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. One Wirecutter staffer, who cuisinart air fryer oven was initially skeptical of the large, 14-cup bowl capacity, has said that so far their Cuisinart hasn’t been too small or too large for any preparations. Another staffer (who admitted to being a little rough on her machine) replaced her Cuisinart with a new one after 11 years of use. Meanwhile, senior kitchen and appliance editor Marguerite Preston still uses a decades-old Cuisinart Custom 14 that she inherited from her parents.
Models smaller than that are too limited, and if you think you need one that’s larger than three cups, you’re probably better off with a full-size model. In the case of manual food choppers, you will need to cut down food so that it is small enough to fit in the chopper. If you’re not confident in your chopping skills, both manual and electric choppers are easy ways to avoid spending too much time with your knife.
Additionally, the revolutionary BladeLock System keeps the blade secure during processing and pouring. Including three different bowls, this Ninja set allows you to make everything from salsa to smoothies. There is a 6-cup pitcher for smoothies and frozen cocktails, a 5-cup processor bowl for hummus and other dips, and a 2-cup chopper for dicing vegetables. Both the processor bowl and the chopper have four blades as opposed to two, meaning they are more efficient than most models. This set even comes with storage lids, so you can conveniently store leftovers in the fridge — no additional container required.
Featuring a drizzle basin and pour spout, this mini food processor’s design exceeded our expectations. 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.
And Cuisinart’s food processors have a solid reputation for overall durability—anecdotally, we know of some that have lasted for decades. The Cuisinart has a strong motor and a heavy base (roughly 18 pounds with the bowl on) that keeps it stable. Though its 750-watt motor is less powerful than those on some other cuisinart air fryer oven models we tested, such as the 1,200-watt Breville Sous Chef (our upgrade pick), this didn’t negatively affect the Cuisinart’s performance. Making pizza dough was our most motor-intensive test, and the Custom 14 kneaded it effortlessly, without wiggling across the counter like some other processors we tried.
The size of the feed tubes in the lid (used to insert potatoes, carrots, or other hunks of food to be sliced or shredded) also makes a difference. Most full-size processors come with a wide feed tube that’s fitted with a food presser, which has a narrower feed tube (with its own presser) in cuisinart air fryer oven the center. The larger tube should be big enough to easily fit a block of cheese or a potato, so you don’t have to spend time cutting food into pieces that are small enough to fit. But the smaller tube needs to be narrow enough to keep carrots and other thin items upright during slicing.