For pesto, curry paste, guacamole and whole spices, buy a mortar — the Kota Japan Large Black Granite Mortar & Pestle is the one we would buy, for the person who wants to make those four things properly rather than quickly. For everything else you were considering a food processor for, buy the processor: the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus (DLC-2ABC) for small daily chopping, the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY) if you also want slicing, shredding and dough. These tools barely compete. What follows is why.
Crushing and cutting are not two speeds of one thing
A pestlepresses an ingredient against a rough stone wall until its cell walls give way. The cells rupture under pressure and release what is inside them — oils, resins, water — and because you are also smearing the ingredient across the surface, those released oils immediately mix with everything else in the bowl. The result is a paste that is emulsified by the act of making it.
A food processor blade does something different: it travels fast and slices. Each pass cuts pieces smaller without pressing them, so a lot of what is inside the cells stays inside the cells. The blade also throws ingredients to the outside of the bowl rather than pressing them together, which is why a processor gives you a fine chop that looks like a paste rather than a paste.
Everything below follows from those two sentences. Where the point of the dish is released flavor and an emulsion, stone wins. Where the point is reducing a volume of food into even pieces, the machine wins, and it wins by a mile.
Job by job
| Job | Mortar and pestle | Food processor | Buy |
|---|
| Pesto | Crushes basil, releases oil, emulsifies with the olive oil as you go | Chops basil; bruises the cut edges; the oil stays separate until you force it | Mortar |
|---|
| Curry or spice paste | Fibrous lemongrass, galangal and chilli break down into a true paste | Leaves fibre in strands unless you add liquid, which dilutes the paste | Mortar |
|---|
| Whole dry spices | Grinds cumin, coriander and pepper fine, in teaspoon quantities | Too little volume for the blade to catch; a grind pad helps but is not the same | Mortar |
|---|
| Guacamole | Mashes to a textured, scoopable consistency | Overshoots to a smooth puree in about two seconds | Mortar |
|---|
| Garlic paste with salt | Salt acts as the abrasive; produces a smooth paste in seconds | Flings small amounts up the bowl wall and leaves chunks | Mortar |
|---|
| Chopping onions, carrots, celery | Not the tool — a mortar crushes, and crushed onion is juice | Seconds, repeatably, in real volume | Processor |
|---|
| Hummus, nut butter, mayonnaise | Possible and genuinely laborious | What the machine is for | Processor |
|---|
| Slicing or shredding anything | Impossible | A disc job; a mortar has no equivalent | Processor |
|---|
| Breadcrumbs, dough, pastry | No | Yes, in one bowl | Processor |
|---|
Why pesto is the dish people argue about
It is the clearest case because the recipe is named after the tool: pestocomes from the same root as pestle, and it describes an action rather than an ingredient list. Basil leaves are delicate and they bruise — a cut edge goes dark because it oxidizes, which is what a fast steel blade produces a great many of. A pestle tears and presses rather than slicing cleanly, and the oil released from the crushed leaf coats the cut surfaces as it is made.
That is a real difference and it is also a small one, which is the honest part. A processor pesto is a good dinner. If you make pesto twice a summer with supermarket basil, buy the machine you will use for ten other things. If pesto, curry paste or a spice blend is a thing you care about, the mortar is the tool, and it costs a fraction of the processor.
The spec that decides a mortar, and almost nobody prints it. A mortar grinds because its interior is unpolished. A polished stone bowl is a decorative object: ingredients slide across it and nothing breaks down. The Kota Japan Large Black Granite Mortar & Pestlestates solid unpolished granite and publishes its interior bowl dimensions — 3-3/4 by 2-3/4 inches, in an 8 lb set — which is the figure that actually tells you what fits. The ChefSofi Granite Mortar and Pestle Set (2 cups) states unpolished granite and a 500 ml bowl and nothing more. Our mortar and pestle roundup ranks five of them on exactly this, and seasoning a new mortar is the step that comes before the first thing you make in it.
Which to buy if you are only buying one
Buy the food processor. This is not a close call for a kitchen with one budget and one shelf: the processor chops, slices, shreds, purees and in the full-size case handles dough, and the mortar does none of that. The Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus (DLC-2ABC)is a 24 oz bowl with a published 250 W motor and a reversible sharp-and-blunt blade — the cheapest way into the category, and its own listing is clear that it chops and grinds and does not slice. The Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY) is the full-size answer if slicing discs and dough are on your list; our food processor hub ranks the whole field.
Then buy the mortar second, later, cheaply, because it is the kind of tool that costs less than a good pan and lasts longer than the kitchen. Nobody needs to choose between these two for long.
If what you are really weighing is a processor against something smaller and simpler, that is a different page: food processor vs chopper covers the two bladed tools, and do I need a food processor is the one to read if you are not yet sure you need any machine at all.
What to check on each side
On a mortar: is the interior unpolished, in the maker’s own words? This is the whole mechanism and it is the one claim worth refusing to buy without. Both mortars here state it. A listing that says “natural stone” and shows a glossy photograph is selling an ornament.
On a mortar: weight, and whether you can live with it.Stone works because it does not move. The Kota set is 8 lb and the ChefSofi about 7 lb, which means both live on the counter or in a low cupboard — not a drawer, and not a high shelf. That is a real constraint on a tool whose main advantage is being reached for casually.
On a mortar: bowl size in inches, not in cups. A stated cup capacity tells you what the bowl holds; the interior diameter tells you whether you can actually swing a pestle in it without wearing the contents. Only the Kota publishes the interior dimensions, which is why it is ranked first.
On a processor: bowl volume and whether discs are included.The whole argument for the machine is job range, and job range is discs. A 24 oz chopping bowl with no slicing disc is a chopper that costs processor money — useful, but not the thing that beats a mortar at ten other tasks.
On a processor: whether the maker publishes a wattage.Cuisinart publishes 250 W for the Mini-Prep Plus. Several brands in this category publish nothing, which means a motor comparison across the field is not possible on paper — something we note on every page where it comes up rather than filling the gap with a guess.
Neither tool: if the job is grinding coffee, use a coffee grinder; if it is grinding meat, see our meat grinder roundup. A mortar will do neither well and a processor will do both badly.
