Food Processor vs. Blender: What's the Difference?

Before air fryers and Instant Pots hit the scene, blenders and food processors reigned supreme. (Yes, we rhymed on purpose.) The two small kitchen appliances have been instrumental in both professional and home kitchens for decades—they blend, purée, emulsify, chop, grate, and pulverize faster and often more efficiently than the ol’ “chef’s knife and elbow grease” method.

Although food processors and blenders both contain sharp, rapidly turning blades at the base of a jar or bowl, they excel at very different tasks. If you don't have either, the best appliance for you depends on what you like to cook and how much you’re willing to spend. You should also consider which kitchen tasks you prefer to do by hand. However, we do recommend having both if you have the budget and space. Here's a breakdown of the major points in the food processor vs. blender debate.

The Best Food Processors

At its most basic, a food processor consists of a base (which contains a motor), a bowl, and a removable set of sharp blades. Most models come with interchangeable discs that perform other tasks, like grating—but more on that in a moment. When the bowl and blade are fitted to the base and the motor is running, the S-shaped blade turns rapidly, chopping, slicing, or shredding ingredients. When equipped with a disc attachment (for slicing or grating, for example), the disc spins around when the food processor's on, tackling ingredients as they're fed through the chute; food processors usually come with a pusher, to help you move ingredients through the chute and through the disc.

When Should You Use a Food Processor?

A food processor’s value lies within cooking tasks that are messy (like grating a bunch of cheese), large-scale (like plowing through a pile of potatoes for latkes), or both.

Food processors come with a variety of different attachments, so you can perform lots of tasks with them. In our review of food processors, we tested models that contained not just chopping blades, but slicers and graters; our top pick even had a unique attachment for making pizza dough. You can use a food processor for any job that would otherwise call for a box grater, mortar and pestle, or chef’s knife and cutting board (like making a large batch of mirepoix), which makes them super versatile and helpful…as long as you don’t mind lugging the heavy base out of storage and cleaning up the multiple parts. 

Food processors are also regularly used for making pastry dough. This method is certainly quicker than using a handheld pastry cutter, although we’ve found it’s easy to overwork the dough, which can result in tough pie crusts, biscuits, or scones.

The Best Blenders

Blenders work by creating a vortex as their blades spin rapidly at the base of a jar. This vortex creates a vacuum effect, circulating the contents throughout the container. When the food is pulled down to the bottom, it makes contact with the whirling blades, which pulverize, purée, or emulsify it. Blender blades are sharp, but smaller than food processor blades. They’re angled upwards to help create that crucial vortex.

When Should You Use a Blender?

Hands-down (knives down?), a blender is better than a food processor at handling anything liquidy, like smoothies, as well as puréeing soupy or saucy items. Blenders perform best with at least a little liquid to get things going. Blenders are also more efficient than food processors at getting food incredibly smooth. For this, look to high-speed models, like Vitamixes, which annihilate pulp, fiber, and chunky bits. In fact: Three of the six winners of our high-speed blender review come from Vitamix.

Puréed soups are an ideal match for blenders for both of those reasons. It also helps that a blender jar is better suited for more liquid than a food processor bowl. Smoothies and blended juices excel in blenders (especially with ice or frozen fruit and vegetables, which are no match for the fast, multi-pronged blades). 

An often overlooked but important reason to use a blender:is the pour spout. Most blender models have a spout for tidy transfers to a different container—say, your favorite smoothie glass. Pouring a liquidy soup or sauce out of the wide bowl of a food processor is challenging at best, and messy at worst.

When Can You Swap Food Processors and Blenders?

We’re entering “could” versus “should” territory here. Some jobs are interchangeable between blenders and food processors, but the bowl/jar shape, blade function, and design are ultimately too different to consider the tools completely equal. 

Food processors can blend and purée ingredients, although they’re not ideal for that. For one, food-processed soup will never be as velvety-smooth as blended soup. Another reason: Most food processors’ max-fill line is very low. You’d have to purée your soup in a series of small batches, which is neither efficient nor time-saving. Instead, their wide bowls and S-shaped blades (that span nearly the entire diameter of the bowl) are better at handling thicker, drier ingredients (think blitzing chickpeas for hummus).

