Kitchen equipment · Food processor

Food processor

A motorised wide bowl with interchangeable blades and discs for chopping, slicing, grating and mixing doughs.

Useful to have · Electric · 81 recipes

Photo: Donovan Govan, via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-3.0)

What it is

A motor base with a wide, short bowl, a central shaft and a lid with a feed tube. An S-shaped chopping blade sits low in the bowl; slicing and grating discs sit at the top. It handles thick mixtures and solid foods that a blender cannot circulate, but makes coarser purées and leaks with large amounts of thin liquid.

What it’s for: Speeding up repetitive cutting and mixing of solid or thick foods.

How to use it

Choose the blade or disc and lock the bowl and lid in place.
For chopping, pulse in short bursts and check often to avoid a paste.
For slicing and grating, push food down the feed tube with the pusher, never your fingers.
Scrape down the bowl between pulses.

Good to know

Tasks: chopping onions and herbs, slicing and grating vegetables, making pesto, hummus and dips, making pastry and bread dough, grinding nuts and breadcrumbs, making masala pastes
Cooking methods: Blended, No-cook, Raw
Materials: plastic bowl, stainless steel blades
Care and cleaning: Wash blades by holding the central hub. Many bowls are dishwasher-safe on the top rack. Stains from turmeric and carrots fade in sunlight.
Limitations: Coarser purée than a blender, bulky, and too big for very small amounts.

Safety

Handle the sharp blade by its plastic hub.
Always use the pusher in the feed tube.
Wait for the blade to stop before removing the lid.

If you don’t have one

Chef's knife — Slower but better for neat, even cuts.
Blender — For pastes with enough liquid.

Equipment guide

How it works: A wide, flat bowl with an S-shaped blade turns slower than a blender, chopping rather than liquefying, and the wide bowl stops food piling up into a vortex. Discs on a spindle at the top slice or grate food fed down the chute, cutting uniform pieces quickly.

Material	Good	Watch out
Polycarbonate or BPA-free bowl	Light and clear.	Scratches and can crack if dropped.
Stainless blades and discs	Sharp and durable.	Edges dull over years and are hard to resharpen.

Full-size processor: 2–3.5 litre bowl with discs.
Mini chopper: Small amounts of herbs, onion, garlic.
Processor with dough blade: Short-time kneading.

Buying guidance

Starting out: A mini chopper covers onions and pastes; a full-size model if you slice or grate lots of vegetables.

Keen cook: A 2.5–3 litre model with slicing and grating discs and a wide feed tube.