The flip side of this affordability is that Cuisinart doesn’t have any meaningful upgrades for more experienced chefs. Once you’ve been practicing your knife skills for a while, their blades will feel clumsy in comparison to a Wusthof or Zwilling J.A. Henckels knife. None of Cuisinart’s knives require more than these basic care and maintenance steps. It’s worth noting as well that though Cuisinart’s knives are advertised as dishwasher safe, hand washing them is always recommended. This will give the knives greater longevity and longer edge retention. The only way to decide whether a Cuisinart knife is right for you is by comparing it to knives from other brands.
The good news is that all the machines passed this test in under a minute; our winners did it at the 30- or 40-second mark. Both Brevilles feature a 24-point adjustable slicing disk that works well and can be set to zero, which reduces the chance of accidentally cutting yourself. That aversion to food processors isn’t because the machine itself is inherently bad.
When you combine the quality of Cuisinart construction along with reasonable prices and a lifetime warranty, you really can’t go wrong. The block sets include every knife you could need for a wide variety of tasks and hold their sharpness for quite a while. Cuisinart produces several sets to suit your needs, whether you want specific knives for specific tasks or the basics that cover most chopping needs.
If your spice jars are bursting out of the cabinet, this spice rack organizer can help keep them all in one place. Choose a 16-jar or 20-jar rack, both of which come with a folding funnel to easily pour spices into each jar, as well as reusable labels that help identify your collection of spices. On top of that, we used a decibel meter to measure how much noise each model made, and filled each with water to its liquid max to check for leaking. While most machines had the power to slice well, the better ones created smoother, cleaner slices with less waste. In the case of tomatoes, successful models could slice the fruit without smashing and juicing it in the process. With machines that offered multiple slice-thickness options, we ran tomatoes through a range of widths, from the thinnest up to the thickest.
This lets you lift the bowl and blade off the motor without worrying about leaks, and there’s no threading the spindle back through the bowl when you replace it. What we found, not surprisingly, was a correlation between price and performance, with the pricier machines finishing toward the top. Most of our picks are high-end machines with impressive capabilities. In the end, these terms are relative—no one has yet managed to make a truly inexpensive food processor that’s worth buying.
The knife is a staple for any cutlery collection, and this particular knife is a solid choice. The knife is forged from a single piece of high carbon stainless steel, finishing with an attractively textured handle. For a reasonable price, you can add a trustworthy knife to your kitchen. The Cuisinart Advantage Color Collection 12-piece Knife Set with Blade Guards is a great starter set, especially for cooks with limited kitchen space. The blades can be stored in a drawer or on a magnetic strip.
Many purists prefer knives made from carbon steel, which makes for very strong blades and edges that stay sharper longer. However, these need to be seasoned to prevent rust and to make them more resistant to acidic compounds like those found in lemons. All knives are great, but the best of all is the smallest, the paring knife, because I use it most often. Again, this is a product of both the material used for the handle and how it’s shaped. The Graphix collection is an excellent example of a highly slip-resistant knife.
Get your knives out of a clunky knife block and onto a wall, where you can easily access them for all your prep work. This Breville Sous Chef is a smaller, slightly less powerful version of the 16-cup model, but it still has enough muscle to bring dough together effortlessly. It, too, has an adjustable slicing disk that made short work of potatoes without excessive cuisinart knife waste. When filled with nearly four cups of water, the Breville didn’t leak a drop—which is more than we can say for several of the 14-cup machines we tested. Because it’s such a popular piece of kitchen gear, manufacturers have tried to make a model for just about every budget. You can find some for less than $100, and others for five times as much.
Using cheaper steel allows them to sell affordable knives, even if the edge retention, stain resistance, and overall quality suffer as a result. A major difference between Henckels and Cuisinart is their focus. Henckels is primarily a cutlery brand, while Cuisinart is best-known for its small appliances like food processors and coffee makers. While people sometimes confuse Zwilling and Henckels knives since they share part of the parent company’s name, they’re two separate brands. Zwilling is a higher-end premium knife brand, while Henckels is the more budget-friendly, entry-level option.