Vitamix 12-Cup Attachment Review

Performance Comparison

Chopping

While the Vitamix 12-cup leaves a bit to be desired in the chopping realm, it holds up to most of its competitors. We chopped a plethora of different foods during our testing, from watery onions to dry nuts. We paid particular attention to the evenness and preciseness of the chop.

The pulse button starts a little slow compared to some of the Vitamix's competitors. It also stops slowly when working with a large amount of something or denser foods. The first vegetable we attempted to chop was a juicy onion. The Vitamix performs very well here. It takes roughly four short pulses to chop the onion completely; however, the chop is more of a mince. The results are crisp and unmutilated, but the size of the pieces varies a bit from minced to bite-size.

Next, we tried chopping up some carrots. This model offers a decent chop of harder veggies like this after three short pulses. After six pulses, the carrot is mostly chopped, and the size is mostly uniform, but not entirely. The blades are sharp and precise, so you don't have to worry much about turning your carrots into mush and can continue pulsing if you'd prefer not to have any larger pieces.

The almonds rendered a different result. After six pulses, there is a lot of nut dust, and the almonds are chopped somewhat unevenly. However, it does a great job of ensuring that every nut is chopped and no whole nuts are left behind, which is an issue we experienced with other models in our review of top-ranked food processors.

Mixing

We tried making pizza dough, mayonnaise, and pie crust during our mixing test. When compared to other options in our test suite, its performance is average — it gets the job done.

For our first test, we tried mixing pizza dough. This test is truly where the Vitamix 12-cup shines. It handles like an absolute champ. The general blade and shaft design allow everything to mix to completion without sticky bits hanging on the bowl — so much so that you barely have to wash the top. The pie crust also mixes well and provides great elasticity.

On the other hand, trying to make mayonnaise was a different story. It feels as though the blades do not whip fast enough to fluff up the egg, although the lemon and egg do mix quite nicely.

Pureeing

We whipped up some hummus, nut butter, tomato sauce, and applesauce during our pureeing testing. It works very well across the board, except for applesauce. We also tested how leakproof each processor is through a water test. The rubber seal and tightly fitting lid of the Vitamix result in a completely leak-free appliance.

The Vitamix 12-Cup stops automatically after two and a half minutes, at which point your hummus will be practically done. It provides a nice, smooth consistency, just shy of what you might purchase in a grocery store.

Nut butter can be difficult for food processors to blend successfully, but this model knocked it out of the park. After roughly six minutes, the Vitamix 12-Cup produces a smooth and creamy butter, with almost no extra splatter on the walls and lid and no chunks or unpureed pieces.

Tomato sauce is whipped up so quickly that you almost have no excuse for buying premade sauce. After 20 seconds, the garlic and tomato chunks are blended as one. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for our applesauce test, which requires a lot more time to produce a smooth product.

Shredding

Much like the mixing and chopping, the Vitamix gets the job done but isn't anything to write home about. The two discs offer two shredding size options, both of which we happily shredded cheese, potatoes, and carrots with.

This model performs pretty well in the cheese potato department but leaves plenty of room for improvement. The shred is somewhat uniform but leaves some crumbly bits of cheese smooshed to the walls and lid, while the potatoes are left quite wet. On the other hand, carrots are easily chopped, mostly uniform, and left nice and crisp.

Slicing

This test is where the Vitamix 12-Cup starts to impress us. Similar to the shredding discs, it comes with a large and small slicing disc, both of which perform admirably. During this test, we slice up tomatoes, potatoes, and zucchinis.

All three of these veggies sliced easily, but we were incredibly impressed with the tomato. As you can imagine, slicing delicate fruits or vegetables can turn into a sloppy mutilated mess. The Vitamix 12-Cup slices soft tomatoes uniformly and with no smoosh.

This model also slices potatoes and zucchinis well, but they both come out a little tapered. This taper isn't too big of a deal, but it is worth noting. We especially noticed tapering once we started using the plunger, as there is not as much control.

Cleaning

Generally speaking, the Vitamix 12-Cup is easy to clean. The whole thing, besides the base, is BPA Free & Dishwasher Safe.

The blade is very easy to get a grip on and clean without much fear of getting cut while adjusting your grip, and the bowl separates from everything else, so there are no hard-to-reach spots unless you have especially large hands. The plunger has a small opening that can be difficult to get into, so a bottle brush will make the whole process a lot easier.

Should You Buy the Vitamix 12-Cup Attachment?

The primary consideration here is whether or not you already own a Vitamix blender. If you do, purchasing the food processor attachment for it is a great way to cut down on clutter and gadgets in your kitchen, as the blender and food processor utilizes the same motor, saving storage space s. If you don't own a Vitamix, this will be a costly processor to buy.

What Other Food Processors Should You Consider?