The best food processors to buy: slice, dice and shred in seconds with these top products

The best food processors are universally beloved for chopping, slicing and grating ingredients for your favorite recipes in a flash. This convenient tool elevates your culinary tasks and makes food prep so much easier - while also eliminating heavy duty cleanup.

While nifty blenders can help us to create tasty smoothies and soups, the best food processors can really help us novice chefs to prepare delicious healthy dinners from scratch. With a food processor, you can make your own tasty salsa, nut butters, bread, falafel and even hummus - as well as finely chop herbs and nuts, and even grind your own coffee beans.

But as with buying all of the most important kitchen tools (like the best induction pans and best blenders), there is ample choice when it comes to picking one out, so where do you look first? Well luckily, we’ve done the legwork for you by selecting and testing the best food processors for every budget, including compact appliances that are easy to store. We chiefly factored in functionality, from the instruction manual and variety of settings offered to cleanability, assembly, and how easy the controls are to use.

Also in the mix  – excuse the pun – is the KitchenAid 2.1L food processor, which topped our tests to be crowned the best food processor for its innovative design and powerful performance, just pipping the great-value Bosch MultiTalent 3 MCM3501MGB food processor to the post. Want to know why exactly? Read on.

The best food processors as reviewed by our experts

Assembling a food processor can be a pain, especially if there are multiple parts to slot together, or if lids don’t lock in place easily. The KitchenAid 2.1L food processor eliminates these problems – its bowl simply drops onto the base and the lid hinges neatly on top – saving your wrists from all that wrenching. Another benefit of this hinged-lid design is that it removes the need for extra worktop space (on which to set the lid while you’re scraping out the contents of the bowl). 

The KitchenAid 2.1L food processor also comes with plenty of power for chopping and mincing – so much so that during testing it did have a tendency to shuffle around on the worktop, meaning you may need to keep hold of it while it’s in use. That said, everything we processed went through without any struggle, and while the bowl is slightly too compact for an average loaf, the dough we made in it did rise and bake well. Smartly designed and powerful to boot, this a solid buy for everyday use.

See our full KitchenAid 2.1L food processor review

If time-consuming peeling, chopping and dicing is what keeps you from preparing home-cooked meals, let Sage’s the Kitchen Wizz Peel & Dice lighten the load. This food processor comes with a dizzying amount of kit to tackle everything from peeling to dicing vegetables, packed into a double-level storage box. There’s also a mini bowl and blade for small quantities, plus a 'quad' blade that provides additional fine chopping capabilities (when compared to the double blade you’ll find with most other processors). It's also one of the best food processors with a dough blade, for all the baking fans out there.

In our tests, it made short work of almost everything – chicken was minced in seconds, while the dicing system turned carrots into neat cubes quickly. It also did a sterling job making and kneading bread dough, but when it came to peeling potatoes, the results weren’t the seamless, clean prep we’d hoped for –  peel missed and indentations in the flesh meant we had to finish the job by hand. Overall, a comprehensive piece of kitchen kit that makes short work of vegetable prep. 

See our full Sage the Kitchen Wizz Peel & Dice food processor review

For a multipurpose machine that won’t blow your budget, look no further than the Bosch MultiTalent 3 MCM3501MGB food processor. While it’s a relatively compact appliance, it still manages to pack in a roomy 2.3-litre bowl (with space to whisk up to six egg whites) and enough accessories to serve 50 functions, so you’re unlikely to ever be stuck without the right tool. Its one-litre blender jug is great for keeping on hand for soups and smoothies, plus the mini chopper/ grinder is sure to get plenty of use for all those smaller jobs that don’t require a full-sized processor bowl. 

In tests, it performed well, slicing through carrots and chicken with ease, and kneading dough without any problems. Our only niggle was that the high speed could be a little whiny. Small but mighty, in a compact kitchen this machine does a great job.

See our full Bosch MultiTalent 3 MCM3501MGB food processor review

While the smaller version of this makes our pick of the best mini food processors, the larger version is one of the best food processors out there because of how versatile and useful it is. The addition of a smaller bowl that nests inside the larger one is what makes the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro food processor so great. What’s special is that the mini bowl has its own blade and has a seal around the rim, meaning that you can whizz up small amounts of food without getting the main bowl dirty. 

The food processor equivalent to a Russian doll, this miniature feature is perfect for everything from chopping a handful of herbs, to making a quick batch of hummus or freshly prepared baby food. In tests, it handled making bread dough without any issues, and also worked its way through meat and vegetables easily. The push-button controls can be tricky to get the hang of, plus the spindle is static so has to be cleaned in-situ but other than those small irritants, it’s a reliable food processor that should prove to be a good investment.

