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A great food processor effectively slices, chops, and shreds your meal prep to bits, paring down tedious, time-sucking knife work by cutting through all kinds of ingredients with efficiency and ease. 304 Stainless Steel Insulation Cup
Whatever chore you need done—kneading dough, grinding nuts, ricing cauliflower, churning up homemade curry, guac, or hummus, or julienning veggies—the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is, in practically all situations, the ideal food processor for the job.
This is one of Cuisinart’s most basic models, yet it consistently chops, slices, and kneads better than any other food processor we’ve found for under $250.
It can process nearly any food with uniform results—which, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t a given across all of the food processors we’ve tested. The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor is also one of the easiest food processors to clean and store, and in countertop-appliance years, it lasts forever, which is just one reason it’s been our top-pick food processor for the past decade.
All of the food processors we’ve tested over the years are built around the same elemental concept: You put ingredients in, either by placing them in the device’s bowl or by submitting them through a feed chute on top. A button-controlled motor spins a blade inside the bowl, and a few moments later, those ingredients are grated, chopped, or sliced to your preferred shape and size.
The Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor carries out this task through a blissfully simple interface. It has just two buttons: On for continuous blade work and Off/Pulse for, well, on-and-off pulsing. You needn’t consult the manual to intuit how it works, though its manual (PDF) is a refreshingly helpful read, offering food-specific advice on how to get the most out of the machine.
In Goldilocks style, its just-right 14-cup capacity accommodates jobs big, small, and in between. I’ve used it to prep the dough for nearly a dozen Thanksgiving pies, as well as to shred huge mounds of carrots, celery, garlic, and onion all at once when batch-cooking soup. But I’ve also used it to whip up a single serving of one-ingredient banana ice cream. In testing for our food processor guide, we’ve found that it can easily knead pizza dough or shred soft cheeses, two of a food processor’s toughest jobs.
Setup and cleanup are streamlined as well. The included trio of stainless steel accessories—a slicing disc, a shredding disc, and an S-shaped chopping/mixing blade, which we note in our guide are the most useful attachments—fit inside the machine's mixing bowl when not in use, so you have a safe and convenient place to stash them. And whereas other food processors can trap bits of food in tough-to-reach places, we’ve found that the Custom 14-Cup is one of the easiest food processors to clean since it’s dishwasher-safe and, when necessary, simple to de-gunk by hand.
Among all the full-size food processors we’ve tested, including a few other Cuisinart models, the Custom 14-Cup’s closest competition is probably our upgrade pick, the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro, which typically costs twice as much.
The Breville model offers some benefits. As we say in our food processor guide, it’s an appropriate choice “if you’re cooking involved recipes for a crowd several times a week.” I find its bowl to be more aesthetically pleasing than my Cusinart’s, which has turned dull-looking over time, and the Breville model’s base tends to remain more steadfast atop a counter, while my Cuisinart has wiggled an inch here or there (although our testers found that “the Custom 14-Cup’s base remained stable on the counter—even while the machine was processing double batches of dough”). The Custom 14-Cup may also require a few extra pulses to achieve the finely chopped results that the Breville model can deliver a few seconds faster. And with certain items that are tough for most food processors to manage, such as almonds, we’ve found that this Cuisinart model’s performance does fall short in comparison.
However, I’ve also discovered a number of things that I don’t like about the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro. In our test kitchen, I’ve found that it can be louder than the Custom 14-Cup, and due to its more complicated interface and especially sensitive buttons, I’ve turned the thing on a couple of times without intending to. (Because it isn’t particularly quiet, it scared the dickens out of me.) The Breville also comes with a suite of accessories, including five different slicing disks and a storage case to house them all—which, to a home cook, can feel like overkill. If you get flustered easily when cooking or just prefer to reduce decision fatigue in your life, choosing among Breville’s eight cutting implements may not seem like a plus.
In our testing, other full-size food processors frequently faltered, delivering uneven chopping, trapping sticky ingredients, or even seizing up while executing tougher tasks. But in the 13 years I’ve owned my Cuisinart food processor, I have yet to encounter a dead motor, subpar performance, or any other kind of malfunctioning, and I’m not the only one: Several Wirecutter staffers have owned this model for a decade and more without complaint.
What I appreciate most about my Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup, though, is that it’s all the food processor I need and more—but also less. Its performance has never underwhelmed me, and its functionality has never overwhelmed me. It isn’t laden with extra, mostly-for-show features that I’d likely never use, and its simplicity only enhances its ability to do the job quickly and correctly every time.
How much better of a food processor do you need than the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup? None better.
This article was edited by Catherine Kast and Marguerite Preston.
Rose Maura Lorre is a senior staff writer on the discovery team at Wirecutter. Her byline has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Salon, Business Insider, HGTV Magazine, and many more. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, and lots and lots of houseplants.
by Mace Dent Johnson and Michael Sullivan
Our favorite food processor is, as it has been for a decade, the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor . It’s a durable, no-frills kitchen workhorse.
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Anime Thermos Cup Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).