The Freshest Food Processor Recipes
If you don’t own a food processor, or if the one you have is collecting dust in some dark cabinet, now’s the time to discover the versatility of this essential kitchen device. The end-of-summer harvest means farmers’ markets are bursting with produce that can be turned into fresh sauces, pies, purees, and more. And if you caught our report this week on contaminated ground beef, you’ll be happy to learn that you can easily grind your own in a capable food processor. Here’s how to get the most out of the machine, along with several top picks from Consumer Reports’ latest food processor tests.
Dips, spreads, and sauces. That last-of-the-season basil is your base for a delicious pesto—just blitz it in the processor, along with garlic, pine nuts, oil, Parmesan cheese, and a dash of salt and pepper. Fresh tomatoes, especially those ripe, knobby specimens you see this time of year at farm stands, will yield a flavorful sauce. Hummus and bean dips are a cinch to make in a food processor, especially a machine that delivered uniform chopping and pureeing results in our tests, like the top-rated Breville BFP800XL/A.
Condiments and salad dressing are also easy to create in the food processor, and they cost less that way compared with store-bought products. Homemade mayonnaise, for example, is made by pulsing together egg, vinegar, and mustard, plus salt and pepper (using a pasteurized egg product can prevent the risk of salmonella poisoning). Then slowly pour in about a cup of oil; the best processors have small holes in their pushers that make this easy.
Make more dough. Our top-rated food processors, including the Cuisinart DFP-14BCN, come with a special blade for kneading dough. All it takes is flour, yeast, and a few other basic ingredients to turn out perfect pizza dough, topped with fresh tomatoes, basil, and other farm-fresh ingredients. A food processor is also helpful in creating crusts for pies and tarts filled with seasonal fruits. Simply cut in the chilled butter, pulse with flour and salt, and process in the ice water.
While we’re on the subject of baking, zucchini bread is another summer classic that’s facilitated by a food processor. The majority of models we tested were very good or better at shredding, which is how you prepare zucchini in most recipes. The Cuisinart Elite Die-Cast 16-Cup food processor adds an extra-wide feed tube and its reversible shredding disc lets you to grate thick or thin shreds.
Grind it out. Home-ground meat for burgers, meatballs, chili, and the like is safer than the store-bought stuff, since whole cuts of meat are less likely to be contaminated than mass-produced, pre-ground packages. For best results, start with chuck roast or marbled sirloin, cut the meat into 1-inch cubes, and freeze it for about 20 minutes, until the edges are stiff. This will help the food processor’s steel blade cut through the meat cleanly. Be careful not to overprocess the meat. Instead, use the pulse button to deliver short bursts until the meat is coarsely ground.
Food processors that ace our chopping tests should also be proficient at grinding. One to consider is the Oster Versa 1100 Series Performance. At $150, it's very well-priced, plus it doubles as a blender, though it didn't perform to quite the same level in that capacity, especially in our smoothie/icy drink test.
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