Cuisinart CH-4DC Elite Collection 4-Cup Chopper/Grinder, Die Cast

Looking for a handy kitchen helper for everyday food prep? Look no further than the Cuisinart CH-4DC Elite Collection Chopper/Grinder! Here's why I love it: Perfect for Small Jobs: This 4-cup chopper is ideal for those tasks that don't require a bulky food processor. It's lightweight and easy to maneuver on the counter, making it a breeze to use for everyday jobs like chopping onions, garlic, ginger, or herbs. Asian Cuisine Must-Have: If you love Asian cooking, this chopper is a game-changer! It effortlessly creates ginger garlic pastes, chops meat and shrimp, dices vegetables, and even helps you whip up smooth and creamy dipping peanut butter sate sauces or tandoori marinade. Simple Operation, Secure Design: The touchpad control panel is user-friendly, and the auto-reversing SmartPower blade offers both sharp and blunt edges for chopping and grinding. Plus, the BladeLock system ensures the blade stays secure while processing and pouring. More Than Just Chopping: This chopper isn't just for chopping vegetables! The powerful motor handles vegetables, fruits, meat, and creating creamy dipping sauces with ease. Easy Cleaning and Compact Storage: Cleanup is a breeze – most parts are dishwasher-safe. And the compact size means it won't take up valuable counter space when not in use. Overall: This Cuisinart chopper is a fantastic addition to my kitchen. It's powerful, versatile, and perfect for everyday food prep tasks. Highly recommend it, especially for anyone who loves Asian cuisine or wants a convenient chopper for small jobs!

I upgraded to this processor from a smaller one. The size is perfect. The only thing I can say negatively about this is that if the liquid moves higher than the blade assembly, it leaks from the top of the blade assembly to the base of the unit. It's an easy clean-up however. I've chopped cucumbers, onions, carrots etc and it works great. Makes short work of crushing Oreos or crackers. Love the tiny holes on the top cover to add oil when making salad dressing. I even made a pie crust in it. The dough was a little tougher than hand made, but that's to be expected and it will do in a pinch. Add flour first when making a crust. I've had other Cuisinart products in the past and the motor hasn't held up well, here's to hoping this is different. UPDATE 9/2017 - This is used several times a week for various tasks and is still holding up well. Recently it saved much time when chopping cucumbers to make pickle relish and the texture was perfect. I love the safety features of this unit, there is no way to harm yourself scraping down the sides as the unit will not work without the cover on. I've also used it to grind eggshells to put around plants in the garden and it makes an awesome eggshell powder!

