What we love: For many people, a Cuisinart food processor is the food processor. After all, they were the brand that first introduced the appliance to American markets in 1973. That half a century’s worth of brand reputation and good will from consumers is not without reason. It’s a powerful machine, with Mensa-sharp blades that slash chunky vegetables with uncompromising uniformity. It’ll puree bean dips smooth as K-beauty night creams, and mix pie crusts flaky enough to keep a family quiet and smiling through an election year Thanksgiving.
(I should say the Breville performs equally well, but I’m trying my best to give the Cuisinart its flowers because I tend to come down pretty hard on one particular aspect of using it, which I’ll speak to in a sec.)
A little more about why these machines are great: They have a nice weighted base that grounds the machine to the counter. In Cuisinart’s time producing these machines, the company has refined its attachment offerings to the most practical and functional. The components are all dishwasher-safe too (although I’d recommend hand-washing the work bowl, and other plastic components). The machines also last for decades. People pass them down for generations, and in the age of planned obsolescence it’s a rare quality for small electrics.
The biggest leg up this machine might have over our winner is its size. 14 cups really just feels like an ideal size, and other staffers, including frequent food processor user Shilpa Uskokovic, agree.
What we’d leave: The components of Cuisinart food processors are very fussy to fit together. Put anybody in front of one of these food processors and ask them to assemble it—I’ve done this with many different colleagues over years—each time, I guarantee it’ll be like watching a gibbon trying to solve a spatial reasoning puzzle. The assembly is just not intuitive. It feels like you’re forcing pieces together, and I find any instructional markings to be inadequate.
“But people have been using them for decades, obviously it’s not that big of a deal,” you say. Sure, it is far from unusable. And while there is always a learning curve to using a new appliance, I have witnessed every single Test Kitchen editor awkwardly struggle to put one of these together at one point or another —and they’re culinary professionals who use them regularly!
I get it, it is partially a safety mechanism, to make sure everything is exactly where it needs to be, but compared to the Breville, which is so seamless and intuitive and feels just as safe to use, I think it’s time that Cuisinart catches up.
Still, if you’re suspicious of Australian ingenuity for whatever reason (maybe the blades spin backwards), I still think that the Cuisinart Custom is a buy it for life kind of appliance. Just know that also means a lifetime of feeling like an idiot for a few seconds every time you’re in the mood to make pesto.
How we tested the food processors
My colleagues and I put each machine through four different tests to evaluate different aspects of its performance. I combined these observations with long-term testing notes from members of our team, who live and work with different models on a regular basis.
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