Best Food Processors of 2026

What sells us on the Sous Chef 16 is the 5.5-inch feed chute. Whole onions, whole tomatoes, and fist-length carrots go in without pre-cutting, and what comes out is the same size every time — this machine removes more knife work than anything else on this list. Behind it sits a 1450-watt direct-drive induction motor, the most powerful here by a wide margin, and Breville warrants that motor for 30 years.

The accessory set is the other half of the argument. A 24-position adjustable slicer lets you dial thickness instead of accepting whatever a fixed disc gives you, and the reversible shredding disc, French fry disc, and dough blade cover the rest. Consistency is the theme: uniform slices roast evenly, which is the difference between a tray of vegetables that finishes together and one that doesn't.

It's a large machine — 17.7 inches tall, 9.2 by 11.3 inches at the base, and close to 17 pounds — so it wants a permanent home with headroom above it. Nothing here slices as cleanly or as quickly, and nothing here costs as much; the question is simply whether you cook in quantities that need it.

Most cooks don't need 16 cups or a 30-year motor. They need to break down an onion, shred a block of cheddar, and get on with dinner, and the PrecisionPro does that for the least money of any machine here with a full set of discs. Four Auto-iQ programs cover chopping, slicing and shredding, puréeing, and dough, and each one stops on its own — a small thing that lets you turn to the stove while the bowl finishes.

Nine cups is the size weeknight cooking actually uses: a pint of salsa, a tray of vegetables, a single loaf's worth of dough. We found the motor powers through nuts, pesto, and stiff dough without bogging down, and the bowl and lid come apart into a handful of pieces for washing. The reversible disc slices cucumber on one side and shreds cheese on the other, so one disc covers two jobs.

Where it runs out is volume. If you put up tomato sauce in September or bake four loaves at a time, a 9-cup bowl means stopping to empty it, and the 12-cup Ninja exists for exactly that. For everything short of a project, this is the one we hand to a first-time buyer.

Every disc, the dicing kit, the dough blade, and the S-blade store in a caddy that drops inside the bowl. That single design decision is what makes the Sous Chef 9 work in a kitchen where the counters are already full: nothing lives loose in a drawer, and nothing goes missing between uses.

It's a real processor, not a stripped-down one. The 4.7-inch 2-in-1 feed chute takes different shapes without pre-cutting, the adjustable slicer and reversible shredder are color-coded so you can find the right one in a hurry, and the dicing kit turns out cubes rather than slices — something neither the Cuisinart nor the Ninja here offers. At 625 watts with a 9-cup bowl, it's sized for two to four people rather than for a preserving operation.

Nine cups sounds limiting until you use it: it dices an onion into even cubes, grates a block of cheese in seconds, and the bowl and caddy go back together in one motion. What we can't call it is a family machine — a big batch of slaw or a double recipe of dough will have you processing in relays, and that's the line where the 16-cup Breville takes over.

Cooking in batches is a different job from cooking dinner. Three trays of vegetables, a pot of sauce, dough for the week — a 9-cup bowl means stopping halfway to empty it, and 12 cups is the size that gets you through in one pass.

The Professional XL backs that bowl with 1200 peak watts and a 3-part pusher that swallows a whole potato or a chunk of cheese without quartering it first. We like it best as a dough machine: the Auto-iQ dough program mixes while you load the dishwasher, and the reversible shredding disc flips between fine and coarse for cheese and cabbage.

It's also the tallest machine we recommend at 17.5 inches, and 12.3 pounds is enough that it stays where you put it. Plan a permanent spot with clearance above it, because hauling it in and out of a cupboard is the fastest way to stop using it.

The Pro Custom 11 sits between the Cuisinart 14-cup and a budget machine: 11 cups instead of 14, 625 watts instead of 720, and a lower price than the DFP-14. What we like is the tooling — three slicing and shredding discs ship in the box, where the 14-cup comes with one of each. If you shred cheese coarse one day and fine the next, that matters more than three extra cups.

The shape is different too. It's lower and squatter than the 14-cup at 11.25 inches across and 7 inches deep, so it wants a wider strip of counter but less depth, which is often what a galley kitchen has to give. The base is brushed chrome rather than plastic, and it wipes down easily.

Two buttons, no menus, and a bowl that goes in the dishwasher is the whole proposition, and the 625-watt motor handles salsa, hummus, and pie dough without drama. What it won't do is keep up with a preserving session: 11 cups is a family batch, not a bushel of tomatoes.