As I write this review this item has about 25% one star reviews, very high for a product. After reading other reviews on other sites that rated it more highly, I ordered this not sure if I too would receive a machine that didn't turn on right out of the box. Mine was ordered and delivered at the end of January 2019 and I just wanted to say it didn't have any issues. If that changes, I'll update this review. Obviously Cuisinart's manufacturer has some quality control issues to address, and perhaps they have by now. Aside from that, right out of the box this seems more capable than the previous Cuisinart Mini food processor I owned. That one worked for nearly 15 years and I was happy with it. This one seems somewhat more powerful. It's also got a larger work bowl and slightly larger base, but it's still what I wanted, a small machine for chopping nuts for desserts without having to use my large food processor (then fill up the dishwasher with its pieces), or for making a quick salad dressing. Again, if it turns out I have issues, I'll update this review. Otherwise, my good review holds and I've been happy with the product. UPDATE: I usually use the small size Cusinart food processors pretty much only for chopping nuts for dessert recipes and making vinaigrette or sometimes mayonnaise. Today I made Cuisinart's own recipe for "Hummus for Mini Chopper" that you can find online at their site. Note the FOR MINI CHOPPER in that title. The first step is to chop parsley leaves. This machine does this extremely poorly, less well than Cuisinart's smaller, less expensive versions (Mini Prep Plus, for instance). By the time I scraped the bowl a few times I may as well have just chopped it myself (I never had to scrape the bowl with the smaller versions, and with this one I never did get an acceptable chop on the parsley leaves). It's pretty troubling to see how the Cuisinart name (and reliability) is being destroyed by the corporate greed of its parent company, and how sloppy even their own recipes are now. The recipe for "Hummus for Mini Chopper" says, "...With machine running, drop garlic through feed tube." There's just one problem with that. There is no feed tube on the mini food processors. The recipe continues on with "With the machine running, add the olive oil in a steady stream and process until the mixture is smooth and creamy." Again, you can't do that with this machine. There's no place to pour through the lid while the machine is running. (It worked just fine to add the olive oil to the mix in the bowl and then chop to combine, and for the record, real hummus recipes don't have olive oil in the mix, just drizzled over the top after it's made.) The machine DOES chop garlic cloves very nicely, easily, and quickly. For this recipe which was obviously just downsized in ingredients and not actually written for this type of machine as the title suggests, putting everything together inside the bowl made an acceptable and tasty hummus, but it's nowhere near as smooth and creamy as I can make in my Vitamix or my full-sized Cuisinart food processor. Further, this machine simply didn't have the power to do it smoothly. It made me wonder how long it would last running it for two minutes at a time as the recipe calls for on a regular basis before I burned out the machine (or developed cracks in the blade as others have reported here). Instead of running smoothly it was somewhat jerky for the entire two minutes called for in the recipe. I'm going to stick to chopping nuts for dessert recipes, vinaigrettes, and mayonnaise only with this machine, which is what I bought it for, but knowing what I know now, I would have bought the Cuisinart Mini Prep instead. Having now owned both, I think the Mini Prep is the better machine for these small tasks when I don't want to have to fill up the dishwasher with the full-sized Cusinart food processor's parts. I also tried to make almond flour in this machine and that wasn't very successful either. I had to stop before I made almond butter instead, but it was just for a Bundt cake so it worked either way. I wouldn't buy this for that purpose or try that again, though. The Vitamix can do it without any problem.

I bought this small food processor after I got fed up with my mediocre KitchenAid small processor. This one is a HUGE improvement! I didn't think I'd use the Grinder feature much, but I have; even for mixing ingredients before chopping them. The lid fits snugly so there isn't leakage, and the blade locks in so you can pour the contents out without having to remove it. The two-sided oil cavities on the lid work great for slowly adding oil to emulsify into dressing; just make sure to use only one side at a time (watch the instruction video - it's very helpful, even for seasoned food processor users!). It's easy to clean, as well. Recommended!

Love this. Small and perfect and doesn’t take up much cabinet or counter space. I’ve just purged the 13 cup food processor that I used twice. This one is perfect for what I need. Easy to clean and chops just enough, holds 4 cups or so. Have made it for hummus, aioli, chopped nuts etc. It isn’t any louder than any of the other chopper/blender things that are out there. No problem with it sliding off the counter, it hasn't, but you aren’t going to leave it alone anyway. If you need a small food processor, this may be the gadget one for you.

We have one of those outboard-motor-sized machines, but except when we make hummus in quantity, it's usually too much trouble to drag it out. This unit is small enough to just sit out on the counter. I use it all the time, typically to make sauces, muffaletta, Romesco, pestos, etc. This rig handles the job so readily that I find myself whipping stuff up on a whim, which is fun. It grinds powerfully and quickly. I cook for two, and the size is just right for this. It's as easy to clean as a processor CAN be, which is to say it's a pain, but not a HUGE one. My only quibble is that it can be hard to yank the blade out to empty the bowl, but it's not really a problem, and I suspect it might get easier as the parts wear in. I like it, more than I thought I might. My wife mocked me for buying another gadget, but I caught her using it the other day, so heh!

The perfect size for small jobs (sauces, marinades,etc) when you don’t want to break the bank with a full size one. Or don’t use a full size one often enough to justify the price of one. Cuisinart has always been my favorite brand for kitchen ware and it has proven itself yet again. Easy to clean and control for those cooks who just don’t cook enough to justify buying a full size machine and use only 1 or 2 times a year. Well worth what I spent for it and plenty of power to get the job done. The only drawback is you can’t put in other tools that come with it inside the bowl for storage. I can live with that though.

