Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro Review

Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro Review: All You Need to Know

It's been months without our series of equipment reviews. Many of you have been asking us for Cuisinart products, so this is why today we bring you the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro Review.

The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is part of Cuisinart's Style Collection. Its stylish design and compact 1.9 L (8 cups) size mean it won't take up too much space on your countertop or shelf. Leave it out on display so it's easily accessible when needed.

Use it to speed up everyday tasks like chopping and slicing vegetables for a salad or casserole, blitzing cauliflower rice, breadcrumbs or nuts, grating cheese, and mixing dips, sauces, batters, pastry, and cake fillings.

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Price and Availability

The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is known as the Cuisinart Elemental 8 Cup FP8 in the US and costs £125/ $99.95. It's available directly from the Cuisinart website as well as other retailers.

This model it's a smaller and more affordable alternative to the Cuisinart Expert Prep Pro FP13, known as the Cuisinart Elemental 13 Cup FP13, which costs £250/ $225. The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro comes with fewer attachments, a smaller bowl and is less powerful, but this is reflected in the lower price tag.

Design and Features

The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is a relatively simple processor, with just a pair of mixing bowls, two slicing/grating discs, and a couple of chopping blades. You might come to see this simplicity as a strength in light of the excellent quality and performance of these components.

Thanks to its two mixing bowls, you can use the Easy Prep Pro as a full-sized food processor or a mini chopper without 0.7 L (3 cups) creating extra washing-up. While it's not billed as a compact model, this food processor's footprint is relatively small, so it won't take up too much space on your countertop.

A choice of two finishes – Frosted Pearl and Silver– helps the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro to feel less like a workhorse and more like an appliance you'd be happy to have on display.

If having your appliances displayed is not your thing, storing this food processor is not a problem. The small bowl and blade can be stored inside the main bowl (EU model only), but the larger blade and discs will need to be stored separately; for the US model, just the discs will need to be stored separately. There's no case provided to ensure they're stored safely, so this is something to consider when deciding how to store these sharp accessories.

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Performance

Often compact food processors lack the power and functionality of their larger counterparts. However, the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro has everything you need considering its small size.

The large bowl has a 1.9 L (8 cups) capacity and can be used with the large chopping/mixing blade or the slicing/grating discs. The 0.7 L (3 cups) small bowl nests inside the large bowl and can be used with the small chopping/mixing blade, for smaller quantities like making hummus and pesto.

The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is powered by a 350W motor and controlled by four push buttons at the front. There are two speeds, High and Low, plus a pulse. The fourth button, Off, stops the speeds rather than turning the machine off. This was a bit confusing for us as we'd assume pressing the High or Low button again would stop the motor, but it doesn't.

During our tests, we face almost no problems with this model. We started by slicing some vegetables like cucumbers and carrots, which this equipment has done without effort.

Then we used the discs to shred different items, where we had mixed results. Cheese shredded well with even medium size shreds. Shredded carrots were fairly even, but we did notice some finer shreds amongst the medium size pieces.

Shredding chocolate is not a good idea. Not only did we notice quite a lot of vibration through the pusher as we fed it in, but we also ended up with almost 20% un-shredded, and some chocolate had also melted onto the disc. Some chocolate had warmed up during shredding and clumped together in the bowl, leaving us a little disappointed with the result.

In general, this food processor performed relatively well in almost situations. We have been using it almost daily, and the only problem we faced was when we tried to shred chocolate. Besides that, the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro has been capable of dealing with our daily needs.

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Product Information

Technical Specification

350W AC Motor
2 bowls in 2 different sizes, 1.9 L (8 cups) and 0.7 L (3 cups)
Fine disc for fine grating or 2mm slices
Medium disc for medium grating or 4mm slices
Dishwasher safe bowls, blades and discs
High and low speed settings plus pulse
5 year guarantee

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Final Thoughts

The Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is a simple yet powerful food processor that was clearly built to last. While its range of tools and speeds is relatively standard, the Cuisinart Easy Prep Pro is a solid machine that can deliver versatile food prep for small families and keen cooks alike.

Not only is it an attractive appliance to have out on a countertop, but there also isn't oodles of kit to store or attachments that you might never use. Its design presents a few niggles, but overall it's a reliable food processor at a sensible price.