There are certain items that people associate so strongly with a particular brand, any suggestion of using one made by another manufacturer is met with immediate skepticism and disbelief. (Call it the Kleenex phenomenon.) For food processors, that brand is Cuisinart.
We get it: Cuisinart introduced the appliance to the American market in 1973, so generations of people know it as the food processor to buy. But the appliance landscape has changed a lot in the past 50 years, and brand power alone—at least to our product testing team—is not enough to sway our decisions when determining which products are the best of the best.
Which brings us to the Breville Sous Chef. The food processor has been our top pick for several years now, and even though we’ve had to field a few heated comments and flippant accusations that our choices are bought and paid for (they are not!!), we stand by our selection—and I’ll tell you why.
In this article
How we tested the Breville Sous Chef
We regularly try new food processors in order to make sure our list of recommendations stays fresh. During testing we blitz up veggies, make hummus, shred cheese, and make pie crust to get a sense of how each machine and its attachments perform against each other. For this review, we also spoke with members of the Bon Appétit reviews, cooking, and test kitchen teams who live with the Sous and cook with it on a regular basis in order to learn how it performs after months—or years—of use.
What makes the Breville Sous Chef so great
The Breville Sous Chef is the most user-friendly food processor we’ve tried. It combines the powerful performance of a premium machine with an intuitive design that’s an absolute breeze to use.
Because food processors contain a spinning, razor-sharp blade attached to a powerful motor, they have safety features built in to prevent any accidental maimings. This is important and good! But our biggest gripe with the classic Cuisinart design is how finicky these elements can be. Fumbling to lock the work bowl and lid into place is a quintessential Cuisinart experience—but now that I’ve used the Breville Sous, I know it doesn’t have to be this way.
In stark comparison to Cuisinart’s fussy components, the Breville has an easy-to-lock design. Each part of the food processor is clearly marked with symbols that show how to fit the pieces together, and it all snaps into place without agita. This might seem like a small gripe, but we’ve found in long-term testing that the easier an appliance is to use, the more inclined you’ll be to power it up.
These smart details are found throughout the whole appliance. The work bowl has volumetric measurements written on the side so that you can measure liquid ingredients right in the bowl. And, crucially, the spindle that connects the blade to the motor isn’t permanently affixed to the machine’s base (as is the case with most food processors), but rather attaches to the inside of the bowl. With the more common design, the work bowl has a big hole in the bottom in order to fit over the spindle. This means you can only add ingredients when the bowl is attached to the base of the machine, which can be messy or hazardous when you’re working with liquids. Because the Breville Sous’s work bowl is hole-free, you can bring it to the sink to add water or place it on a food scale to add your dry ingredients—no pre-measuring and transferring from one vessel to another necessary.
