If you want to limit the amount of manual chopping and slicing you do while cooking, there are a few different appliances that can make that happen. You could get yourself a food chopper. Its usefulness is mentioned in its name after all. It will get all of your chopping done no problem.
But then of course there’s the food processor, which has a whole host of different uses. Which one’s better for you? Let’s talk through a few different factors.
Uses
The primary difference between the two is the scope of what they can do. As mentioned above, a food chopper is pretty much only good for one use. All it does is chop.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If all you need to do is chop up some vegetables for a salad or a soup then the chopper is really all you need.
The food processor on the other hand can do quite a bit more. It can chop, it can blend, it can slice, shred and grate. It can do your taxes. Okay, it can’t do that last one but you get the idea. It’s a multi-purpose machine and it’s not particularly hard to use.
So while the chopper can chop if you need it to, if you have a food processor you’re not limited to just that one thing.
Size
This one might seem like a bit of a trivial thing, but it is an issue worth considering. You’ve only got so much cupboard space in your kitchen, and you have to make the best use of it possible.
Seeing a processor and a chopper side-by-side, it’s not hard to notice the significant size difference.
A chopper, being that it has one function, is a pretty small appliance. The disadvantage is that it can’t hold more than a few cups worth of food, but it won’t take up much space. A food processor, is quite a large, clunky machine. With many uses, comes many different parts and so it won’t be a space-saver.
Lately there have been some smaller food processors being produced, but even at its smallest, it will still be larger than a standard chopper.
Pricing
The price is going to depend on the brand. If you want the best product however, the top food processor will definitely cost more than the top food chopper.
You could probably get a relatively basic food processor for about $40, but with more functions, more things can go wrong. A cheap food chopper could cost as little as $15. And since all it has to do is chop, it will probably still get the job done.
Cleaning
Although you would assume a food processor is significantly harder to clean, there’s really not as much difference as you would think in this regard.
The food processor does have more parts, but they’re all dishwasher friendly. Even the blades and discs. The only part of either machine that needs to be cleaned by hand is the motor and they’ve both got one of those.
The fact that the food processor has more parts and as such will take up more space in the dishwasher is the only thing worth mentioning here. And that just sounds like a first world problem to me!
Final Recommendation
The decision on which machine to get is really going to come down to how diverse your cooking is.
If you’re looking for something purely to minimize the amount of manual chopping that you have to do then maybe you should consider just going for the chopper. A food processor could end up being something that you’ll rarely use and will just end filling space at the back of a cupboard.
On the other hand, the possibilities with the processor are absolutely endless. There is no limit to amount of experimentation you can do with it.
If you’re already someone who likes to try new things while cooking and you don’t have a food processor, what are you waiting for? Stop reading this and order one right now! And to be honest, even if you don’t like experimenting, I still think it’s a worthwhile investment.
Once you actually have it in your possession, you might discover a love of cooking that you didn’t even know you had. And it will cover the chopping function anyway, along with many other functions. Including blending.
So maybe you can eliminate the need for both a chopper and a blender if you’ve got a food processor.
In short, even the most basic of choppers will definitely get their job done. But a food processor is a miracle machine and if you ask me, everyone should have one.
