Testing was conducted with nuts and garlic, as well as with a variety of veggies. We also made sauces and purees and considered the final texture of the results. The Breville Sous Chef diced tomatoes and onions evenly, and it chopped nuts to a more consistent texture than the Cuisinart. And though we’re not huge fans of the mini bowls on most of the big processors, we liked the Sous Chef’s 2½-cup bowl best among the ones we’ve tried. Deeper than the others, this bowl has a design that seemed to make uniformly mincing fresh parsley easier. The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro is more powerful than the Cuisinart Custom 14, so it’s the machine you’ll want when you’re cooking for large groups or if you process food several times a week.
We weren’t impressed with the Magimix by Robot-Coupe 14-Cup Food Processor. It wasn’t able to chop as evenly as the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro or the Cuisinart Custom 14. The machine also seized up while preparing pizza dough and was noisier than other models we tested.
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.
The Cuisinart Complete Chef chops, slices, and cooks food all in one 18-cup stainless steel bowl (it comes with attachments and built-in recipes for cooking things like risotto or beef stew). We were eager to see how it would compare to the Thermomix (a wildly expensive blender that cooks, and which has something of a cult cuisinart toa60 following outside of the US), but we weren’t able to get it to work. We probably just got a lemon, but that doesn’t bode well for a $700 appliance (at the time of this publishing). An error consistently appeared on the screen each time we attempted to run it, even when the correct lid and blade attachment were in place.
We appreciate that Breville provides a storage case for the attachments, but the box takes up almost as much cupboard space as the machine itself. We recommend the inexpensive KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food Chopper for anyone who wants to make small batches of dips, spreads, or mirepoix. On top of that, its handled cuisinart air fryer oven jar with push-button activation was the most convenient to use. And this KitchenAid is a great option for people who don’t want to invest in a $250 machine. You can’t knead dough or shred ingredients in it, but you can grind or chop small portions of vegetables or nuts, which is more tedious to do by hand.