The Best Large Food Processors

What "large" means, and what the number is not

In this category large runs from about 9 cups to 14 cups. Above 14 you are into commercial equipment with a commercial price; below 9 you are in the mid-size band we cover in what size food processor you need.

The important caveat is what the figure measures. A cup rating is dry capacity — the volume of the bowl with the lid on. It is not how much soup you can purée, because a food processor's drive shaft passes through the bottom of the bowl and liquid leaks past it well before the bowl is full. No maker in this category publishes a separate liquid capacity, which means the honest rule of thumb is to treat the safe liquid line as roughly half the stated cups and watch the bowl. If pouring hot liquid is a regular job, a blender is the correct tool and we say so in blender vs food processor.

The second thing the cup figure does not tell you is how much counter and cabinet the machine occupies. These are tall appliances, because the feed tube has to sit above the bowl: the DFP-14 stands 14.8 inches, the Ninja 16 inches, and KitchenAid's 13-cup 17.4 inches. A standard upper cabinet clears about 18 inches above the counter, so the biggest machines here live on the counter permanently or come out of a low cupboard each time. Decide that before you decide on capacity.

What to rank a big processor on instead

Once you are past 9 cups, every machine here will chop an onion. The differences that show up over years are these three, and all three are published.

• Motor warranty, separately from unit warranty. This is the single most informative number on a food-processor listing. Both big Cuisinarts publish a full 5-year warranty on the motor alongside a limited 3-year on the rest of the unit — though on the Pro Custom 11, Amazon's structured warranty field says one year while Cuisinart's own bullet on the same page says 3-year unit and 5-year motor. The table above prints the structured field; we flag the disagreement rather than quietly taking the better number. Hamilton Beach publishes 1 year limited, Ninja 1 year. A maker that warranties the motor for five years is telling you where it expects the machine to fail, and when.
• Weight. A food processor works by resisting the torque of a blade hitting something hard. The 14-cup Cuisinart weighs 18 lb and the 11-cup 17 lb, both die-cast; the 10-cup Hamilton Beach weighs 4.7 lb and is held still by suction-cup feet, which is a reasonable engineering answer at the price but a different one. Weight is the cheapest proxy for build quality you can read off a listing.
• How many discs come in the box. Discs are expensive to add later. The two Cuisinarts arrive with a slicing disc, a shredding disc, a blade and a detachable stem; Hamilton Beach arrives with one reversible slicing/shredding disc and a blade. Count the pieces, then price the gap.

Note what we do not rank on. Wattage is published inconsistently and measured differently: Cuisinart states 720 W for the 14-cup and 625 W for the 11-cup as continuous motor ratings, while Ninja states 1,000 peak watts — a peak figure, which is not comparable with a continuous one. We print both as published and do not pretend the bigger number means the stronger machine.

If you searched for a 13-cup food processor

There is one 13-cup machine in this category: KitchenAid's KFP1318. It is genuinely interesting — it has the only externally adjustable slicing disc in our whole catalog, letting you change thickness from thick to thin without swapping discs, plus a 3-in-1 feed tube and an in-bowl caddy that stores every blade inside the machine.

It also has no buyable offer at our last price check, which is why it is named here rather than featured, and why there is no price button for it. We apply this rule consistently across the site: a model with nothing to buy gets described with the reason instead of ranked. If adjustable slicing is the feature you actually came for, the honest alternatives are a mandoline for thickness control, or the comparison in Cuisinart vs KitchenAid. Otherwise, 14 cups is one cup more for a machine you can buy today.

The picks, in order

Cuisinart DFP-14BCNY — the 14-cup default

This is the machine the rest of the category is measured against, and the spec sheet explains why. A 14-cup bowl, a 720-watt motor, an extra-large feed tube with a sleeve assembly that takes both a large and a small pusher, on/off and pulse, and a detachable disc stem that makes the whole thing dismantle for washing. In the box: a stainless 4 mm slicing disc, a medium shredding disc and the chopping/mixing blade, all dishwasher-safe.

The warranty is the real argument: limited 3-year on the unit, full 5-year on the motor. At 18 lb and 7.9 × 11 × 14.8 inches it is heavy and narrow rather than wide, which is the better footprint shape for a crowded counter.

One limit Cuisinart publishes itself, in a bullet headed "note to consumer": the shredding and slicing discs are not adjustable. Thickness is fixed in the metal at 4 mm. If you need control over slice thickness, this machine will not give it to you at any price. Full detail in our Cuisinart DFP-14 review, and the slicing question specifically in best food processors for slicing vegetables.

Cuisinart Pro Custom 11 — the same machine, one bowl down

The 11-cup DLC-8SY is the value pick on this page and, for most households, the right one. A 625-watt motor platform, the same extra-large feed tube, and a slightly better box than its bigger sibling: it ships with a dough blade as well as the chopping and mixing blade, a medium shredding disc, a 4 mm medium slicing disc, a detachable stem, a spatula and both pushers. Cuisinart also states it is BPA free.

Cuisinart's bullet states the same full 5-year motor and limited 3-year unit warranty as the 14-cup (Amazon's structured field disagrees and says one year — see above). It weighs 17 lb, and at 11.25 × 7 × 14.5 inches is a touch shorter than the 14-cup. Eleven cups handles a double batch of hummus, a pound of cheese, or pastry for two pies. The only reason to step up is if you routinely process more than that in one go — see best food processors for dough for where bowl volume genuinely limits you.

Hamilton Beach 10-Cup — the cheapest real big bowl

A genuine 10-cup bowl and a 450-watt motor for a fraction of the Cuisinarts, with two speeds plus pulse and one clever feature neither Cuisinart has: a built-in bowl scraper you slide from side to side without removing the lid, while the machine is running or stopped. If your annoyance with food processors is stopping to scrape, that is worth real money.

The honest trades are build and tooling. It weighs 4.7 lb and relies on suction-cup feet for stability rather than mass; it comes with one reversible slicing/shredding disc rather than two separate discs; and the warranty is 1 year limited with no separate motor term. All removable parts are dishwasher-safe and all food-contact zones are stated BPA-free. It is also the lead pick on our best budget food processors page, which is the right place to read about it if price is the binding constraint.

Ninja Professional Plus BN601 — presets and a dough blade

At 9 cups (Ninja states the bowl as 72 oz) this is the smallest machine on the page, and it earns a slot for a different reason: it is the only one here with Auto-iQ preset programs — four of them, for chopping, slicing, puréeing and dough — which pulse and pause on a timed pattern rather than leaving you to judge it. It also includes a dedicated dough blade, and Ninja publishes 1,000 peak watts.

Read "peak" carefully: it is the momentary figure, not a continuous rating, so it is not comparable with Cuisinart's 720 W. The warranty is 1 year. At 16 inches tall it is the second tallest machine here despite having the smallest bowl, because the motor sits under a narrow 7.76-inch base. Buy it if you want the machine to make the timing decisions; our Ninja BN601 review has the detail, and Cuisinart vs Ninja sets the two philosophies side by side.

The verdict

Buy the Cuisinart DFP-14BCNY if you want the biggest bowl and the longest motor warranty in the category, and you have 15 inches of cabinet clearance to give it. Buy the Pro Custom 11 if you want that same 5-year motor and die-cast build in a bowl size most kitchens will never outgrow — this is the pick we would make with our own money. Buy the Hamilton Beach 10-Cup if the budget is the constraint and the bowl scraper appeals, accepting one disc and a one-year warranty. Buy the Ninja BN601 if you would rather press a button than judge a pulse. And if you arrived looking for 13 cups, buy 14 — the 13-cup machine is not currently purchasable.