20 Best Food Processor Under $50 (2023 Updated)

I recently got the KitchenAid 3. 5 Cup Food Chopper, in black. We have had a similar KitchenAid Food Chopper for over a decade. It’s a little powerhouse. My wife, who is the accomplished cook in the house, uses it so much that she wanted a backup.

The review is from her perspective, which I tried to capture. In the box you get the chopper motor housing, the 3. 5 cup container, with locking lid and with drizzle spout and pour spout, the blade/shaft/adapter, and documentation.

Key notes include the fact that the container and all items that fit in the container/on the container are top-rack dishwasher safe. The construction of the motor housing and other components are all KitchenAid quality… very durable, especially when compared to other manufacturers.

Blades are super sharp, as one would expect. And the cord included is substantial, yet fits neatly around the housing to keep the cord organized when not in use. In addition, the feet on the bottom of the housing keep the unit in place when chopping, while reducing vibration.

Ingenious. The sturdy lid (and the chopper container) lock solidly into place to ensure that neither comes loose while in use. Neither she nor I knew what the hole was for on the lid of our current chopper.

And, given we now had the instructions for the new chopper, we decided to check them out. Low and behold, the hole is a drizzle spout for slowly adding in oils to dressings, etc. , without having to remove the locked lid.

Will wonders never cease? The chopper offers two speeds (chop and puree) and a pulse option. You lock the lid and body in place and hold down the integrated pulse/on “button” on the lid (by the handle, where your thumb would be as you hold the container, if you were pouring it) to chop or puree.

The unit will not turn on unless the lid and body are securely locked in place. You pulse by quickly pressing and releasing the pulse/on button. Make sure to read the instructions if you have any questions (I wish we would’ve years ago).

They’re very clear and easy to read. But, even without the instructions, this thing is super easy to use and has a very powerful motor. My wife has made chimichurri with it (parsley, garlic, and oil) for steaks, salsa, pico de gallo, peanut butter, and a ton of other things.

According to her, it’s great for chopping/mincing onions for burgers, awesome for chopping nuts for baking and for use as ice cream toppings, and excellent at chopping fruits for jams. I asked her for her overall rating, she said that it’s a solid five-star.

I asked her why. She said that the KitchenAid 3. 5 cup chopper that we currently have has served her well for years. And, showing true KitchenAid quality, while the one we have isn’t showing signs of slowing down yet… even after years of hard use… after trying this one to make sure it worked just as well, cleaning it up and storing it for when our current one eventually calls it quits, she said that she has no problem recommending this little gem to others.

Give the KitchenAid 3. 5 cup chopper a go folks. You won’t be disappointed.

I am soo soo pleased and impressed with this food chopper by KitchenAid! It comes packaged well. It’s very easy to open and there is barely any assembly needed before you can happily chop away whatever food you need chopped! It’s got a easy manual to read and Instructions are very easy! Clean up is a snap and it’s machine washable! Meal prep is much easier with the KitchenAid mini food processor.

It is a small food chopper, which makes it easy to store between your pans. Once you get it out, you can use it to cut vegetables like raw onions, carrots and tomatoes for salads (short use of the shopper) or soup (longer use).

But also to prepare meat for dog food, or to make powder sugar or chocolate sprinkles. Between all those cutting sessions, you easily clean bowl, lit and knife in the dishwasher. You’ll chop, mix, and puree your way to quick creations and fresh options.

From KitchenAid. Includes KFC3516BM mini food processor base, 3. 5-cup bowl, lid, locking blade, and manual Handle and pour spout Plastic/stainless steel construction. Dishwasher-safe bowl, lid, and blade.

To open the lid. It’s done by turning it off, which is a lot different then just trying to tear it off. But, once you figured that out, it’s easy to close it. Once closed and attached to electricity, you just put it on by closing the lid with your thumb.

Lift your thumb, and it will immediately stop chopping. This makes it easy to dose how small you want your sugar/veggies/meat or chocolate. There is only 1 switch on it: to differ between cutting hard and cutting really hard.

I will use this till I cant anymore lol. It’s really a good kitchen tool to have!.

This KitchenAid 3. 5 cup food chopper is truly a must have in the kitchen. This little chopper takes up very little room but it is such a great kitchen appliance to have. I use this in the morning and throw onions, peppers, and tomatoes into it chop them up and then cracks eggs into the mixture and chop them just a little to blend it really well.

It makes the best western omelets. I use it to chop up celery and onion for chicken salad or tuna salad. If you want to make salsa or homemade guacamole it’s the perfect size and you don’t have to get out the big huge food processor because this does such a great job when you don’t have a lot to do.

