A food processor simplifies tedious cooking tasks like chopping, dicing, and kneading, making prep-heavy recipes easier. The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor has been a favorite for its straightforward, reliable performance and ideal size.
Everything we recommend
Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor
The best food processor
This sturdy, no-frills food processor handles dicing, slicing, and kneading efficiently and reliably.
We love the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor for its simplicity and solid performance. Its minimalist design makes it easy to use and clean, while the included essential accessories handle common kitchen tasks. Despite its straightforward interface, it excels at chopping, shredding, and blending, offering durability at a great value under $250.
Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup Food Processor
More frills, better slicing
This processor offers better slicing and more features but takes longer with tasks like dicing onions and almonds.
The Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup Food Processor offers more features, like adjustable slicing and multiple settings, but is slower at dicing almonds and onions. It performs similarly to our top pick and is a great alternative if you prioritize thinner slicing or find it on sale. Its compact storage keeps accessories organized and easy to manage.
Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper
The best mini food processor
This roomy mini chopper dices well and features two drizzle holes for easy drizzling, but it’s less effective at dicing herbs.
The Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper is perfect for sauces, spreads, and occasional dicing. Larger than most mini choppers, it easily handles bigger ingredients like halved onions. Dual deep drizzle holes make adding liquids simple. It excels at chopping onions, making mayonnaise, and dicing almonds, but struggles with evenly chopping herbs.
Breville Sous Chef 16 Food Processor
Big and powerful with many accessories
For frequent, large-scale recipes, this premium food processor is an excellent choice.
The Breville Sous Chef 16 is a premium, powerful food processor ideal for frequent, large-scale cooking. Though pricey, it excels at precise dicing, fine herb chopping, and millimeter-thin slicing, with a sturdy base and robust motor for heavy tasks—perfect for those seeking a high-end upgrade.
Who this is for
A food processor is ideal for those who frequently prepare intricate recipes and want to save time on tasks like chopping, slicing, or shredding. It’s also great for blending dips, making mayonnaise, or mixing dough. For smaller tasks, like chopping an onion or making a small batch of pesto, a mini food processor is more efficient and easier to store and clean.
If your current processor struggles with heavy tasks or moves during use, consider upgrading to a sturdier model. For most homes, a 13- to 14-cup processor is sufficient, while a 16-cup model suits those cooking for large groups.
How we picked
After extensive testing, these are the key qualities we look for in a good food processor:
- Sharp, durable attachments: A sharp S-shaped blade and grating/slicing disks that maintain their edge for even chopping, grating, and slicing.
- Minimal extras: Focus on essential attachments; avoid unnecessary add-ons like a dough blade or juicing attachments.
- Easy assembly: Simple design with fewer parts makes it easier to assemble and clean.
- Well-sized feed tubes: A wide tube for large items and a narrow one for thin ingredients ensures efficiency.
- Strong motor, heavy base: A powerful motor and stable base prevent movement during tough tasks like kneading dough.
- Easy to clean: Simple construction with dishwasher-safe parts, though hand washing is recommended to prevent warping.
How we tested
Our pick: Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor
The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is our top pick for its ability to perform all essential tasks without unnecessary extras. With just one blade, one grating disk, and one slicing disk, it excelled at chopping, shredding, and emulsifying, often outperforming more expensive models with additional attachments.
Its stable base, even during heavy tasks like kneading double batches of dough, ensures reliability. The processor is easy to clean, and the attachments store neatly inside the bowl to reduce clutter.
In tests, the Custom 14-Cup efficiently processed tomatoes, mozzarella, and even made the best mayonnaise among full-size models. Despite having a 750-watt motor—less powerful than some competitors—it handled tough tasks like pizza dough with ease, without moving on the counter. The motor runs quietly, emitting a deep rumble at 75 decibels. Its 14-cup bowl provides ample space for larger batches, making it a versatile choice for various kitchen tasks.
We continue to appreciate the simplicity of the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor. Initially, it seemed smaller compared to models with multiple bowls and attachments, but after years of use in our test kitchen and homes, its minimalist design stands out.
The machine has just one bowl and two buttons: pulse and on. It comes with only the essentials— a stainless steel chopping blade and two disks for shredding and slicing. While earlier versions included a dough blade, we find the regular chopping blade sufficient for making dough.
The work bowl is one of the easiest to clean, with fewer parts to trap food particles compared to more complex models. We also like the bowl’s hollow handle, which doesn’t collect moisture or food like the Breville Sous Chef 16’s enclosed handle.
Storage is convenient, as all blades and disks fit neatly inside the bowl, saving space and preventing accidents. The Custom 14-Cup is compact, only 15 inches tall, and fits under most cupboards. Its sleek, retro design comes in several colors.
