The best food processors take the hassle out of food prep, but not all models are fit for purpose – we've found some that struggle with the most basic tasks, such as grating cheese and dicing an onion.

Don’t want to add another bit of plastic to your kitchen? Then take a look at this Russell Hobbs chopper with its beautiful glass bowl.

9. Most versatile manual vegetable chopper: Brieftons Express Food Chopper

A meat chopper is a great tool for anyone who cooks beef on a regular basis, but it’s a handy thing to have in the kitchen even if you rarely or never eat beef. It can be used for mixing other ground meats like turkey, but it can be used as a stand-in for plenty of other tools. You can use it to mix instead of using a whisk, as a masher for fruits, or to scramble eggs. It’s the kind of seemingly niche kitchen tool that you’ll find yourself reaching for all the time.

MINCING FUNCTION: Unleash your creativity in the kitchen with the versatile mincing function. Go from a satisfying coarse chop to a finely minced texture, offering flexibility for a wide range of recipes. These tend to be the mini food processor style choppers. They’re really efficient, chopping things up in seconds, and definitely speed up the dinner prep process. They can be noisy though and are sometimes a bit fiddly to put together. Manual food choppers More advanced food choppers let you chop your fruit and veg but can also blend up sauces and purées and even grind up nuts and coffee beans. Types of food chopper Electric food choppers We looked for meat choppers that had at least three blades for effective mashing and mixing, but with a maximum of six blades, since smaller spaces between blades make the masher hard to clean.

5. Best pull-handle vegetable chopper: Zyliss Easy Pull Food Processor

Every mini chopper is tested on how easy it is to clean. This way you'll be aware of the clean-up job needed after each use.

PRECISION CONTROL: Achieve the perfect texture with ease using the one-speed control. Whether you're in the mood for a coarse chop or a fine mince, this feature puts you in control of your culinary creations. However, food processors can be large, bulky beasts and are often expensive. Bigger models, or models with multiple parts, can also be more of an effort to clean. As well as cutting up your veg, you can use the Ninja Professional Chopper to chop up herbs and spices and blend up sauces, dips, and dressings. There are a few different types of vegetable choppers available. Some are like mini food processors, with blades that spin around to cut your veg up. Others are a lot more simple and work by manually pushing the food through a grid of blades. What can you do with a food chopper?It’s a compact and powerful little machine that comes with two speeds so that you’ve got more control over the chopping process. The cheapest chopper on our list is the no-fuss, no-frills manual vegetable chopper from the OXO Good Grips range. They really take the hassle out of preparing fresh, home-cooked meals for your family; chopping all your vegetables for you in seconds. So you can have a bolognese bubbling on the hob in no time. There’s even an opening at one end of the container so you can tip the prepared food out without needing to take the top off; perfect if you’re using it to chop a few different vegetables. Pros

If you are still not certain about what type of food prep gadget to buy, head to our guide: Food processor, mixer or blender? The best mini choppers from our tests This depends on what you want to use the food chopper for, but these are the key things to look out for:

We test each mini chopper with nuts, onions and herbs to see how well they can chop different types of food. A strong mini chopper will consistently chop any ingredient – hard or soft – into fine, even pieces. A large-capacity bowl means you'll be able to make bigger batches. However, the bigger the bowl size, the more space it’s likely to take up in your kitchen. It’s also worth bearing in mind that bigger bowls can be more of a faff to clean by hand or may be awkward to fit in the dishwasher. Overall size - Look for a chopper that’s neat and compact so it won’t take up too much room on your worktop and can easily be stored away in a cupboard when it’s not in use. It comes with three blades so it’s really efficient at chopping vegetables, fruits, nuts, and herbs. It also has a mixer attachment that you can use for mixing and blending liquid ingredients together.