Cuisinart® Elemental Collection 4-cup Chopper & Grinder

Its strong motor blended hummus and pesto with minimal scraping, and its small feeding tube allowed us to slowly add oil for fantastic mayonnaise. Handle of a variety of food prep tasks with the convenience of this Cuisinart chopper and grinder. One Wirecutter staffer, who 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. The Cuisinart® Stainless Steel Food Chopper is great for chopping vegetables, hard cheeses, nuts, herbs, garlic and more.

Ease of Assembly

The Cusinart Mini Prep Chopper is very easy to assembly. Ease of Cleaning

The Cusinart Mini Prep Chopper is very cuisinart choppers easy to clean. Durability

While this model is small in size but it feels durable enough that it won’t break within a year.

In spite of this malfunction, we were still able to explore the recipe database, which was easy to navigate. The preprogrammed recipes seemed straightforward, but there cuisinart toaster costco are only 201 total. This model also takes up a ton of counter space and weighs 30 pounds; it’s definitely not something you’ll want to lug around your kitchen often.

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. The customer service representative we spoke to wasn’t able to offer much guidance since they weren’t familiar with the model (they even confessed it doesn’t sell often). In our tests, the Cuisinart evenly chopped almost everything, including juicy tomatoes. (The only exception was almonds—more on that in the Flaws but not dealbreakers section, below.) The grating disk also shredded soft mozzarella cheese without getting gummed up. And we made a firmer, more stable mayonnaise in the Cuisinart than in any other full-size model we tested.

We tested each model’s range by first using the Chop feature to finely dice a small onion, timing how long it took and how even the finished pieces were in size. Then we made a one-can batch of hummus to see how quickly and smoothly each machine could purée chickpeas, whole garlic cloves, and thick tahini. Finally, we disassembled and washed every mini food processor by hand.

At full charge (which takes two hours to complete), the model can run for 20 minutes, and because you’re not tethered to an outlet, you can complete your ingredient prep anywhere in the kitchen. But it felt a little spooky not to have the final hurdle of the plug in place to keep the machine from randomly starting to spin—and because it has to run off a charge, it’s not very powerful either. This was the most expensive model we tested, and in our opinion, not worth the cost. Contributor Ariane Resnick is a special diet chef, certified nutritionist, bestselling author, and lifelong devotee of her Cuisinart mini food processor. She used market research and her expertise to determine the best mini food processors for every home cook.

A bottle brush is handy for cleaning around the feed tube, inside the food pressers, and along the sharp blades. Never submerge the base of a food processor in water; only wipe it down with a damp cloth or sponge. Finally, the Cuisinart Custom 14’s work bowl was easier to clean than the bowls of most of the other models we tested. We cleaned each model eight times, so we were achingly familiar with the gunk that can get trapped in more-complicated lids. We also appreciate the Cuisinart’s hollow handle, which doesn’t trap food particles and moisture as much as the Breville Sous Chef’s enclosed handle.

Many mini food processors chop and puree but fewer shred and slice. We were pleased to see that this pick includes a shredding and slicing disk like most full-size counterparts. While we have not tested this pick in the lab, we have found that Hamilton Beach products are generally reliable. This model also includes a reasonable chute for its size, meaning you can easily feed through standard blocks of cheese as well as carrots and cucumbers. We did note that many reviewers complained that the lid is designed with a delicate tab that broke for some users. To start, we tested how evenly each food processor could chop a variety of ingredients, including onions, fibrous carrots, soft tomatoes, delicate parsley, and whole almonds.