The Breville Sous Chef BFP800XL is among the most powerful of the food processors we reviewed. It was fully capable of reducing every type of food we tested it on, but in some cases it over-performed and mashed food together rather than simply shredding it. This was among the easiest to use of the best food processors we tested, and it also proved easy to assemble, disassemble and clean. The design of the processor makes assembly an intuitive process, and its blades are simple to both attach and remove for switching between ingredients and processing types.
Breville Sous Chef BFP800XL Processor: How it performed
This is one of the best food processors due to how easily it reduces food to a fully processed state. In our tests, it required few pulses to fully reduce hard cheeses, chop onions and slice potatoes, leaving very few nubs from the original food we inserted. Its power is quite apparent in its speedy results, often taking a fraction of the pulses less powerful models required. It perfectly sliced mushrooms without causing them to crumble, and it even ground almonds to a perfect flour-like consistency.
Although this top-rated food processor touts a tremendous amount of power with its 1,200-watt motor, this does have the adverse effect of occasionally mashing the food it chops. For example, when we shredded cheese, it very quickly cut through the cheese and left very few chunks of the original block. However, the power of the motor and design of the shredding disk moved with such power that it practically mashed the cheddar into a paste rather than into finely-cut shreds.
The overall design of this small food processor is quite intuitive. It's easy to quickly add or remove cutting blades and disks or even fully disassemble the unit for cleaning. The placement of each piece is straightforward and requires little referencing from the manual to assemble or even use. Cleaning all of the processor’s pieces is likewise quite easy, but it can be time consuming due to the sheer number of parts that require cleaning.
Should you buy the Breville Sous Chef BFP800XL Processor?
The Breville Sous Chef is a powerful food processor – but sometimes too powerful. To its credit, the processor is capable of easily reducing any ingredient you may use it for, whether that is almonds, cauliflower, potatoes or onions. However, the high power proved too much in our tests with softer foods like cheddar cheese; it ended up mashing the shredded ingredients into uneven lumps rather than finely-cut food. Despite this, the food processor is among the best we reviewed from a performance standpoint, and a worthy investment if you're not planning on processing softer foods.
