The best vegetable choppers are as convenient as they are powerful. Keep scrolling to meet your new favorite kitchen tool. (Kristin Granero/Yahoo)
Sure, you could cut produce with a chef's knife, but a reliable vegetable chopper makes even quicker work of slicing and dicing peppers, onions, zucchini, potatoes and more. These gadgets are so simple to use, they can make splurging on pricey pre-cut veggies a thing of the past.
To find the best vegetable choppers of 2025, I (a home writer with more than a decade's worth of experience evaluating products, including kitchen tools like iced coffee makers and air fryers) procured 10 highly rated manual and electric choppers and food processors. I put them through the wringer, challenging their sharp, shiny blades against a bounty of produce, along with nuts, herbs and cheese to test their different functionalities. In the end, I landed on three that hit the sweet spot in terms of performance, maintenance and capacity.
Power source
Manual: These choppers use force from your hands or pulling a string to cut through veggies. They're compact, portable and, in my experience, almost as effective and speedy as electric models. They also tend cost less and are more likely to be completely dishwasher safe, but you'll need to use elbow grease. There are a few types of manual vegetable choppers:
Push-style: With this type chopper (like the Oxo Good Grips Vegetable Chopper), you typically press a top portion equipped with a blade into ingredients that are in a cup. I've found this style tends to work well for softer, smaller ingredients (like garlic). Harder, larger vegetables, like carrots and peppers, can get trapped in blade grooves.
Press: These choppers, like the Mueller, involve pressing food through a blade. They're ideal for those who want their veggies cut into uniform shapes and sizes. This style can be difficult to use on thick, hard veggies, and because you're bound by the confines of the blade, it may take more time and effort to use.
Pull string: Like with our top Zyliss pick, you pull a handle attached to a string that causes blades to rapidly spin, dicing and chopping ingredients
Electric: These choppers typically function with the press of a button and can be corded or cordless. They're faster and more efficient than manual choppers, but because the bases are equipped with motors, they can't go in the dishwasher, and they tend to be bulkier. Cordless choppers can go anywhere, but note that they'll need to be charged in advance to work, and may need to be recharged if you're doing a lot of meal prep.
Food processor-style: Most electric vegetable choppers are basically small food processors. They have rapidly spinning blades, in some cases with plastic "wipers," to lift, slice, dice and even purée foods. They tend to be the quickest and most effective for chopping, and are ideal for whipping up sauces and dressings.
Capacity: Based on my experience, I'd recommend going with a 3-cup capacity or greater for accommodating larger fruit or veggie pieces, as well as for batching salad dressings and marinades.
I pitted each of these veggie choppers against the same number and size of ingredients. I kept the number of chops (or spins, or pulses) consistent and tested additional foods where needed if the chopper offered other functions. A quick snapshot of my grocery list:
For chopping: Green peppers, red onions, carrots, celery and garlic, cashews and pecans (all choppers)
For processing: Pine nuts and basil (Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Zyliss, Kuhn Rikon)
For slicing/shredding: Sweet potatoes and cheese (Mueller)
For spiraling: Cucumbers and zucchini (Fullstar)
I noted how effectively and quickly each chopper was able to churn out said ingredients, plus factors like ease of setup, cleaning and capacity.
So many veggies, so little time! See how other vegetable choppers fared in my quest for the best:
Cuisinart Elemental Chopper/Grinder: Cuisinart's Elemental chopper performed on par with the brand's Mini Prep Plus in my testing, and similarly features two speed settings (it's also cheaper). But I appreciated the Mini Prep Plus's generous cord length (it's about twice as long) and the more compact base, saving me counter and storage space.
Ninja Food Chopper Express: Ninja's Food Chopper Express lives up to its name. It chopped ingredients in as little time as the Cuisinart models I tested (in some cases, it only took two tor three spins), and was the best equipped among those I tested to handle (read: pulverize) carrots. It's easy to use, but the 2-cup capacity may not work for larger food pieces or portions.
Kuhn Rikon Pull Chop Chopper/Manual Food Processor: This manual chopper is similar in form to Zyliss's version, performing slightly better when it came to carrots and slightly worse when it came to the pine nuts (likely due to its lowest blade sitting higher than Zyliss's "sweeper" blade). It's comparable from a cost perspective, but I ultimately went with Zyliss because it features an extra blade, and I found the pull to be a tad more comfortable.
Oxo Good Grips Manual Food Processor: This manual food chopper/processor from Oxo Good Grips has a high capacity. I like how every piece is dishwasher-safe and the rubber lining the bottom of the base keeps it in place. It felt like more work than the Zyliss chopper to achieve similar results for the green pepper, onion, basil and nuts, and it required more spins to get the carrots, celery and garlic to the same consistency.
Oxo Good Grips Vegetable Chopper: This press-style vegetable chopper from Oxo features a zig-zagged blade that chops into vegetables. It performed well when it came to smaller ingredients (herbs, nuts and garlic), but I found that bigger vegetable chunks (green peppers, onions and carrots) got caught within the blade's "maze."
Fullstar Vegetable Chopper and Spiralizer: This veggie chopper features the same two dicing grates as Mueller's, offering similar proficiency. I chose Mueller's version as my top pick because it offered more blades and greater capacity at the same price point.
Press-style choppers will typically consist of a top (or cover, with blade) that you press into a veggie-filled cup. Processor-style choppers typically feature a cup with a multi-bladed piece at the bottom, along with a lid. Those that are electric have a motorized base, and can be controlled (or spun) with the tap of a button. Manual processors usually have a string that you pull, or handle that you churn, to spin and chop the ingredients without having to plug anything in. No matter the style, you'll want to be careful when handling the sharp blades.
Both Mueller and Fullstar vegetable slicers are press-style vegetable slicers. The lid opens up so you can push veggies through the blades. We rated the Mueller as a top pick because it came with six additional blades for slicing and grating, whereas the Fullstar version I tested came with just two additional blades for spiraling and ribboning. Aside from offering more blades, the Mueller version I tested had a larger bin, with a capacity of 7.5 cups compared to Fullstar's 4 cups, which allowed me to chop more veggies in one session.
In short, it depends on the restaurant, chef and demand. While some chefs might take pride in hand-cutting their vegetables, especially in small quantities, restaurants that tend to chop, shred or slice a lot of vegetables may look to commercial vegetable choppers to help streamline things.
A high-capacity processor like those featured in my top picks should prove a big help when it comes to automating chopping and puréeing. If you're looking for an automated shredder, I've seen this gourmet drum grater from Zyliss (also available with slicing functionality) in action and I was blown away by its power, precision and speed.
We received complimentary samples of some products and purchased others ourselves, but we reviewed all products using the same objective criteria.