I enjoy having multiple options and or attachments if possible, but I don’t want to sacrifice any individual functionality. Something reliable would be a pre-requisite.
I generally trust America’s test kitchen for reccomendations for these kinds of things.
Massively helpful if you actually say where you live…
I think that pretty much any food processor can do hummus. Not exactly a heavy load.
I use a small Kitchenaid food processor from some time back. Works fine (and hummus is really the reason I have it).
Alacrity… the terminal?
/jBreville.
My wife worked at a fancy kitchen store for a long time. She tested out a whole lot of small appliances, demo’d them for customers, saw what people returned and exchanged, etc. and generally knows what’s what.
And her general advice is to go breville for basically every small kitchen appliances. I can really only think of 4 exceptions- KitchenAid for stand mixers, Vitamix for blenders, croquade for waffle makers, and the Ninja Crispi for countertop air fryers.
I’ve really put our breville sous chef through it’s pages over the years, Shen had it since before we started dating to easily more than 10 years, and it’s still going strong.
I’ve had good luck with most of my Breville devices. This tracks. Tell her I say thanks! (I love my Breville BOV900BSS Air Fryer toaster oven though, so she’s right AND wrong! 😂)
We do also have a breville toaster oven/air fryer (slightly different model though) and do love it. Probably use it more and get better results from it than our regular oven.
It is not, however, the greatest air fryer out there. It’s certainly passably but we definitely get better results from the crispi, and the Ninja is much easier to clean.
I whole-heartedly recommend their toaster ovens without reservation. And if you lack the storage/counter space for a dedicated air fryer o it will certainly do.
My one wish is that they’d make a toaster oven with a rotisserie.
Breville toaster oven gang rise up. It has pretty much replaced my gas oven, which I’ll only use in the rare instance I’m cooking something that won’t fit in the toaster oven. Best money I ever spent
It preheats so much faster, and fits a small turkey. Why use the energy for the big one? Mine is also a fairly good dehydrator.
Yeah, ours works great as a dehydrator, I just wish it came with more dehydrator racks. You can order more I’ve just never gotten around to doing it
While I second the breville recommendation in general, I have the Breville food processor. It’s lovely and does everything, but it’s not heavy enough. It’s heavy, but lacks the real weight it needs to counter its serious motor. I have to hold it while using it, which makes it cumbersome.
It does an excellent job, especially at grating and slicing with its adjustable disc, but it annoys me enough that the blender gets used as a food processor more often than it should.
I honestly can’t say I’ve experienced that.
It might be that newer or different models are lighter, like I said, mine is over 10 years old.
Or it could be down to something goofy like your countertops being smoother than mine (not unlikely, I have some shitty laminate counters that are pretty beat to hell)
Don’t know for sure. It’s the 1000w, 12 cup model. It mainly has issues when I’m chopping something dense with the standard blade.
It won’t jump off the counter, but if I don’t have a hand on it, it will shift and try to “shake” walk away.
Mines a 16 cup model, so that could be the difference.
I don’t think mine has ever moved at all when I’m using it, and I’ve done just about everything you could ever want to do with a food processor.
The only time I’ve seen it struggle with anything was when I had it almost full of ground beef to make homemade hot dogs. It got it done, but it wasn’t happy about it, and I’m pretty sure that emulsifying that sort of quantity of meat would be a struggle for any machine that could reasonably fit on a countertop.
Take a look at stick blenders. They are very versatile and eliminate a lot of the junk that comes with traditional food processors/blenders.
I agree - I make a lot of soup, and can use the stick blender directly in the saucepan. So much easier to clean than a jug blender.
I recently got myself an Ankarsrum kitchen assistant with the accessories for mixing, juicing, shredding, slicing, grinding etc. I don’t do much baking but I figured I’d have one 1500W beast of an electric motor doing all the things instead of several smaller, weaker ones. It’s surprisingly quiet too. Made in Sweden with a 7 year warranty is a big plus for me.
Top o the line: Robot Coupe (expensive, but will last forever)
Inexpensive but good enough and will do the job well: the Ninja one with the multiple attachments (blender base with a food processor and other things to go on top). We have one and it’s been working out well.
This is something of a branch-off point, BUT-- if you envision doing any ‘hard grinding’ prep (like grinding nuts in to nut butter) or making fresh juice from fruits & veggies, well then, VITAMIX blenders have a pretty great reputation for being real workhorses. For that reason they’re pricey just as you’d expect, but can still be found used online, or in thrift stores, etc.
