As a home pastry chef, Teryn Beyer saves tons of time by using her food processor.
“If I have a big order for carrot cakes, instead of sitting there with the grater and the carrots, I can just throw them all in here and it grates them perfectly... or it can chop nuts, or anything!”
In the market for a food processor? Consumer Reports tested 20.
A Breville Sous Chef vaulted past the top-rated Cuisinart processor acing many of Consumer Reports` tough tests including slicing mushrooms and shredding carrots.
“And it`s relatively quiet, so you can easily have a conversation while you`re working,” says the chef.
This Sous Chef has a 16-cup work bowl, a mini-bowl insert, and a case where you can neatly and safely store a ton of blades and accessories. But it`s 18 inches tall and weighs nearly 20 pounds.
“This is clearly a high-end product that requires premium counter space. It does also come at a premium price, $400!” says the chef.
If you can live with less than perfect results, consider $50 Hamilton Beach, model number 70730. It has a decent-size 10-cup work bowl and is fairly light for easy storage.
And while it didn`t do a great job puréeing peas, it was very good at slicing mushrooms and did an excellent job shredding carrots.
“The downside is, it`s very noisy!” the chef says.
Still, it does a lot really well and at a price that`s hard to beat.
Consumer Reports also tested food choppers.
These mini-processors don`t slice or shred but are great for small, quick jobs, like chopping nuts and herbs or grating a small chunk of cheese.
Most are easy to store like the Cuisinart mini prep plus DLC2A.
Consumer Reports recommends it. It comes in several colors and costs about $40.
