How do I choose and use a food processor?
What it is genuinely better at than a blender or a knife, and the jobs it does badly.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 20 min
- Read
- 2 min
- Safety
- caution
Short answer
It is for chopping, slicing, grating and rubbing fat into flour — dry and semi-dry work. A blender is better for liquids. Pulse rather than run it, or you get purée instead of chopped.
Food processors and blenders look interchangeable and are not. A processor has a wide flat bowl and a blade close to the base, which suits solids; a blender has a narrow tall jug that pulls liquid down onto the blades. Using the wrong one is why people conclude a processor is disappointing.
Safety
Step by step
- Know what it is good at.Chopping vegetables and nuts, grating cheese, slicing evenly, making pastry, breadcrumbs, pesto, hummus and dips. Anything solid or thick.
- Know what it is bad at.Soups, smoothies and anything thin — liquid sloshes and leaks past the lid. Kneading bread dough on most models. Whipping cream.
- Pulse rather than run it.Short bursts. The difference between chopped onion and onion purée is about two seconds, and continuous running always overshoots.
- Do not overfill it.Half to two-thirds. Overfilled, the bottom purées while the top stays whole. Two batches is faster than fixing one.
- Cut things to a similar size first.It chops what it touches. Mixed sizes give mixed results — a rough chop before it goes in genuinely helps.
- Use it for pastry.One of the best uses. It rubs fat into flour quickly and, crucially, handles the dough less than hands do, which is exactly what pastry wants.
- Add liquid through the funnel while running.For mayonnaise, dressings and pesto. The slow steady stream is what emulsifies, and the funnel is designed for it.
- Clean it immediately.Blade out first, carefully. Dried-on food in the crevices around the blade housing is genuinely difficult and mildly dangerous to remove later.
Tips
- A mini chopper is more useful day to day than a large processor if you mostly do small quantities. Large ones stay in the cupboard.
- The grating and slicing discs are the most underused attachments and the biggest time-saver for anything involving quantity.
- If you find it is not earning its cupboard space, that is usually a sign you needed a blender or a good knife instead.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a food processor and a blender?
A processor has a wide bowl and suits solid and thick work — chopping, slicing, pastry. A blender has a narrow jug that pulls liquid onto the blades and suits soups and smoothies.
Why does my processor turn everything to mush?
Running it continuously rather than pulsing. Short bursts, checking between — the window between chopped and puréed is only a second or two.