It literally takes a minute to chop up a whole onion or 3 minutes to make homemade fresh salsa. It also will puree foods and it has a hole in the top so if you want to make your own salad dressings or pesto you can add oil while it’s processing your other ingredients.

The quality of this is just superb and I can highly recommend this product. It is super simple to use as well and very easy for cleanup, in fact I put a couple of drops of dish soap in the food processor with warm water, pulse it a few times and finally rinse with very hot water and it’s clean.

My Wife says “this is the BEST EVER” kitchen gadget! Wow!!! What an accolade! We have had many, many, many “gadgets”, but none as good as this! Firstly it is reasonably priced, especially for it’s quality.

It is so, so simple to use, and, more to the point a fantastic chopper! From rough vegetable or salad sides to finely diced for soups and spreads! Our first vegetable was squash, so hard and definitely a great test for any chopper, and, it dealt with it so easily.

We added carrots and potatoes and still it kept cutting finer and finer. The soup was fabulous. We then used it for salad and also fruit, with the same delicious end results. The action is very easy, with just a pull on the handle, which fits into the lid perfectly for storage.

It is extremely easy to clean and fits snuggly in a cupboard or drawer when storing. All in all a quality piece of kit at a very good price, which does EXACTLY what it is supposed to do. Brilliant *****.

Easy to order, fast delivery and good price. Nifty little gadget which so far, i’ve used to cut up onions, chop salad items, and make courgette fritters. It’s easier to control the size of veg than when using my electrical processor.

Of course, it’s only a small size but this suits me fine. I don’t fill it up too full and although it has a rubber bottom, it does have to be held down at the same time as pulling the cord. I look forward to experimenting!.

Bought 2 of the same item as one is going to be given as a gift. Have used one before and its a brilliantly simple device for chopping any sort of veg, herbs and items such as baby food. Service from Harts was prompt and delivered by Royal Mail and items were as ordered.

Also impressed with the packaging as starch, water-soluble ‘worms’ were used instead of polystyrene, so much greener. Would much prefer to order from a family-run company rather than the giants of the internet so will probably be ordering from you in the future.

I became plant-based 4 years ago and unfortunately this is the second ninja I have bought in 3 years. Unfortunately I will not buy another one of these food processors or smoothie makers in the future! This thing has become nothing but a hassle and something that leaks with tiny little plastic parts that hold food and crevice in.

If you’re going to use this once a week it’s a great thing if you don’t mind going deaf. But if you’re using this every morning like I do and sometimes two to three times a day if my wife or I have a second one.

This is what we get it leaks every time. The ninja is a great machine for three months and then it begins to leak I proceed to buy new attachments but after three months they all begin to leak the cups warp into ovals really just a cheap made piece of plastic.

The engine will last at least 2 years but it will make a mess every single time you use it so you will have to clean out the base which is such a pain and impossible to get cleaned perfectly. I promise I will stay away from this in the future and when I show up at the job in the morning and people see me drinking a smoothie I tell them never to buy the ninja piece of s***! And proceed to tell them how bad this is and it’s the second one I’ve owned in just a short recent amount of time.

You guys are like the Ryobi tool line. If you’re going to use you on a weekend basis it will work for my lifetime if I don’t mind all the other faults of the machine but that’s what you get when you pay for something cheap.

Unfortunately this is one of the cheapest smoothie makers and blenders on the market that they charge too much for. I tell you if you’re going to use this on an everyday basis avoid ninja smoothie and blenders like the plague because they will do nothing but cause you heartache mess and a lot of cleanup that is not needed for a simple smoothie!.

I have no idea how I used to not have one of these things in my life. works very quickly to prepare a dizzying array of vital components to almost every meal I make. It kneads dough. I totally didn’t expect that, and it works really well.

Plenty of power for that. The construction seems sturdy as well. I find that I don’t really use the programs, and instead just pulse it a few times for most applications. I do use ‘puree’ when making hummus, but otherwise, pulsing seems to do the trick.

My only complaint is it’s a bit loud while operating, but that’s probably the case with all others as well. It works so quickly that it only runs for a few seconds for things like vegetables, so it’s hard to be bothered by the noise.

Our 30-year-old La Machine food processor finally gave up the ghost after struggling to make cashew butter. I did some research (actually a LOT of research) for the replacement processor and finally selected this Ninja unit.

The old La Machine had one speed – and you had to hold the Pulse button down while it ran. This new Ninja has all sorts of features that put the old machine to shame. The Ninja has both LOW and HIGH as well as PULSE.

It also has a button for chop (runs a couple of seconds, then pauses, then runs, a second pause, and a final two-second run), and three other buttons I haven’t tested yet. Also comes with a plastic “soft ingredient” hook for mixing things like cookie dough.

