Consumer Reports: Types of food processors for your homemade meals during COVID-19 pandemic

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- With millions of people unable to head out to their local restaurants and self-quarantining in full effect in many parts of the country during the novel coronavirus, you're probably cooking a lot more homemade meals. Consumer Reports says a food processor can help you with all of that chopping and prepping. We've got expert recommendations to help you conquer all those kitchen tasks.

Smaller food choppers are helpful when you need to prep only a handful of something like herbs or nuts. Consumer Reports ran a series of food-prepping tests to find the best of each variety.

Testers grated Parmesan cheese to check for consistency. Bricks of cheddar cheese and bunches of carrots were fed into the appliances to assess their shredding capability. Onions and almonds were used to check the chopping feature.

Different tasks posed different challenges and yielded different results.

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If chopping, grating, and pureeing in small batches is your priority, you can save some money by considering the Ninja Master Prep Professional. It scored very well in CR's tests and costs $60.

If you want capacity and performance, you'll have to pay a lot more. The Breville Sous Chef outperformed all of the larger processors CR tested but costs $400. For less money and noise, CR also recommends the Cuisinart Custom for $180.

While many food processor parts are dishwasher-safe, CR recommends hand-washing each part separately. You can also use a toothbrush for bits of stuck-on food. An all-purpose cleaner and a soft cloth dampened with water are enough to clean the base.

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