UPDATE REVIEW: I am updating my review after 6 months of use from 4 stars to one star because this machine is way to fragile. First, the lid dropped and the wouldn't close properly so we had to jury rig it into working. We got it going and it worked great though I was annoyed that it was so fragile. Then last week I asked it to grind and chop some dates and not only did it flat out refuse to cooperate, it stopped working altogether! I took the dates out, cleaned everything, plugged it back in and all seems to operate just fine until I put in some nuts. With anything in the bowl the blade wont spin. If the bowl is empty it spins just fine. Unfortunately I have no need to process air so this thing is going in the trash. Really disappointing. I have left my original review so you can see what I liked before I asked it to process dates. And if you never need to process dates you may well like this machine. ORIGINAL REVIEW: There are some things to really like about this mini processor. I am giving it four stars but in reality if I could give it 3.5 stars, I would. I know that sounds nitpicky but I really don't think this is a full four star processor. What I like.... - The fact that this has both a chop and a grind function is great. For the sort of things I whip up in a food processor, the grind function makes life so much easier. I am frequently grinding nuts and large garlic cloves and the grind function makes this go more smoothly - I like that you can add liquids through the little holes in the top the way you can with a full grown food processor - for its size it does a reasonably good job of breaking things down and pureeing. Not a great job, but definitely respectable - the blade locks in place which means that you can pour your sauce (or whatever you are making) with the blade still attached without fear of the blade falling out and slicing your fingers (or worse, your whole hand) off. But this comes with a caveat which I go into in the my list of things I don't like (Hint: it's the first thing I don't like) - clean up is relatively easy but there is the same caveat which I cover in the things I don't like What I don't like... - the main thing I don't like, and I REALLY don't like it is the fact that once you have made whatever you are making and you've poured whatever you've made into another container, it is time to clean the bowl, the lid and the blade. But just TRY to get that locked in blade out without cutting yourself. You can do it, but you have to be very very careful because in all likelihood whatever you've pureed up in the bowl has now made that blade post very very slippery and since it is locked in place you need a bit of force to pull it up and with it being slippery and all you run the risk of it flying out of the bowl when it eventually decides to let god of its lockingness. THERE IS SUCH AN EASY DESIGN FIX FOR THIS PROBLEM that I am surprise the cuisinart folks haven't worked on it already..... Just texture the blade shaft or put a little ledge grip on the shaft. I have read the other reviews here and know that I am not the only one who finds it a bit difficult to remove that locked in blade once sauce remnants are on the shaft. Do me a favor cuisinart folks.... make this change and I will be your beta tester. I promise to be fair. I think you will have a five star product if you do. Oh, and take my next complaint into consideration as well..... - why four cups????? Who thinks four cups is a good idea. Not me. Six cups should be the mini prep standard. If you have a six cup work bowl you can get 3-4 cups of whatever it is you are making. With a four cup work bowl you can at best get two cups of whatever you're making. Six cups really doesn't have to take up a larger counter footprint. Really. Just make the bowl taller. Or offer it as an option. Five stars. I really think you'd have a winner. - Make the cord a couple of feet longer. We don't all have sockets within such easy reach of our work areas. - Maybe have more than one speed to go along with your chop and grind? Not a deal breaker that there's only one speed but for the price I think you could have put in variable speediness. - oh, and the "spatula" that comes with this thing should be ashamed of itself. Not sure how anyone can call this anything other than a useless sliver of plastic BOTTOM LINE: a good, very basic mini prep but it has issues. Not the most powerful but very very good and the chop and grind is great. The locking blade is a great idea but needs a redesign. I would recommend this mini prep but I also hope cuisinart pays attention to this review and makes some engineering revisions

Very happy. Nice compact unit. Recommended by Cooks Country. Tested…

Liked the product. Works great. Good value

J'ai fait une salade de chou, carottes, oignon vert en un rien temps. Les légumes étaient bien coupés. Un peu petit mais puisque nous ne sommes que 2 alors c'est suffisant.