See our full Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro food processor review

The Kenwood FDM312SS MultiPro Compact+ won’t just be your food processor, it’ll also be your full-sized blender, mini chopper, personal blender, hand whisk and scales. That’s because, as well as a whole box of attachments and tools, its base can be used to weigh out ingredients as you go. Which means that you can make doughs, batters and other recipes that little bit faster, as well as saving space on your worktop. Fortunately, alongside all this extra functionality, the basics haven’t been forgotten and the Kenwood FDM312SS MultiPro Compact+ still works well as a food processor, with a 2.1l bowl and a compact footprint that won’t hog workspace. It handled all its meat and vegetable processing tasks well (although there were some scraps left over from slicing carrots), and kneaded bread dough with ease. We did note, however, that the higher speed was very whiny. But, with its multitude of attachments, this machine is a baker’s best friend. 

See our full Kenwood FDM312SS MultiPro Compact+ food processor review

Compared to subpar options with lofty and often hollow promises, the NutriChef Multipurpose food processor reigns over the market for its sleek, compact design that can still be loaded to the brim. This kitchen essential touts a 2L capacity: it can hold up to 12 cups of dry ingredients and 9 cups of liquid ingredients (we'd say that's a lot of food). And if the tedium of food prep bores you, this food processor harnesses the power of a time-efficient 600W motor, designed to dwindle minutes and energy spent.

We love to pay homage to its electronic overload feature, which prevents  and protects the motor from overheating (and a blitz fire at that). We also must give acclaim to its silicone rubber bottom, a handy inclusion that suctions to countertops and strengthens your hold.

Just because it's petite, doesn't mean this compact food processor isn't robust. With just one touch of the on/off button, the Kocbelle Electric food processor chops chili, vegetables, baby food, garlic, and even meats - yes, you read that correctly - in mere seconds. That being said, the detachable, stainless steel blades are the true heroes, as they can grate, slice, mince, and blend at different angles for even texture. Not to mention, they're easy to clean, dishwasher safe, and don't rust easily.

Another noteworthy perk is its rechargeable function that'll make you say "au revoir" to your cord-clad gadgets. Not: It should be charged every three months to prevent damage, if you don't plan on using this device frequently.

With nearly 20,000 reviews on Amazon, the hefty Hamilton Beach food processor is a crowd pleaser for bringing convenience and ease to an overwise overwhelming process (food prep is seriously no easy feat). This gadget has earned a laundry list of bragging rights: a patent-pending design to eliminate difficult twisting and locking; a big mouth feed tube; a sealed bowl, and many more. For easy assembly, the bowl fits directly on the base, sans twisting; while the lid snaps on securely. From there, all you have to do is use the provided locking clips, and you'll have a safe-proof operation in place.

The S-blade is ideal for chopping hard-to-grind items, like nuts, meat, garlic, onions, peppers, celery, herbs, bread and crackers. It even mixes salad dressings, purees soups and sauces, and grates cheese. On the contrary, the reversible shred disc slices foods like cucumbers, squash, mushrooms, tomatoes, firm cheeses, and more.

Still deciding which food processor is the right one for you? Keep reading for our expert guidance to picking the right model for your home.

How to choose the best food processor for you

The best food processors can come with a lot of tools so it’s really worth considering how much worktop or cupboard space is available in your kitchen – you’ll need somewhere for the actual appliance to live, as well as food processor attachments and accessories. Compact models are often a good option if space is limited, but they can still have bulky kit to store and will vary in terms of bowl size and capability.

On a related but slightly different note, think about the tools you’ll use the most. Food processors usually come with a multi-purpose chopping and mixing blade, a dough blade and usually two reversible discs for slicing and shredding, all with the aim of creating some of the best food processor recipes - but some models have even more. There can be a whisk attachment or disc for whipping, chipping discs (great for making fries from various vegetables, not just potatoes), a grinder for spices, as well as personal smoothie cups and blades so you can make healthy drinks for days when you’re on the go. If space is tight, look for a model that doubles up as another piece of kitchen tech, for example one with blender jugs for soup and smoothies, mini choppers or that functions as a set of weighing scales. 

Another factor to consider is how easy a food processor is to keep clean. Once you've worked out how to use your food processor, using it regularly means you don’t want it to be a chore to clean. If you have a dishwasher, look for models with dishwasher-safe parts or, if you’re cleaning by hand, designs that have as few places as possible where food debris can gather. 

Is a food processor worth buying? 

If you do lots of cooking from scratch, and find that you spend a lot of time preparing (e.g cutting, chopping and blending together ingredients) you might find that a food processor is a kitchen gadget that is well worth having. 

Food processors can help you to do all sorts of cooking tasks, from grinding nuts to chopping herbs or slicing up vegetables such as onions, peppers and mushrooms. Food processors can also assist you with more unusual kitchen prep, such as making breadcrumbs, sauces and even things like dough and batter.

So if you often find yourself frustrated at having to do these things manually, or find they take up a lot of time, a food processor could be well worth it to make your time cooking much easier and more efficient. They can certainly be a great way to save time and to automate the cooking process. 

Overall, we reckon a food processor is well worth buying and something that should be in every home kitchen.