On the flip side, blenders can chop and grate ingredients, but they’ll never perform the task as well as food processors. Blenders sometimes struggle with tacky or gummy food, too (like peanut butter). But for anything liquidy or in need of being super smooth, reach for a blender.

A true hybrid model—a blender that acts like a food processor when necessary, or vice-versa—does not exist. However, a relatively new product from Vitamix bridges the gap. Their 12-cup food processor attachment is meant to be paired with a blender base. In other words: You only need one base for two jars/bowls. We reviewed the Vitamix food processor attachment and think it's worth it if you already have a compatible base. (The Ascent series is what you're looking for). Buying the whole package, including the base, blender jar, and food processor bowl, is undeniably pricey.

Which Is More Expensive: Food Processor vs. Blender?

Speaking of price! Both tools vary widely in terms of cost, but no matter what, plan on spending at least a couple hundred dollars on a food processor or blender.

There are plenty of blenders under $100—including miniature or “personal” blenders. But if you use yours regularly, it’s worth paying for a high-speed model, like the Vitamix 5200 (our favorite model). The cost lies in the beefy motor. Our favorite Vitamix model is by no means the most powerful on the market, nor the most high-end, and it retails for around $450. 

The price of food processors is trickier to generalize. Typically, higher costs are associated with larger capacity bowls. For example, we liked four Breville models when we reviewed food processors. The 9-Cup version costs about $300 less than the 16-cup one. Regardless of which appliance you buy, spending a little more for a trusted, powerful model—with a strong warranty—is money well invested.

Which Should You Buy: Food Processor vs. Blender?

The general guideline here is that a food processor is a good investment for cutting down on prep time, whereas a blender can help you make recipes that would be hard to replicate without it (like smoothies). 

If you have the space and budget and would value the time-saving quality of a food processor, go for both. If you can only choose one, we recommend starting with a high-speed blender.

The most efficient space-saving move is to pair Vitamix's 12-cup food processor attachment with a compatible Vitamix blender base, although that may not be cost-effective for every cook.

FAQs

What's more useful: food processor vs. blender?

It really, truly depends on what you like to cook. Prefer making purées, smoothies, and soups? Get a blender. Do a lot of chopping and food prep tasks? Food processor it is.

What’s the best food processor? 

We tested a lot of food processors to find the best one. You really can’t beat the Breville 16-Cup Sous Chef, which is powerful with well-designed chopping blades and large enough to be actually useful. It’s also the model with that nifty pizza dough attachment. However, it’s undeniably spendy; if you’re looking for a budget option that still delivers, we recommend the Cuisinart 14-Cup Processor. If you have a compatible blender base, you'll probably really like having the Vitamix 12-cup food processor attachment. Although smaller capacity models are attractively priced, they’re not great at handling large quantities of food, which cancels out one of the reasons we find them so valuable.

What’s the best blender?

If you’re going to buy a blender, it’s worth investing in a high-speed one. In an extensive review of multiple blender brands, our favorite was the Vitamix 5200 Professional Grade Blender. If you’re looking for a smaller model, we also liked the Vitamix Propel 510. The Vitamix 7500 is a great low-profile blender with tons of power and a shorter, wider jar. The Breville Fresh & Furious is our favorite budget blender.

Is the Vitamix food processor any good?

It passed our review with flying colors. We thought it excelled as a space-saving appliance. It was also surprisingly great at emulsifying sauces, and did a good job at grating and slicing. It could have been a touch more responsive for doughs, but overall we think the Vitamix food processor attachment is a great buy if you have or want to invest in a Vitamix blender base.

Why We're the Experts

• Rochelle Bilow is a Serious Eats editor. She worked in restaurants and attended the French Culinary Institute before spending a decade and a half in food media and journalism.
• We've separately reviewed food processors and blenders; for this review, Rochelle thoroughly researched all our findings and compared the data. She's also the author of our blenders review and has reviewed almost every Vitamix model.