What Is a Food Processor and Do You Need It?

Last Updated on January 10, 2023

You’ve probably heard of food processors when watching cooking shows and might have seen them in the kitchens of your friends and family members. Yet, you might not be sure what food processors do, how they work, and even why they’re different from basic blenders.

A food processor can be a valuable appliance for the budding cook or experimental chef. Some chop vegetables and blend ingredients into soups, sauces, and pastes. Others are ideal for mixing up batters or creating ice cream. Today, we will give you an introductory guide into a food processor and make it so impressive.

Is a Food Processor the Same As a Blender?

A food processor is an electrical kitchen appliance similar to some standing blenders. Though blenders and food processors often look quite similar, they generally have a different purpose. Food processors are products intended to process (chop, blend, and mash) various foods for different meals. On the other hand, a blender only has a single direct function: to blend.

Food processors are great at making different segments of the food preparation experience faster and more efficient. These tools can work with precision and expertise to dice, chop, slice, and blitz in a matter of seconds. In addition, you can get specialist attachments like dough blades for mixing dough or unique blades for chopping and slicing various products to various sizes.

Food processors are multi-tasking accessories, often equipped with a wide range of functions. Most also feature a rotating gear to enable various attachments. Many food processors will come with additional functions for blending, so you can technically use a food processor as a blender if you don’t want to buy a separate mixing device. However, a blender can’t double up as a food processor because its only function is mixing wet and dry ingredients.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that food processors are always better than blenders. If you already have a mixing bowl and a blender, you can use these devices to help with various tasks, including mixing various foods, pulse chopping vegetables for sauces and smoothies, and more. Blenders can also come with different blade sets to give you more control over the blending level you can access.

Blenders often come with pourable designs, making them ideal accessories for making smoothies and other liquid recipes. However, since you can do everything from grating and shredding to mixing ice cream in a food processor, the storage bowl is often more basic.

What Is a Food Processor and How Does It Work?

A food processor is a multi-functional product capable of assisting with a wide range of kitchen tasks. For example, you can use your food processor to mix the dough, create your baby food, blend nuts and soups, or experiment with different recipes.

As a versatile kitchen appliance, your food processor can help with a wide range of tasks, from chopping cheese into fine cubes to dealing with huge quantities of dry materials. In addition, some of the best food processors come with a handy compact shape, so they’ll fit well into any kitchen.

The original food processor was first introduced in the 1970s by an engineer named Carl Sontheimer, who adapted a French industrial blender into something more manageable, versatile, and compact. The best appliances have come a long way since then. However, many of the components of a food processer remain similar, such as:

The Motor

Housed in the appliance base, the best food processors tend to have a strong motor that can handle the rapid movement of blades when chopping through various quantities of ingredients.

Attachments

These accessories are what make food processors so versatile. You can get different appliances for all kinds of projects, depending on your model. Some models come with storage components for attachments to help save space in the kitchen too.

A Bowl or Body

This is the part of the appliance where you store the ingredients you’re going to pulse, slice, or mix. The capacity of this section is important to consider when you’re choosing the right model for your needs.

The Lid

The lid often comes with a feed tube where you can insert the ingredients you want to add to the food processor for pulse mixing, grating, slicing, and so on. Most lids also have a “plunger” feature to help protect your fingers from the blade’s slicing.

Buttons

The buttons on a modern food processor should help you choose which food prep tasks you want to complete. You can tap these buttons to access pre-set modes like slicing, chopping, or grating.

Bonus Features

Some advanced food processors come with extra features like different bowl sizes, timing options for when you want to pulse chop ingredients, and so on. So make sure you check out all the best options and their features when making your choice.

What Does a Food Processor Do?

While blenders tend to combine liquid and solid materials, a food processor can also process completely dry foods. For example, you can use the appliance to chop nuts, cheese, and ingredients for soups without adding any liquid ingredients. The wide range of different attachment options for most modern processing models also means you have a lot of control over your “processing” options. A food processor can typically do a lot more than just chop ingredients. The best products could come with grating functions, knives to slice through products, bread and dough hooks, and various other attachments.

Food processors are highly versatile products, but they’re often also easy to use. Whether you’re making pastry or bread from scratch or making a unique sauce, all you need to do is press the right button on your food processor. The sharp blades make it easy to slice through the toughest ingredients. However, you will have to look after your attachments to get the best results.

Because of the sharp blades’ versatility and the shape of a food processing bowl, these products are particularly great at blending dry products. However, you may find that some soups, smoothie options, and liquid products get stuck under the blades and in various parts of the machine. This could mean that you typically return to your blender for soup, sauce, and smoothie making.

What Can I Make With a Food Processor?

Like the basic blender, a food processor is a fantastic solution for food prep, intended to help you combine various ingredients without a knife and mixing bowl. While blenders are excellent for mixing liquids for smoothies and soups, food processors are better equipped for slicing through dry ingredients. Tasks like mixing nuts or chopping up vegetables like carrots, celery and the like are simple with the sharp blade of a food processor.

Exactly what you can make with a food processor often depends on the model you get and the attachment you’re using. There are various attachment options on the market, such as the Sabatier blade, which uses two curved blades inside your processor bowl to shred and slice through ingredients. In addition, grating disks or the slicing blade attachments for your processor might be situated within the feed tube for the ingredients. You would then push the ingredients through the tube with the plunger to take advantage of those blades.

Like blenders, food processors come with different settings to speed up the food prep and cooking process. You can press a button, and create bowls of ingredients, perfectly prepped for bakers, chefs, and cooking enthusiasts in seconds.

Crucially, the best way to get the most out of your food processor is to read through the instructions before you begin. Typically, the instructions will show you how to start using the attachments and bowls correctly. You might even discover some recipes included with the product.

Do You Need a Food Processor?

If you’re looking for an appliance that can go above and beyond the benefits of basic blenders, a food processor could be the product for you. The best processor can handle all kinds of tasks that wouldn’t be possible for blenders, like efficiently mixing and chopping various dry ingredients.

Deciding whether you need a food processor requires you to think about the appliance you need to deal with the various cooking tasks you perform each day. For example, if you’re making many sauces, smoothies, and soups, blenders might be better suited to your needs. On the other hand, if you want access to chopping, grating, and mixing functions, a processor could give you more versatility, provided you have space.

Speeding Things Up

With the best processor, you can speed up all kinds of tasks, like making salsa, fruit salads, baby food, creamy soup and more. Bakers can even speed up complex tasks like mixing doughs and pastries with a food processor and the best attachments.

So now you know what a food processor is. You will know if this is the appliance you need or whether you need to opt for something different, like the blender. Do your research before you commit, and you won’t regret it!