Slicing is the one food-processor job where the motor is close to irrelevant. A cucumber offers almost no resistance; a potato offers a little more. What decides whether you get even, usable slices is two things nobody puts on the front of the box: how much control you have over thickness, and how wide the feed tube is. Get those two right and a mid-priced machine out-slices a machine costing three times as much.
Why wattage is the wrong spec to shop on here
A slicing disc does not grind or knead. It passes a blade across one face of the food, at speed, and lets gravity drop the slice into the bowl. There is no sustained load, which is why the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY) at 720 watts and the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (BFP810)at 1,200 watts produce a visually identical cucumber slice. Motor power earns its keep on dough and nut butter — see the dough roundup for where it genuinely matters. On slicing it buys you nothing.
What you are actually buying is a disc and a lid. That is why this list is ordered on thickness control rather than on the motor specs that lead most other pages here.
Adjustable dial versus fixed disc
Most processors ship with one slicing disc cut to a single thickness — fine for a gratin, much too thick for a carpaccio or a crisp. If you want a different thickness you buy a different disc, store it, and remember which is which.
An adjustable machine solves that with an external control. The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (BFP810)is the clearest example here: Breville publishes a 0.3–8.0 mm range on a dial you turn while the disc stays in place, which is a genuine span from tissue-thin to thick enough for roasting wedges. The Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup (FP-130) and the KitchenAid 13-Cup Food Processor (KFP1318) both carry adjustable slicing too, with a coarser step between settings — enough for the everyday range of salad, gratin and stir-fry.
The Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY)is the honest exception, and it is on this list on purpose. It has one fixed stainless slicing disc and no dial at all. If your slicing is “potatoes for a gratin and cucumbers for a salad”, one good thickness is all you will ever use, and the DFP-14 gives you a 14-cup bowl and the shortest parts list on the page instead.
The feed tube decides the shape, not just the speed
This is the spec people discover after they buy. A slice comes out the shape of the face you present to the blade, so the tube determines what you can cut. A narrow tube means halving or quartering a potato first, which gives you half-moons instead of rounds. A wide tube takes the whole potato and gives you the disc shape the recipe pictured.
KitchenAid’s answer on the KitchenAid 13-Cup Food Processor (KFP1318)is a 3-in-1 feed tube — a large opening for whole produce, a medium one, and a narrow one that keeps a single carrot upright so it cannot tip and slice diagonally. That last size sounds trivial and it fixes the most common complaint about processor slices: they come out as ovals because the food fell over on the way down.
Pack the tube, do not just fill it. Ragged home slices are almost always a loading problem, not a machine problem. Cut everything to the same height, stand it upright, and pack the tube tightly enough that nothing can lean. One lonely carrot in a wide tube will produce diagonal slices every time, whatever you paid.
How they compare for slicing
| Machine | Thickness control | Feed tube | Best slicing job |
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| Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (BFP810) | Dial, 0.3–8.0 mm | Wide, whole produce | Anything, including very thin |
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| KitchenAid 13-Cup Food Processor (KFP1318) | Adjustable slicing | 3-in-1, narrow to wide | Round slices from whole vegetables |
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| Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup (FP-130) | Adjustable disc | Standard full-size | Everyday salad and gratin range |
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| Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY) | One fixed disc | Standard full-size | High-volume slicing at one thickness |
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What a processor cannot slice well
Soft, ripe and wet things. A ripe tomato tends to be pushed rather than cut and arrives as pulp; fresh mozzarella smears across the disc; a very soft avocado is hopeless. Everything firm — potato, carrot, cucumber, apple, fennel, cabbage, hard cheese, firm mushrooms — slices beautifully. If your slicing is mostly tomatoes, buy a sharp serrated knife and save the counter space.
There is also a floor on thinness. Even the finest dial setting is a processor slicing at speed, and a mandoline will still take a potato thinner and more consistently, because you control the feed rate by hand. The trade is safety and volume: mandoline vs food processorsets out the whole argument, but the short version is that the processor’s blade is enclosed and the mandoline’s is not.
Which one to buy
Buy the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro (BFP810) if slicing is a real part of how you cook and you want one machine covering paper-thin to thick without a drawer of discs. Buy the KitchenAid 13-Cup Food Processor (KFP1318)if what you want is round, even slices of whole vegetables — the narrow tube is the reason. Buy the Cuisinart Core Custom 13-Cup (FP-130) for adjustability at a lower price. And buy the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY) if you slice a lot at one thickness and would rather have the bigger bowl and three parts to wash.