With a three-year warranty and a solid reputation for durability, the Custom 14-Cup is built to last, and replacement parts are available through Cuisinart’s website.
How the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor has held up
After years of testing, the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup remains a reliable kitchen workhorse. It’s excelled at tasks like chopping, grating, blending, and kneading, with no leaks and simple controls. While the bowl has scratched slightly from storing the blades, it still looks like new. The only downside is that cleaning under the on/off buttons can be a bit tricky, though a damp sponge makes it easier.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup dices delicate ingredients like parsley less consistently, leaving a few large pieces, and struggles with shredding soft mozzarella, instead grinding it. However, it performs well with harder cheeses. The lid locks with the feed tube at the back, which some may find less convenient, but it offers better visibility of ingredients. The slicing disk is non-adjustable, offering 5mm slices, and additional disks can be purchased separately. It also lacks a storage case for attachments, so you may need to buy one if you don’t store them in the bowl.
Runner-up: Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup Food Processor
The Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup Food Processor is a more modern version with extra features, but it performs similarly to our top pick. It handles basic tasks well, though not with the same precision as the Breville Sous Chef 16. If the Custom 14-Cup is unavailable or the Core Custom 13-Cup is on sale, it’s a solid choice.
It diced, minced, and emulsified effectively, though it took longer to dice almonds. Weighing 11 pounds, it’s easier to handle than the 14-pound Custom 14-Cup and 20-pound Breville Sous Chef 16, though it rocked slightly while kneading dough. Its adjustable slicing disk outperforms our top pick’s fixed disk, creating thinner, more consistent slices, but some slices were uneven.
The Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup Food Processor includes useful features like an S-blade, adjustable slicing disk, and reversible grating disk, without unnecessary extras. All attachments store neatly on a plastic spindle inside the work bowl. Its simple controls (mix, low, high, pulse) allow for easy adjustments. It also comes with a three-year warranty.
However, the lid is harder to remove than our top pick’s, and there are more nooks for ingredients to get stuck in. At 96 decibels, it’s louder than other models, with a higher-pitched sound, especially when processing hard ingredients like nuts.
Also great: Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper
Even with a full-size food processor, the Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper is great for handling small quantities. It dices a single onion more evenly than a larger processor, and excels at making small batches of sauces and spreads with better emulsion. The 4-cup bowl provides ample space for ingredients like quartered onions.
It diced garlic, tomato, onion, and almonds well, but struggled with parsley, creating a more uneven dice compared to the KitchenAid 3.5-Cup Mini Food Processor.
The Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper excelled at making mayonnaise, with its two drizzle holes in a walled channel allowing for continuous oil pouring, resulting in a quick, thick batch. The KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Mini’s drizzle hole was smaller and prone to overflow, requiring more careful pouring.
The Core Custom 4-Cup’s base buttons made it easier to operate compared to the KitchenAid’s lid-push mechanism. While the Core Custom 4-Cup was louder (100 decibels), it was still manageable. If you need a mini processor for sauces or spreads and don’t mind uneven herb dicing, the Core Custom 4-Cup is ideal; otherwise, go for the KitchenAid for precise herb dicing.
Upgrade pick: Breville Sous Chef 16 Food Processor
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Food Processor is a large, powerful, premium model ideal for those who frequently cook large meals and have ample kitchen storage. Standing almost 18 inches tall and weighing nearly 20 pounds, it’s best suited for households with counter space to spare.
With its strong motor and heavy base, it handles tasks efficiently, dicing onions, almonds, and tomatoes quickly. It also excels at kneading pizza dough without budging. The blades are sharp, even with delicate ingredients like parsley, producing a perfect, even dice.
The adjustable slicing disk is a standout feature, effortlessly producing thin, uniform potato slices. The Sous Chef 16 also includes a smaller work bowl, which is useful but not as convenient as a mini chopper, as it still requires cleaning both bowls after use.
The Breville Sous Chef 16 comes with a large storage case filled with extras, including a plastic dough blade, basic S-blade, mini S-blade (for the mini work bowl), french fry disk, adjustable slicing disk, and reversible grating disk. While some of these accessories, like the dough blade and french fry disk, feel unnecessary, the storage case is bulky and might be challenging to store in smaller kitchens. However, if you have space and frequently use your food processor, it’s a valuable upgrade.
This food processor is slightly louder than our top pick, reaching 90 decibels, with a deep, medium rumble. It’s not overly loud, but it can be noisier when handling hard ingredients.
Given its high price, the two-year limited warranty feels lacking, though there is a separate 30-year warranty for the Sous Chef 16’s induction motor.
