Best Food Processors for Grating Cheese

Compared with the 9-cup Ninja, three things change: the bowl grows to 12 cups, the motor goes to 1200 peak watts, and the feed chute gets wide enough that the three-part pusher handles a whole wedge of Parmesan without any knife work first. The disc changes too. This one shreds fine on one face and coarse on the other, where the smaller machine gives you shredding on one side and slicing on the other.

For anyone grating in quantity, that package is worth the step up. We rate the XL as the volume machine of this group: two blocks of mozzarella for a tray of lasagna go in as one bowl's worth, one pass, no stopping to empty anything. Seven speeds also give you more manual control than the presets do, which helps when you want to pull the strands off the disc while they still hold their shape.

The trade is real estate and money. At 12.3 pounds and 17.5 inches tall it is the largest machine here, so measure the gap under your cabinets before you commit. It also costs roughly twice the 9-cup, which only pays off if the volume is real. For pizza night and holiday baking, the wide chute does the work of a knife and a board; for one block a week, it is a lot of machine.

Three slicing and shredding discs come in the box, along with the steel blade and a spatula, which is more cutting options than any other machine here. For cheese specifically, the extras buy you everything else: potatoes for a gratin, onions, cabbage for slaw, a cucumber salad, all handled by the same motor that grates your cheddar. It is the closest thing here to a machine that replaces part of the knife drawer.

The 625-watt motor sits mid-pack on paper and does not behave that way. The base is the heaviest thing in this roundup at 16.9 pounds, which is exactly what you want when you lean into a firm block: nothing shifts, and the machine holds its speed instead of bogging down halfway through. The 11-cup bowl is the second-largest here, and every removable part is dishwasher safe.

The lid is the part we argue with. It seats in one orientation only, and until you have learned the alignment you will stand there with a block of cheese in one hand, lining up tabs with the other. Once it clicks into place, this is the most capable machine in the group for anything beyond straight shredding, and the bowl is wide enough that a rinse in the sink does most of the work before it goes in the rack.

Ten cups, a 450-watt motor, a stainless slicing and shredding disc, and a built-in bowl scraper, at a price that undercuts every other full-size machine here. There is no point pretending that is not the headline. What surprised us is how little the smaller motor gives up: feed a firm block of cheddar in at a steady pace and the strands come out even, and the machine keeps its rhythm through onions, carrots, and a pile of potatoes without the shudder that makes you switch off early.

The scraper is the detail to understand before you buy. It is a manual paddle in the lid that you slide side to side while the machine runs, so you are not stopping mid-recipe to spatula the bowl down. It does not move on its own, whatever the name suggests, but it earns its place with thick mixtures that climb the sides.

The base grips the counter, which matters more than it sounds when you are leaning into a cold block of Parmesan, and at 6.2 pounds the whole thing lifts out of a cabinet with one hand. Ten inches wide and 16 tall, it fits where the XL Ninja will not, and the large feed chute means less pre-cutting than the price implies.

Under six inches across and a little over 13 inches tall, the FP-5 is the machine that fits where a full-size processor cannot: the strip beside the refrigerator, the shelf above the microwave, the counter in a small apartment. The blade, the disc, and the cord all stow inside the bowl and the base, so it does not colonize a cabinet between uses either.

The disc flips between fine and medium shredding, and the wide-mouth chute takes rough-cut chunks rather than precision strips, so you are not squaring off a block of cheese before it goes in. With 300 watts and a single speed the pace is deliberate, closer to a steady walk than a sprint, and a firm block feeds through cleanly as long as you do not shovel. The 5-cup bowl holds enough for a casserole or a big pot of soup.

For one or two people this is the pick, and size is not the only reason. The fine side of the disc is what to reach for with Parmesan and other hard cheeses you want as a dusting rather than a strand, and everything but the base goes on the top rack of the dishwasher. It is a small machine that behaves like a serious one, which is rarer at this size than the price suggests.

Three hundred and fifty watts is the smallest motor on any 8-cup machine here, and on paper that reads like a compromise. In practice cheese is not where wattage earns its keep: a sharp disc and an even feed do most of the work, and this Cuisinart turns a block of cheddar into strands without the motor laboring. Nuts and hard root vegetables are where the smaller motor shows.

The discs are the reason it stays in the roundup. The reversible set has a medium face for everyday cheddar and mozzarella and a fine one for Parmesan over pasta, and it sits under a lid with an integrated feed tube. High, low, and pulse give you enough control to pull the strands while they are still separate rather than letting them warm and clump.

At 15 inches tall and six pounds it slides under a cabinet and lifts out with one hand, and the 8-cup bowl sits in the sweet spot between a compact machine that needs two rounds and a 12-cup that lives in the pantry.

We keep it as an also-consider rather than a runner-up for two reasons: the Ninja does the same job with more power for less money, and chopping is where this machine is least convincing, leaving pieces coarser than the rest of the set. Buy it for the two shredding faces and the calm, unshowy operation; skip it if power and presets are what you are after.

Two 4-cup bowls is the idea here, and a good one: shred cheese in one and chop onions in the other without washing in between, or dedicate one bowl to meat and keep the other for everything else. The kit also includes a four-blade chopping blade, an egg whisk, and a reversible disc that slices on one face and shreds on the other, plus a lid with a groove for pouring oil in while the machine runs.

We like it as a small-kitchen second machine. At four pounds and about 13 inches tall it disappears into a cabinet, and the 600-watt motor takes a block of cheese in short order as long as you cut it into strips that fit the chute, which is the catch. The chute is narrow and the bowls hold four cups each, so this is a grate-a-little machine, not a grate-for-a-party one.

Price is what holds it back. At close to what the 9-cup Ninja asks, two small bowls and a narrow chute are a hard sell unless the meat-and-dairy split is exactly the problem you are solving. For a two-person household grating a block a week, it is a tidy answer; for anyone cooking in quantity, the compromise is bigger than the convenience.