Why a food processor is a great addition to your kitchen kit

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Even if you believe that your skills in the kitchen are less than amazing, the right appliance can make the world of difference to your cooking. In a busy family home, they can also save you lots of time.

But with the market flooded with options, it can be hard to work out which is the right appliance for you. If you’re looking to add a good all-rounder to your kitchen kit, a food processor is a great option.

How does a food processor work?

Food processors usually have a lidded bowl or jug, into which you place the food. They use a spinning blade to ‘process’ the contents of the bowl. Chopping, slicing and grating blades are usually included as standard, so you’ll be able to carry out a number of different processes using just one piece of kit.

Using a food processor to prepare your ingredients can save a lot of time. It also gives you evenly cut pieces of food, which will all take the same amount of time to cook.

What else can a food processor do?

The answer to this question depends on how much you’d like to spend.

As the price goes up, so does the specification of the appliance, which translates into additional functions and features. Where you can expect an entry-level unit to chop, grate and slice, high-spec models will also puree, blend, crush, mince and pulse.

Isn’t a food processor just a fancy blender?

A food processor and a blender both mix up ingredients, but the overall functionality is quite different.

Look at it this way: you can make milkshakes in a processor, but you can’t chop tomatoes in a blender. A blender is designed to mix and emulsify everything you put in it to an equal consistency, whereas a food processor tends to work the liquid component of the food to the edges, allowing a clean cutting process to take place.

Inspiration for using your food processor

Anything requiring chopped or blended ingredients is where the food processor really shines, but you can use it for lots more than making soups, preparing vegetables and whizzing up smoothies.

You can use a processor to make mayonnaise, breadcrumbs, pesto, nut butter, houmous, crumble topping, curry paste, crushed ice, and even dough. Having so many functions makes this particular appliance a great investment.

A shortcut to kitchen skills

If your cooking skills aren’t a match for famous TV chefs, a food processor will come to the rescue in a number of ways.

First of all, you won’t need fancy skills with a knife, as the machine can do all the chopping for you – and in super-quick time too.

Dough skills are another area where using a processor can replace doing it by hand. Bread dough, pizza dough and pasta dough can all be made in minutes.

If you’d like to achieve lump-free mash or a smooth puree, a food processor will do the job much better than mashing by hand. When my kids were tiny I found my processor to be particularly brilliant at pureeing baby food without the hassle or mess!

I definitely wouldn’t be without my food processor. It saves time, performs lots of functions, but only takes up the space of one appliance. There’s a wide range of products available to suit your budget too. What’s not to love?!

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