking because it is mostly made of thin plastic. There are other issues, like the scraper attachment being bad, but none that significant.
The Conclusion
All in all, this is a more than decent product for the price, offering a large capacity and plenty of power to handle even the toughest of kitchen tasks. However, it does have issues with shoddy parts, which is probably why it’s so inexpensive. Still, it offers more than good bang for your buck and is worth buying and recommending.
Key Features
Amazingly Powerful
The power of this unit is undeniable, and it can work through just about anything incredibly quickly. It boasts 1200 power watts, and in practice, it lives up to that. It’s highly adjustable as well, so it can deliver a soft touch as well.
Sub-standard Capacity
The capacity of this food processors is only 5 cups, meaning that it falls short compared to most other models of similar price. It might still be fine for you, considering the various bowls it has, but it is not that great. It’s also quite large when you consider the low
Durable in Some Places, not in Others
It does have a completely metal drive and good, quality blades, but that’s about it. The bowl is quite flimsy as is the base, and it is just not acceptable for such a high price.
Good Add-ons
It comes with a few add-ons, a good alternate bowl as well as a smoothie cup so you can just make one to It doesn’t have any additional blades though, which can be a problem at times.
Safe, but Loud
This unit is safe in the sense that it is fairly durable and the safety features work. However, some parts of it are flimsy, which is a safety hazard and it is quite loud and not that safe for your ears.
Customer Reviews
Who Should Buy This Product
This food processor seems tailor-made for people who want an incredibly powerful machine that can chop anything down to size. It’s got quite a strong motor, and the big stainless steel blades are incredibly sharp. The different bowls also make things easier to handle, and it is great for making smoothies.
What to Watch Out For
First of all, this is an expensive food processor. That wouldn’t be such a major problem if it weren’t as flimsy as it is. The bowls especially seem to be poorly made and like they can break apart at any point. Because of that, cutting larger, harder things with this processor is risky. It also produces a lot of noise to boot.
The Conclusion
The big selling point of this food processor is just how powerful it is, and that is no lie. It can cut almost anything into pieces, and the blades will stay in good shape. However, the rest of it might not, as it is rather flimsy, something that’s not acceptable when it is this expensive. Overall, it’s a mixed bag – it might be worth buying for the sheer power, but you should still think twice before spending your cash.
Key Features
Not Enough Power
This food processor has a 450-watt motor, but in practice, it seems a bit underpowered. It doesn’t perform as well as other, comparable units, in particular with some of the add-ons.
Fairly Good Capacity and Size
It has an 8-cup capacity, which is commendable since comparable units don’t have that much. It is also quite compact and can fit almost anywhere. It’s good as a portable unit.
Not Durable at All
This is just a shoddily made product, and every part of it seems flimsy, even the blades. They are quite thin and have plastic at their core, making them rather suspect. Overall, it’s not something that will last.
A Couple of Decent Accessories
It comes with two different bowls and a set of blades and discs for different tasks. It’s nothing amazing, but they get the job done well enough.
Not Safe Enough
The safety mechanism doesn’t function properly at times, and the blade turns on even when the lid isn’t shut. It’s also not a durable piece of kit and the possibility of it breaking makes it slightly unsafe.
Customer Reviews
The only problem with it is the small slit between the outer wall and the feed tube since you need to scrape things out of there with a knife to clean it. Still, it’s a great addition to my kitchen.
Who Should Buy This Product
There are people out there who don’t have a ton of money to spend but still want a good food processor. This is, in all honesty, the best product they could get at a price this low. It does have decent capacity and a few good add-ons, like different bowls and a few blades.
What to Watch Out For
There’s a good reason this food processor is cheap, and that is how flimsy it is. It seems prone to breaking apart, and it certainly won’t last for a long time. It also seems rather underpowered in practice, which might be due to the blades that are also quite low in quality.
The Conclusion
This is a cheap food processor, and it shows in how it’s constructed. If you want something that will last for a long time or have a lot of power, this is not for you. However, it’s still the best product you will get at this price, and if you don’t have a lot of cash to work with, it is still worth it.
The Best Pick – Hamilton Beach 70730
After much deliberation, we have decided on what our best pick was. It was hard, as we had some differences on the matter, because the perfect food processor, or the perfect anything, doesn’t exist. Because of that, different people value different aspects more or less. Still, we decided that the food processor which will be the best for the largest number of people is the Hamilton Beach 70730.
The reason is its overall reliability – while it does have a couple of flaws, they are not the glaring flaws that other products have. It has decent specs in most areas, and it will last for quite a while, which is more than you could ask for, considering the price. Because of that, it is our best food processor for today.
The Conclusion
So, that’s our best pick, and it was a difficult decision. We tested a lot of different products, and a lot of them were good, even exceptional in some regard, but this is the one we consider to be better than any other. Of course, this is not to say that you can’t buy something else – as we said, you may see things differently. Our goal was just to inform you well enough that you can make a smart purchasing decision, and we hope we managed to do that. If this article did help you, share it around, others might find it useful as well. Until next time, have a good day.
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Homyden
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