15 Things You Didn't Know Your Food Processor Could Do
Your food processor does more than chop onions. From homemade nut butter to fresh pasta dough, here are 15 uses that will change how you cook.
Your Food Processor Is Hiding Superpowers
Most people use their food processor for two things: chopping onions and making hummus. Those are fine uses, but you're leaving 90% of this machine's capability on the table. Here are 15 things your food processor can do that might surprise you.
1. Make Pie Crust in 30 Seconds
Flaky pie crust requires cold butter cut into flour quickly — before the butter warms up and melts. A food processor does this faster than any other method. Pulse cold butter cubes with flour and salt until it looks like coarse crumbs (about 10 pulses), drizzle in ice water while pulsing, and stop the moment the dough comes together. The whole process takes less than 30 seconds, and the crust will be flakier than anything you can achieve by hand.
2. Grind Your Own Meat
Store-ground meat sits in packaging for days. Freshly ground meat tastes noticeably better and lets you control the fat ratio. Cut boneless beef chuck, pork shoulder, or chicken thighs into 1-inch cubes, freeze for 20 minutes until firm but not solid, and pulse in batches of 8-10 cubes. You'll have fresh ground meat with a texture that puts the grocery store to shame.
3. Turn Cauliflower Into Rice
Cauliflower rice from the store is expensive and often mushy. Making it at home takes 15 seconds. Break a cauliflower head into florets, drop them into the food processor, and pulse 10-15 times until the pieces are rice-sized. Spread on a towel to absorb moisture before cooking. One head makes about 4 cups of cauliflower rice for a fraction of the bagged price.
4. Make Homemade Nut Butter
This one takes patience, but the result is worth it. Add 2 cups of roasted peanuts, almonds, or cashews to the processor and run it continuously. At first it'll look like coarse crumbs. Then a thick paste. Then, after 8-12 minutes of processing, the oils release and it transforms into creamy, smooth nut butter. Add a pinch of salt and a drizzle of honey if you like. No added oils, no preservatives, no stabilizers.
5. Shred Chicken in Seconds
Instead of standing at the counter pulling apart hot chicken with two forks for ten minutes, drop warm cooked chicken breasts into the food processor and pulse 3-5 times. Perfect shredded chicken for tacos, salads, or enchiladas in seconds. This works with pork shoulder too.
6. Make Fresh Breadcrumbs
Fresh breadcrumbs are a different ingredient than the dried ones from a canister. Tear day-old bread into chunks, drop them in the processor, and pulse until you have the texture you want. Use immediately on gratins, as breading for fried chicken, or in meatballs. For dried breadcrumbs, spread the fresh ones on a baking sheet and bake at 300°F for 15 minutes.
7. Whip Up Homemade Salsa
Restaurant-style salsa takes about 90 seconds. Rough-chop tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, cilantro, and garlic, add them to the processor with lime juice and salt, and pulse until you reach your preferred chunkiness. Making salsa in a food processor gives you complete control over texture that you can't get from a blender.
8. Create Energy Balls and Date Bites
Dates, nuts, cocoa powder, and coconut — process them together and you get sticky, delicious energy balls that taste like dessert but are actually healthy. The food processor breaks down the dates into a paste that binds everything together. Roll into balls, refrigerate for 30 minutes, and you have grab-and-go snacks for the week.
9. Make Pizza Dough Without Kneading
Traditional pizza dough requires 10 minutes of kneading. A food processor does it in 45 seconds. Pulse the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar together. With the motor running, pour in warm water and olive oil through the feed tube. Process for 45 seconds — the dough will form a ball and ride around the bowl. That mechanical action develops gluten faster than hand kneading.
10. Slice Potatoes Evenly for Gratins
Getting uniform potato slices by hand is nearly impossible. The slicing disc on a food processor gives you perfectly even slices every time. Set the thickness, feed the potatoes through the tube, and you'll have a gratin assembled in minutes instead of the 20 minutes it takes to hand-slice.
11. Make Compound Butter
Toss softened butter into the food processor with herbs, garlic, lemon zest, or whatever flavors you want. Process until smooth, scrape out onto plastic wrap, roll into a log, and refrigerate. Slice off rounds to melt on steaks, roasted vegetables, or fresh bread. A food processor mixes compound butter more evenly than doing it by hand.
12. Grate Parmesan Cheese
Hard cheeses like Parmesan are tedious to grate by hand and dangerous on a box grater if the piece gets small. Cut Parmesan into 1-inch cubes, drop them into the food processor with the standard blade, and pulse until you get the texture you want — from coarse chunks to fine powder. Twenty seconds of work replaces five minutes of grating.
13. Make Pesto in One Minute
Classic basil pesto is one of the best food processor recipes. Add 2 cups fresh basil, 1/3 cup pine nuts, 2 garlic cloves, and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. Pulse to chop. With the motor running, stream in 1/2 cup olive oil through the feed tube. Season with salt and pepper. Done in under a minute — and it tastes infinitely better than anything from a jar.
14. Prep Coleslaw in 30 Seconds
Shredding a whole cabbage by hand takes time and produces uneven pieces. Feed cabbage quarters through the food processor's shredding disc and you'll have perfectly shredded coleslaw base in 30 seconds. Follow it with carrots on the same disc. Toss with dressing and you've got a crowd-sized batch of coleslaw with almost no effort.
15. Make Flavored Sugars and Salts
Add citrus zest, vanilla beans, lavender, or dried herbs to sugar or coarse salt in the food processor and pulse until blended. Homemade vanilla sugar for baking, lemon salt for finishing fish, or lavender sugar for cocktails — all made in seconds and far cheaper and fresher than buying specialty blends.
The Pattern
The common thread in all of these is speed and consistency. A food processor doesn't do anything you can't do by hand — it just does it in a tenth of the time and with more even results. If you've been using yours only for hummus and salsa, try three or four of these techniques this week. You'll wonder why you waited.
For our picks on the best food processors, check out our full review and buyer's guide.
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