The Sous Chef is solidly built, with a hefty base that weighs about 15½ pounds (excluding the bowl). This processor also comes with a limited one-year product warranty and has a 25-year warranty on the motor—by far the longest warranty on a motor of any of the models we tested. Another drawback to the Sous Chef is that it made a slightly looser mayonnaise than the Cuisinart Custom 14 and the mini processors we tested. Also, its mini bowl insert did not chop almonds evenly, so we recommend using its 16-cup bowl for this task. 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.
However, since this was the only task this model excelled at, we don’t think it’s best for most people. Most brands sell replacement parts, which may come in handy after the limited warranty on parts expires. You’ll find replacement bowls, food pushers, blades, and various other attachments for the Cuisinart Custom 14 and the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (though we should note that they can be quite expensive). You can sometimes find cheaper, secondhand parts on eBay, but just be sure you get the right model number.
With this method, the mayonnaise comes together without your having to control the flow of oil. Beyond the main blade and one disk each for shredding and slicing, you don’t need much cuisinart air fryer oven else. Many food processors also come with a dough blade made of plastic, but we found that a metal blade mixed dough just as well, so we don’t think the dough blade is essential.
In our tests, this processor even performed better than the mini bowl attachments that come with some of the larger processors. It’s too small for kneading bread dough and lacks the attachments to shred or slice, but it’s great for completing basic tasks quickly, and it’s easier to clean and store than a full-size model. The blades are formed in a wave pattern and rotate for even chopping, while the nonskid base keeps the chopper from wandering around the counter when it’s being used. We tested it with a variety of vegetables, including onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and carrots, and it did a good job with them.
It’s great for grinding everything from nuts and spices to hefty vegetables, with two buttons that chop or grind. You can quickly pulse breadcrumbs, craft homemade hummus, and puree soups without a blender. You can put the blade and cup in the top rack of your dishwasher for easy cleanup. As for cleaning, The New Food Processor Bible’s Gilletz recommends putting water and a few drops of dish soap into the work bowl and running the machine. A bottle brush is handy for cleaning around the feed tube, inside the food pressers, and along the sharp blades.
This processor would be ideal for making baby food, thanks to its small size and effective pureeing capabilities. Breville clearly put a lot of thought into other design elements as well. The Sous Chef is the only model we tested that had an LCD timer (which counts up and down), and this model also has retractable cord storage. We didn’t try the machine’s french fry disk, julienne disk, or emulsifying disk attachments, but we did use the handy cleaning brush, which did a great job of getting trapped bits out of the slicing disk. The obvious drawback to all of these attachments is that they take up a lot of space, and they may not get much use (how often do you make fries, for example?).
Most full-size food processors also come with blades for slicing and grating, which a blender can’t do. To help you find the best food choppers for all your kitchen prep, we sent top-rated choppers to our experienced product tester. Each one was carefully assessed during hours of home kitchen testing and used to chop nuts, garlic, and various vegetables. Then, the food choppers were all rated on design, ease of use, size, ease of cleaning, convenience, overall effectiveness, and overall value.
It offers extra power; a larger, 16-cup blending bowl; and nicer features compared with the Cuisinart Custom 14. The Sous Chef powered through an entire russet potato in less than a second—noticeably faster than any of the other models. And despite its power, the Sous Chef was the quietest of the bunch at kneading dough. But it’s oversized and significantly more expensive than cuisinart choppers the Cuisinart, and it comes with a bulky bundle of accessories that you may not need. Like the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus (our former mini chopper pick), this model runs only while you hold the “on” button down. To operate it, you squeeze a tab on the top of the handle, which we found more comfortable to do than holding down buttons on the base of the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus.
She previously edited cookbooks and craft books for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and she started reviewing kitchen gear back in 2013. She sews many of her own clothes, which has made her obsessive about high-quality fabrics—whether in a dress or bedsheets. Michael Sullivan has been a staff writer on the kitchen team at Wirecutter since 2016. Previously, he was an editor at the International Culinary Center in New York.