The food processor comes with several blades for doing different types of functions such as chopping, cutting, and slicing, etc. So when you want to make something with your food processor then select the blade you wish to use and fix it in the appliance. Take the lid and bowl, fasten it onto the processor, and let the machine operate.

Trim unwanted parts from the food and add it into the machine’s feed tube. You can make soup, vegetables chunks’ potatoes, onions, carrots using S-shaped blade. You can grind nuts with the grinding blade. You can shred cheese using pulse setting and shredding blade. To make coleslaw use shredding disk rather than the slicing one, this will make the pieces very small.

Food processor has on, off and pulse setting. Some machine comes with high speed, so refer owner’s manual for the better usage. As the unit is extremely sharp, you must be careful while handling it.

When you start cooking, it is always better to slice the food material into small pieces, instead of putting as a whole. Remove the seed and core of fruits before chopping it. Do not apply hard pressure for soft food.

Don’t press the frozen food hard as they can damage the motor or blade. For more efficiency use feed tube to add ingredients and to avoid spillage use tall container. The bell shaped protector should always be below the level of the food being processed to avoid the spilling out.

Do not run you blender continuously as it affects the texture of food chopping. So slowly move the blender around and combine it with an up and down movement. Always try to avoid the usage of blender for tough dry or wet food items. If all these instruction are followed exactly then you can have your food processor with you for several years with the same quality.

If you buy a larger unit, it kneads bread dough and breaks up hard vegetables. Try for 400 watts of power food processor for personal use and 750 watts for professional use.

It is good to look out for a processor that is well constructed and fits securely with accessories like blades, cutting disks, and whisks. A good food processor allows adding food during operation. As food processor has number of other appliances, storage and portability must be considered.
Some of the food processor has retractable cords, dishwasher-safe bowls and accessories. If you have kids at home it is better to look for locking system to prevent accidental start-up.

When you shop for a food processor set a budget in mind so that you would spend accordingly. But the size and feature may affect the price. The unit can be operated with multiple speed levels, different function and operating speed. For more convenient usage select a food processor with piano type switches, style push button and speed selectors.

Juicers are available with the processor. The two types of juicers are centrifugal and citrus. Centrifugal juicer extracts juices from hard fruits like watermelons and vegetables while citrus takes out juice from citrus fruits. You can see various functions of food processor such as mashing, pureeing, wet, dry, chutney grinding, grating etc. The unit is attached with a coconut scrapper. Pulse facility in the unit is used to cut the food rather than mash it.

We often overload the jar with material than recommended. This spoils the motor and it burns out. So circuit breaker is provided for overload protection. If the machine has a locking system then it won’t start until the jar is correctly locked.

The unit has a work bowl to add foods, fitted with a metal blade and processed into uniform pieces. If the unit is large, it has powerful motors with large work bowl capacities. Large food processors can function additionally.

Mid-sized food processors are not as much as powerful than larger units but provide all the functionality of a full-size processor with work bowl capacities of 7 to 10 cups.

Compact sized food processors are much smaller than full sized models, used for processing single onion or handful of herbs. Yet it can offer most of the features of a full-size processor like chopping, slicing, shredding, kneading bread dough etc with the work capacities of 4 to 6 cups.

Though the size of the unit may differ, the unit has same controlling of on/off, pulse option, push-button, switch or electronic touch-pad panel.

Shopping Food Processors

When you go to shop to buy a food processor first decide the size of the unit that will suit your kitchen. Chopping onions or pureeing vegetables are functioned by almost any machine. But you need to select a machine that can knead dough for breads or pastas, and other tough jobs.

• While buying you need to keep in mind the size, controls, attachments and optional accessories.

• Don’t just look for extra features, but see if the performance of the unit is well with you.

• Try to buy a unit with bowl size 9 to 12 cups.

• Heavy machines can do task like baking bread, making pasta or chopping heavy vegetables.

• Consider space in your kitchen to fit the unit in, as heavy machine take up more space though they are quieter.

To make the food processor more effective you can cut the food into equal-size pieces, using short pulses. Don’t process frozen or hard foods, it’ll damage the blades.