Why my food processor sometimes leaves chunks behind

For the longest time I thought my food processor was just bad at chopping. I'd put everything in, run it for a while, open the lid, and somehow there would always be a few random giant pieces sitting around while everything else had turned into mush.

Turns out, it wasn't really the machine.

The biggest problem was how I was loading it. I used to fill the bowl too much because I wanted to finish everything in one batch. The pieces on the bottom would get completely pulverized while some of the food near the top barely moved.

I also noticed that size matters a lot more than I expected. If I'm chopping onions, for example, I cut them into roughly equal chunks before putting them in. If I throw in one huge quarter and several tiny pieces, the tiny pieces are already overprocessed by the time the big one gets chopped.

Another thing that helped was using short pulses instead of just holding the button down. A few quick pulses, then checking the texture, gives the food a chance to redistribute. Sometimes I literally stop and scrape the sides or shake the bowl a little before continuing.

For softer foods, I also try not to run the processor continuously unless I'm actually trying to make a puree. That's how you go from "nicely chopped" to baby food in about five seconds.

So if your processor leaves random chunks behind, I'd try smaller batches, more evenly sized pieces, and pulsing before blaming the machine. Mine suddenly started working a lot better once I stopped treating it like a blender.