Also a double-sided disc that slices on one side and shreds on the other. Haven’t tried these features yet. Note: I read the manual that came with it. You cannot chop ice with this unit. You cannot run it under water.

It does not do Word Processing, either (smile). Do not try any of the things that the Does It Blend? website puts into its blender, either. Just make food. So far, I have made pesto with it. My spouse has used it several times.

We are both favorably impressed. Oh, and the rubber suction feet hold the unit steady on the counter while it is spinning, whether pulsing, on LOW, or on HIGH. My old La Machine had to be held down during use, or it would jerk sideways during use.

The 14 qt Cuisinart food processor is a good machine. My frustration, echoed in previous reviews, is that the company had to mess up a good thing. The previous model was fantastic. I still have my 35 or 40 year old model, with perfectly intact motor, base and blades, however, there is no replacement for the bowl that recently cracked.

Would love to buy a replacement bowl, for all the reasons one would want to do that. Can’t! So, now I have the new fangled bowl design which is truly stupid! Cumbersome, hard to clean/dry, and, the little pin that extends down is made of plastic and it’s just calling out “Break me!” Motor seems fine, and at least they didn’t change the base design with on/pulse levers, but this bowl.

ugh! Ridiculous design.

The machine works well, however, I prefer the original Cuisinart food processor (c. late 1990s) to this new model. The chopping/mixing/dough blade sits too high in the 14-cup work bowl of the new model, which results in incomplete and inadequate mixing of certain foods.

The s-blade of my old Cuisinart food processor rested flat in its bowl. In the new 14-cup model, for example, blending flour, butter, and milk together for a quiche crust has resulted in overly wet and lumpy mixtures that require additional adjusting outside of the mixing bowl (a problem I never had with my old Cuisinart food processor).

When making salsa in the new Cuisinart, large pieces of vegetables are left unincorporated because the chopping/mixing/dough blade rests too high in the work bowl. Again, I never had a problem with food being unincorporated after blending in my old Cuisinart food processor.

Another reason I wish that I still had my old Cuisinart is that it was a more elegant machine to look at and, more importantly, to use. The new food processor is overly cumbersome to assemble. Perhaps there is a learning curve, perhaps I will learn to love this new food processor with more use.

At this time it feels clunky to the touch. The new safety features with the feed tube and small and large pushers make the machine feel awkward. Connecting the stem to the shredding and slicing disc is also clunky and cumbersome.

I wish I still had my old machine because it was better than this new one.

Small but efficient. If you are in the market for a small appliance that can do the things that you want to simplify your kitchen experience then this processor is for you. I wanted something that would chop nuts and vegetables and be an easier way for me to mix up things that I didn’t want to use my larger blender for.

I had a recipe for date protein balls and had tried using the blender to chop the dates. It worked but not as easily as when I got the processor. The dates were soften first and chopped so easily it made me make an extra batch to give away as a gift.

This machine is very good at grinding and chopping, but I found it’s mixing capabilities not as good as expected. It is harder to clean and get food out of the bowl because it has ridges on the inside of the bowl than a cuisinart.

It is very finicky about it’s lock in. There is not a lot of instruction material about the different uses of the attachments or the speeds recommended for different foods. I had a cuisinart before I owned this.

I find that the cuisinart is more user friendly, but this machine has more power and chops better. I recommend that anyone buying this machine buy a little bush to get into all the little areas designed in the chopping chopping blade and the bowls.

I found a toothbrush works well.

Bought as a wedding present, this Braun Food Processor has many features that make it outstandingly good when compared with the current competition, despite (or possibly because of) being a ‘tribute’ design.

I hope that Braun continue to make Food Processors!.

My 20+ year old version of this food processor is going to Goodwill today. It still looks and runs fantastic, but a few things are wearing out on it. Besides we got a sexy new one delivered today with lots of sturdier accessories.

I have no doubt this one will last 20+ years as well. Ive already made a soup with it.

Most people buy food processors with all kinds of dishes in mind that they could prepare. I cook a lot so don’t take this the wrong way, but I mainly wanted this to make spaghetti sauce. My husband is the pickiest eater and we love our spaghetti and meatballs but making it is usually a nightmare.

Onions and peppers need to be basically moosh if he’s going to eat the sauce. No chunks. For the longest time I had been using something from a different company, slapping and chopping *wink wink* the veggies spending way too much time and strength on creating the “moosh.

” It was awful. Insert the Hamilton Stack and Snap Food Processor to the rescue! THIS CREATES THE MOOSH I NEED! I will use this product for many other dishes but for this review, I had to explain my excitement.

Using the pulse to chop up the onions and peppers, then switching to the puree function shaved off 35 minutes of prep time for spaghetti sauce. It is all dishwasher safe, so more time saved not having to wash all the pieces by hand.

This is a wonderful product!.