They also have strong, generous warranties as I understand it, being covered for up to 10yrs I think, with shipping costs covered both ways. I personally have my eye on them as someone who already has a couple juicers, but doesn’t like the idea of having leftover pulp. (plus, juicers can be a pain to clean on a regular basis) So for a Vitamix, the whole juice prep is done right in the single container, easy to clean afterwards, and if you still don’t want the pulp, you can strain it out.
Okay, there’s my dos centavos.
I bought mine refurbished directly from Vitamix and saved a fair bit. Daily usage, so I wanted the full warranty.
Mind sharing the model and price?
The 5200, kind of a modern version of the classic original.
It was around $550 CAD, about $150 off at the time. Search the manufacturer’s website for “reconditioned”, and keep checking as the stock changes.
Vitamix blenders truly are in a class by themselves. As far as I know, they’re the only blenders that include cooling fans to keep the motor from overheating. And if you do somehow manage to overload it, the thing automatically shuts off until it has cooled down to the point where it’s safe to run again. They’re virtually impossible to damage, short of active vandalism.
Their motto really should be “Fuck the worst case scenario.”
Excellent! I didn’t know those things, but it gives me even more confidence. Thank you.
(what I didn’t mention above is that yes, I actually did irrevocably ruin the motor in a blender, one time when I was trying to make some nut butter)
I have actually used one for hummus (although not nut butter, which I DO do) and it does work well. However there are 2 inherent problems: hummus is sticky and gets flung to the sides and sticks, so you have to go in with a spatula several times during your blend to scrape the sides. The second is that the bottom is narrow, because it’s a blender of course, and the blades take up a lot of that small space, so getting your hummus out of there is annoying and difficult, and there’s always a lot of waste because you can’t get it all.
Yeah, I get you on that stuff. If it helps, when making hummus (oof, it’s been a while), I’ve found that adding oil or water helps with that kind of thing. And I happen to greatly prefer creamy hummus to thick, so…
Alternatively, what I’ve done, after manually removing as much as I can, is to add some water (doesn’t need to be too much) cover the container, and shake it all around. Then pour the result back in to your main hummus, mix, and Bob’s your avuncular figure. You should be able to get most of the goodness that way.
Last thing-- I do believe Vitamix makes a huge range of models, so I’d guess that there would likely be fat-bottomed models as well. (thanks, Freddy)
You said doo-doo
Well, I certainly hope so.
Hummus is best made in a blender. Smooth and fluffy. Also a blender is good for making nut butters. I use the 710 ML bullet on my Ninja and a can of chickpeas with just a little of the liquid as the base for hummus (plus lemon, garlic, olive oil, etc.). I have to puree all my husband’s food so it gets used almost daily and it’s holding up well. Noisy though.
A food processor is best for things like chimichurri or pesto, where you want to keep a little texture. And of course all the other things it can do. I have one but it isn’t especially good, I’ve had better.
Wirecutter:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-food-processor/
Consumer Reports:
I’ve posted a pdf of the Consumer Reports article here.
Americas Test Kitchen also recommends the Cuisinart 14 cup food processor.
Gotta confirm. It’s built like a tank and bloody heavy. Wife has had one for over 15 years and it still works as well as it did when she first got it. It may as well be commercial grade. It may be expensive but you won’t ever have to buy another.
I inherited my cuisinart food processor, it’s from the early ‘80s or so, going strong. I do use a stick blender a lot more, though.
Chiming in to remind people to check with their library to see if it gives them full access to Consumer Reports.
I subscribe to them. But they are not ALWAYS correct, and sometimes are out of date, and sometimes it’s just numbers, without any written analysis. So I like to solicit multiple sources of opinion and experience.
And they’re quite a bit off for electronics. Rtings is WAY better.
Do you like the Rtings pick for best noise cancelling headphones? I have a knee jerk aversion to anything audio coming from Sony for sound quality, but I believe the headphones might be different?
Yup! They’re great. We decided to splurge for a subscription this year, but they’re the GOAT when it comes to consumer reviews.
A few years ago I was looking at buying a new food processor and a new blender. I wanted to buy something that would not wear out easily and that I could probably still get parts for if either one ever needed repair. Price was a bit of a factor but I was willing to pay for quality. I finally settled on a Cuisinart 14 cup food processor (DFP-14BKSY) and a Vitamix Standard (5200) blender. Both are professional quality and have been very reliable since the day I bought them more than five years ago.
The secret to alacritous hum is to soak the chickpeas in water with a little baking soda. Makes it restaurant smooth. Any processor will do.
I’ve been using this one for like 7 or 8 years now with no complaints
