Home cooking is the best way to provide your family with home-cooked, healthy meals. Eating home-cooked meals is better than an Uptown Pokies win for cooks who want to know exactly which ingredients have gone into the food. You can keep the levels of sugars and refined carbohydrates down while boosting the percentages of healthy fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, grain, legumes, and other nutritious elements of a well-balanced meal.
Cooking at home doesn’t mean, however, that you have to do everything the old-fashioned way. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t take advantage of the best that 21st technology has to offer as you create nutritious dishes. One of the most important appliances for your kitchen is a food processor. IN minutes, a food processor can cut, grate, blend, whip, and do many other tasks that would otherwise be time-intensive.
Finding the Right Food Processor
When you’re looking for a food processor, price shouldn’t be the first thing that you review, though it’s obviously a consideration. You should make sure that the appliance that you choose fits your needs.
When you’re conducting your search, some things that you will want to consider include:
- All food processors chop but some food processors have blades, disks, and attachments to grind meat and/or cheese, slice and shred, pulse, make the dough, grind, crumb, whip, and more. Consider what you want to do with your food processor before you make the purchase. Then, look for a food processor that fits the bill.
- Power – if you’re going to be performing high-energy tasks with your food processor such as dough mixing, make sure that you select a powerful food processor with 700+ wattage. The extra wattage will give the machine the force that it needs for the tougher tasks.
- Bowl Capacity – what kind of amounts will you be preparing? If you’re cooking for a large family or frequent guests, you will want a food processor with a larger bowl capacity. A 14-cup bowl is generally sufficient for large food amounts.
- Dishwasher safe – it will save you a lot of time and effort if you can pop a dirty food processor bowl and the various blades into a dishwasher. But not all food processors are dishwasher safe. Whether or not the food processor’s parts are dishwasher safe should be noted on the box.
- Juicer – Not all food processors function well as a juicer. It’s a good idea to have a separate juicer if that’s something that you plan to do frequently. However, if you just want to make an occasional juice, check to make sure that the appliance has a blade that will blend fruits. (for vegetable juices, you will need a proper juicer).
- Warranty – Even the best appliance can break down. There’s no reason, however, for a food processor to break soon after purchase. Ask to see the warranty before you buy the food processor to make sure that you have at least a one-year warranty. Better food processors offer better warranties – some companies give you multi-year warranties on the motor and parts. The extra money that you spend on such a food processor might save you a good deal of money in the end.
- Controls – Most food processors have modes for on, off, and pulse. If you plan to use your food processor for more intensive tasks, like dough mixing, you’ll need a food processor that has a specific mixing speed.
Best Low-Cost Food Processors
Even if you’re on a budget you can still get a good, solid food processor. Some of the top food processors for under $200 include:
Cuisinart 14-Cup Processor
The Cuisinart 14-Cup food processor has a 14-cup work bowl and a 720-watt motor to give you one of the most versatile food processors on the market. Many professional cooks recommend the Cuisinart because it’s comparable to the KitchenAid 14-cup model but costs much less and gives you an extra 300 watts of power.
It can slice, chop, shred, puree, and make the dough. It features an extra-large feed tube which means that you don’t have to expend extra prep time in cutting food items smaller to fit through the tube. In comparison with other food processors, it’s quite quiet and more than meets the requirements of most household food prep needs. If you’re a good shopper you can find the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor for as little as $199.
Hamilton Beach Food Processor
The Hamilton Beach Food Processor is significantly less expensive than most other food processors that perform the same tasks. It can be found for $50 or even less. The Hamilton Beach food processor pulses or you can set the speed for low or high. The bowl fits up to 10 cups, which should be adequate for a typical-sized family. The food chute is large enough for large chunks of food and the bowl scraper can be used to remove food from the side of both while the machine is on and off.
Hamilton Beach Mini Chopper
If you have a small family or prepare small amounts of food at a time, there’s no need to go looking for a large machine. The Hamilton Beach Mini Chopper is a basic food processor that you can buy for under $25 and will take care of basic chopping and grating needs. The 350-watt motor is more than adequate to chop and mix nuts, herbs, onions, and more. All parts are dishwasher safe.
Nutri-Ninja Mega Kitchen System
The Nutri-Ninja Mega Kitchen System is an all-in-one blender/food processor that lives up to its name of “Ninja” with a 1200 watt motor. There are two bowl options, one a 72-ounce blender pitcher and the other a 64-ounce food processor bowl. Everything is dishwasher safe. You can do absolutely anything with this system including make dough, all for under $140.
Ninja Food Chopper
The food chopper is a convenient food processor that has a 200-watt power-pod which is more than sufficient to cut, grind and mince. If you want a machine that doesn’t require you to pull out a heavy food processor every time that you need to do a small job, the Ninja Food Chopper is for you. It’s available for under $35 and is the perfect appliance for chopping onions and garlic, grinding nuts, crumbling crumbs, and blending sauces and spreads. Everything is dishwasher-safe.