If you make vegetable soup or cook for many people, you will soon spend a lot of time chopping vegetables. The size of the cut vegetables is also important: you want to serve bitesize vegetables, of course. Cutting by hand is time-consuming and it is often difficult to cut all the vegetables into the same size. Fortunately, there is a food processor; which takes the tedious cutting work out of your hands.
When processing vegetables with a food processor, you have a choice of chopping, slicing and grating. After reading this article, you will know exactly what the differences are and how best to use your food processor to cut vegetables.
Chopping vegetables with a food processor; how does it work?
A food processor or food processor comes with various accessories that allow you to cut, grate and chop vegetables. Actually, the accessories included determine the number of possibilities of a food processor. This makes it extra important to check carefully which accessories you need before buying a food processor.
Required accessories
- Chopping: for this, you use the large chopping blade. This comes standard with a food processor.
- Grating: you use the grating discs for this.
- Cutting: use the cutting discs.
In the best case, you have several grating and cutting discs to choose from. This way you can always cut and grate the vegetables in the size you want.
Which vegetables work best?
A food processor works best with hard vegetables such as a carrot, sweet potato or beetroot. You can also use a food processor for vegetables with a high water content, but this is not really ideal. This is because it releases a lot of water, which quickly turns the chopping into a kind of mixture.
Tearing eyes when slicing an onion? These are unfortunately not a thing of the past, as in practice it works better to slice an onion yourself. The problem is that too much water is released when slicing or grating an onion.
Less useful for small quantities
Unfortunately, chopping vegetables in small quantities with a food processor does not work as well. In practice, it is then often quicker to do it by hand. The amount of clean-up work is also disproportionate to its convenience. So chopping vegetables with a food processor is mainly for when you are cooking for several people.
Chopping, slicing and grating?
There is quite a big difference between chopping, slicing and grating. But when exactly do you use which method?
Chopping vegetables
The large chopping blade is mainly used for cutting hard vegetables into coarse pieces or just when you need a finer grind. The chopping is somewhat less consistent, meaning some pieces are larger in size.
Cutting vegetables
Slicing graters are mainly for cutting thin strips. Think, for example, of slices of potato or carrot. The advantage of the cutting grater is that it is very quick and the results are very consistent.
Grating vegetables
The grating discs are mainly intended for ‘shredding’ vegetables. Think, for example, of cabbage that you would like to have finely chopped. Results are also consistent with grating discs.
Chopping vegetables: which food processor to buy?
Are you about to buy a new food processor and think you will use the kitchen appliance regularly for cutting or grating vegetables? Then buy a food processor with multiple cutting and grating discs. That way you are not limited and you can choose which size you want to cut the vegetables. Some food processors only have one size disc; if you need thicker or thinner strips of carrot once, this is already not possible.