The Food Processor: 13 Ways to Use It & 29 Recipes to Prove It

The food processor is a fantastic tool, a must have for busy kitchens. There are plenty of food processor recipes you can make as well as numerous ways to use it in your kitchen. I love to use my food processor for making super creamy cheesecake batter, homemade hummus and it makes my pizza dough a breeze!

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I love my food processor, and right along with my KitchenAid mixer it’s probably the most used appliance in my kitchen. I use it for many tasks, including making homemade pizza dough, crumbs for breading, and even to make cheesecake! I have the cookbook 650 Best Food Processor Recipes, by George Geary and Judith Finlayson. It’s absolutely overflowing with great recipes using your food processor. Another cookbook that I don’t have yet is The Best Bread Ever: Great Homemade Bread Using your Food Processor, which was mentioned and praised in the NY Times article The Food Processor: A Virtuoso One-Man Band.

Tips for Using Your Food Processor

If you really hadn’t considered your food processor a work horse, then you’ll definitely want to read 7 Ways to Use Your Food Processor plus check out 7 more below!

1. Making Crumbs – Turn graham crackers, dried bread, cookies and other crackers into crumbs for use as toppings, crusts and filler.
2. Pureeing – The food processor makes quick work of soups, sauces and other pureed liquids.
3. Slicing and Chopping – Aside from shredding, the attachment that comes with your machine includes a slicing and chopping blade that’s ideal for raw vegetables and hard fruits.
4. Cheesecake – There are several cheesecake recipes where the batter is whipped until silky smooth using a food processor.
5. Grains to Flour – If you want to try your hand at making your own flour, use the food processor to make quick work of your whole grains.
6. Homemade Butter and Mayonnaise – Making homemade mayonnaise is a snap and saves your arm from the aches a whisk can cause! Homemade butter is as easy as pouring heavy cream into your food processor and watching it churn!
7. Make Your Own Baby Food – Processing large batches of cooked meats, vegetables and fruits are not only done quickly in a food processor, but the blades eliminate any possibilities of leftover chunks that a stand mixer might leave behind. Freeze homemade baby food in ice cube trays then transfer frozen food to freezer bags.

Food Processor Recipes

And, if you still aren’t sure, here are more than 25 tasty food processor recipes from this blog as well as others to get you started. So dust off that appliance and start putting it to work!

Food Processor Recipes

1. Rustic Rosemary Garlic Bread
2. Blackberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake and Mini Cakes
3. Tomatillo Onion Avocado Salsa
4. Mini Turtle Cheesecakes
5. Homemade Salsa from Canned Tomatoes
6. KFC Coleslaw
7. Sun Dried Tomato Pesto
8. Homemade Chicken Nuggets
9. Chocolate Mousse Cake
10. Whipped Brie Stuffed Strawberries
11. Easy Pineapple Salsa
12. Easy Homemade Fruit Roll Ups
13. Cream of Asparagus Soup
14. Strawberry Frozen Yogurt NEW!
15. Creamy Avocado Yogurt Dip – Two Peas and Their Pod
16. Morning Buns for Slackers – Ezra Pound Cake
17. Homemade Breakfast Sausage – Healthy Green Kitchen
18. Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake – Smitten Kitchen
19. Homemade Pasta Noodles – Big Girls Small Kitchen
20. No Cook Fudge – Cookie + Kate
21. Homemade Mayonnaise – Umami Girl
22. Making Butter – We Whisk Away
23. Coleslaw – Vanilla Clouds and Lemon Drops
24. Perfect Pie Dough – Little B Cooks
25. Homemade Pesto – Sam Tan’s Kitchen
26. Creamy Citrus Jalapeño Cilantro Pesto – The Jey of Cooking
27. Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Oatmeal Cookies – Baking and Boys
28. Herb Mustard Glazed Salmon – Cooking in Stilettos
29. Cranberry and Chocolate Chip Scones – Vanderbilt Wife

And finally, if you have a mini food processor, you will want to check out how to use this little work horse by reading 10 Ways to Use Your Mini Food Processor.