Eating a plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat.
And the most important tool in your toolbox, in my opinion, is the humble food processor.
While most people think of juicers and blenders when they hear the word vegan, a food processor is way more versatile and useful.
We use it in the preparation of almost every meal we make.
Why do you need a food processor
Spreads
The first and foremost reason we love our food processor is hummus.
Let’s be honest, as much fun as cooking is, sometimes you need to make something to eat fast.
And it’s so easy to take a can of chickpeas or beans, add some flax seeds or avocado, garlic and spices to create a healthy spread in 5 minutes.
Snacks/desserts
A healthy snack is not that difficult to make in a chopper.
Simply put the nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and spices in your food processor and you have the base for a great snack such as this one or this one.
Fruity creamy snacks such as this one or this one are made in your processor in no time as well!
And you will find that those healthy vegan cakes you might want to make are so much easier when you have a chopper at hand.
Chopping nuts and vegetables
A food processor/chopper will dice those onions, carrots or fresh spices in no time, saving so much time and effort while cooking.
We also use it to chop nuts.
Mixtures for baking
Baked patties, balls, casseroles…
They can all be made so much easier by throwing everything in the food processor and letting it do all the work.
Salads
Most food processors and choppers come with a shredding/slicing disk.
We use the slicing/slicing disk to chop our cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, green onions, fresh spices, avocadoes, carrots, apples and pretty much anything that goes into a salad.
Blend stuff
We have a designated blender for blending but you could get a food processor with a good quality blender if you choose so.
Nut butters
A powerful food processor will make nut butter or sprouted dough easily.
Dough
We love making whole wheat, preferably spelt or einkorn bread that are low in gluten and high in fiber/nutrition.
In most cases, we use our bread maker but a high-end food processor will knead the dough.
How to choose a food processor
Click here for our complete guide to choosing a food processor
It all depends on what you need and for how many people will you be cooking.
When do you require a large capacity food processor.
Cooking for many people
If you want to feed a lot of people, obviously you might want to get a larger unit (or be prepared to make several batches one after another).
We’d say that the capacity you need is about 3 cups per person.
That means that for a 3-4 person family a simple 10 cup $50 Hamilton Beach 525w might be enough to make decent quantities of hummus, snacks or baking mixtures.
Making large salads
We like our salads big and easy to make.
The food processor will slice your lettuce, cucumbers, avocadoes, herbs and shred those carrots, beets or apples.
If you want to make a big salad, you might want to get a big food processor or buy a designated electric salad maker/shredder.
We prefer a small food processor and a salad maker.
More power
A higher-end powerful food processor with a small and large bowl will have a lot of power even for small tasks.
That means that you will be able to follow every recipe with ease, create nut butter and dough.
