GE 12 Cup Food Processor review

The GE 12 Cup Food Processor offers a larger 12 cup capacity and delivers a solid performance. It’s powered by a 550-watt motor that’s capable of slicing, grating, chopping, and mixing doughs, and it features a design that makes it very easy to clean. At $129, this machine’s price is in the mid-range, making it a practical choice for many. While it’s a larger food processor, it’s a versatile machine that will find many uses in most kitchens. 

While we found the size of the feed chute to be limiting, the overall performance was still strong enough to rank this machine as one of our best food processors. Read on for our GE 12 Cup Food Processor review. 

GE 12 Cup Food Processor review: Price and availability

The GE 12 Cup Food Processor is available from Amazon for $129. It’s backed by a one-year limited warranty. This food processor is only available in stainless steel. 

GE 12 Cup Food Processor review: Design

The GE 12 Cup Food Processor features a sleek, minimalistic design. Its controls are all located in the single large dial in the front. The dial features pulse, low, high, and off settings, giving you control of the machine without being complex. The dial does get slippery when you have wet or greasy hands; a textured surface would be an improvement on its design. 

The stainless steel finish will complement a modern kitchen, but the fact that no other finish options are available can be a downside, especially if you plan on leaving this machine on display. It’s a larger unit, measuring 16 inches high, but it weighs just 6.6 pounds, so it’s easy to move around and lift into and out of cupboards. 

This machine features suction cup feet on its base, which help it to stick to the counter. It’s easy to disengage those suction cups by pulling the food processor to the edge of the counter, and they deliver a secure hold while it’s in use. 

The built-in cord storage feature is convenient and contributes to the machine’s clean and sleek look. It makes for easy cleanup and storage, too. 

When the bowl is locked into the base, the handle is on the right-side. It’s easy to align and lock in, but this isn’t the best design for people who are left-handed. 

This food processor includes a stainless steel mixing blade, and a reversible slicing and shredding disc. The accessories cover the essential functions, but the lack of a dough blade is a disadvantage. The machine lacks any attachment storage as well. 

GE 12 Cup Food Processor review: Performance

This food processor performed well in most of our tests, and the 550-watt motor never felt like it lacked power or struggled. It reached 85 dBA, making it a very quiet model and pleasant to use, especially during extended tests like pureeing hummus. 

The large-capacity bowl size was really too large for pureeing hummus, though it performed well in most of the other tests. The large bowl allowed the hummus ingredients to spread out, so the puree never reached a fine consistency.

The machine also struggled with mixing cookie dough. Both the low and high speeds struggled to blend the butter and sugar — we had to manually break up the butter to get it to mix.

The dough was ultimately smooth and well-blended, though. The machine lacks a specific dough blade, so it’s probably not the best choice for any chef who wants to use it to frequently prepare doughs. 

The GE 12 Cup Food Processor performed much better in the other tests. The chute was large enough to hold a ⅓-pound block of cheddar cheese, and it grated the block in 13 seconds on the high setting. A large piece of cheese somehow made it through the blade, but the rest of the cheese was consistently and finely grated. 

When we sliced a carrot and a russet potato, we saw consistent results. The machine sliced a carrot in seven seconds on low and four seconds on high. The slices were nice and round, and had even thickness.

The feed chute is small, so we had to quarter the potato. Slicing the potato took 20 seconds because we had to feed the pieces through individually. However, the slices were consistent and the machine never struggled. 

Grating an onion was equally easy. The onion bounced around a bit on the blade, but was well-chopped after 12 seconds on the low setting. 

GE 12 Cup Food Processor review: Ease of use and cleaning

This food processor was largely easy to use. The small chute was a disadvantage, and required that we pre-cut the potato. However, the feed chute also features a stackable design that lets you modify it to your ingredient size, making it easy to ensure that carrots and celery stay straight. 

The dial power setting is intuitive and simple. The dial is easier to use than most buttons when you’re looking for a brief pulse; it gives you more control of the setting and length of operation. 

Both the bowl and lid are easy to align and lock in. They also disengage easily without any need for real force or pressure. The instruction manual is helpful and straightforward, and the attachments are very easy to align and install. 

The bowl is spacious, but one key aspect of its design is that this machine eliminates the plastic column that often surrounds the spindle in other models. This design makes the bowl very easy to clean. The short spindle is positioned within the bowl, itself, and is then topped with a blade. After removing the blade, you’re left with plenty of open space in the bowl, so you can easily fit your hand inside it for a thorough cleaning. Both the bowl and the accessories are also dishwasher safe if you want to avoid hand washing. 

GE 12 Cup Food Processor review: Verdict

The GE 12 Cup Food Processor is a powerful machine that’s also quiet. Its dial power control gives it a sleek look and also makes it easy to use, while its unique bowl and spindle design make for easy cleanup. 

This food processor easily handled most of our tests, and it includes a basic set of accessories that make it useful for blending, chopping, shredding, and grating. Its larger capacity makes it suitable for many food preparation tasks, like mixing cookie dough and chopping large volumes of ingredients, but it’s not ideal for smaller tasks, like hummus preparation. At $129, it’s an affordable model that delivers real value. This food processor offers a large capacity similar to our top pick, the Magimix Food Processor 14 Cup. While the GE food processor lacks the Magimix’s extensive selection of accessories, including a dough blade, it offers a similarly consistent performance, with the exception of small preparation jobs, and is equally easy to use. 

If you’re looking for a food processor with more accessories for more versatility, consider the Magimix Food Processor 14 Cup, which includes two metal blades, a dough blade, two grating discs, two slicing discs, an egg whisk, and spatula, which fit easily into the compact storage box.