- Dicing - no longer difficult breville’s new dicing attachment takes ease and precision to the next level. The dicing attachment works by slicing and then dicing your foods. This two-step process ensures even and precise cubes. The 12mm dicing attachment is a great tool to prepare a variety of popular dishes like soups and salads. The 8mm and 16mm dicing kit offer a greater variety in precision cuts and can be purchased separately.
- Peeled to perfection peeling doesn’t have to be painful. The peeler disc can peel up to 7 potatoes at a time and all sorts of produce like beetroot and sweet potato, taking the hard work out of preparing your ingredients.
- A chute for every shape Three Feed chute options for precise results. By enabling larger produce in the big chute, Breville larger dicing area creates more cubes in a single push, and the 360º dicing grid provides up to 10 cups of continuous dicing.
- Heavy duty induction motor The sous chef 16 Peel and dice has an updated direct drive, High torque 1200W motor to easily handle the toughest jobs in the extra-large 16 cup (3. 6 liter) capacity bowl.
- S-blade system the micro-serrated s-blade delivers swift action for consistent chopping, mixing, and processing of a variety of ingredients.
Pricing last updated on April 1, 2023 - 18:00 MDT. Pricing and images from Amazon Product Advertising API. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Introduction: the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Review
There are a lot of choices out there when it comes to food processors. Everything from a simple chopping bowl with limited disc options to a commercial Robot Coupe continuous feed food processor. The former doesn’t really add much more value to my kitchen than my coveted Vitamix blender, while the latter is quite the expense, even for the most enthusiastic home cook.
I decided to look for something in the middle; something with enough functionality to justify adding it to my arsenal of small kitchen appliances, while affordable enough to not make too much of a dent in my bank account.
Table of Contents
Looking for a Food Processor with Dicing Functionality
One functionality that I knew I really wanted was the ability to dice. Dicing is a little more complex than the standard cutting functions of a food processor. While slicing, julienning, and grating just requires one disc, a dicing kit requires two discs: one to do the slicing and the other to do the dicing.
Until very recently, the only way I could have this dicing functionality with a food processor was to splurge on a commercial food processor, like the Robot Coupe. Fortunately, Breville released an upgraded version of their popular 16 cup Sous Chef food processor: the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice.
Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor: An Arsenal of Blades for Almost Any Cut
In addition to a 12mm dicing kit, the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor includes a wide variety of blades and discs including: a peeling disc (peels up to 7 potatoes at a time), a full sized micro-serrated S-blade, a mini S-blade, a reversible coarse/fine shredding disc, a variable slicing disc (24 settings from 0.3mm-8mm), a julienne disc, a french fry cutting disc, a whisking disc, and a dough blade.
You can purchase an additional dicing kit to extend the functionality of your food processor. The dicing kit comes with two new dicing blades/grids (8mm and 16mm). Having different sizes of dice is useful in controlling how fast your food cooks.
The Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor even includes a flexible scraper to ensure you get all your processed food out of the bowl, and a cleaning brush to help clean the hard to reach areas of the bowl, lid, and blades/discs.
The Sous Chef comes with an enormous 16-cup bowl that will be more than enough for most home-cooks. Additionally, a mini 2.5 cup chopping bowl is included for smaller processing jobs.
The food processor has a wide chute for feeding food through that can be customized in to two smaller chutes. The smallest chute is useful for slicing cylindrical foods such as cucumbers and carrots as it helps control the angle at which the food hits the blade on the disc.
You can run the food processor continuously with an automatic count-up timer, or you can pulse it for a more controlled chop.
My Experience with the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
I’ve owned the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor for almost 4 years now and feel that I’ve got a good handle on its capabilities. Here is my in-depth review of some of the discs and blades that come with the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor.
- Dicing - no longer difficult breville’s new dicing attachment takes ease and precision to the next level. The dicing attachment works by slicing and then dicing your foods. This two-step process ensures even and precise cubes. The 12mm dicing attachment is a great tool to prepare a variety of popular dishes like soups and salads. The 8mm and 16mm dicing kit offer a greater variety in precision cuts and can be purchased separately.
- Peeled to perfection peeling doesn’t have to be painful. The peeler disc can peel up to 7 potatoes at a time and all sorts of produce like beetroot and sweet potato, taking the hard work out of preparing your ingredients.
- A chute for every shape Three Feed chute options for precise results. By enabling larger produce in the big chute, Breville larger dicing area creates more cubes in a single push, and the 360º dicing grid provides up to 10 cups of continuous dicing.
- Heavy duty induction motor The sous chef 16 Peel and dice has an updated direct drive, High torque 1200W motor to easily handle the toughest jobs in the extra-large 16 cup (3. 6 liter) capacity bowl.
- S-blade system the micro-serrated s-blade delivers swift action for consistent chopping, mixing, and processing of a variety of ingredients.
Pricing last updated on April 1, 2023 - 18:00 MDT. Pricing and images from Amazon Product Advertising API. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Dicing Kit for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
The dicing kit is what makes the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor shine, especially if you also purchase the additional 8mm and 16mm dicing kits.
I really put the dicing system to the test when I prepared ingredients for a large batch of butternut squash. As you can see below, the Sous Chef diced both carrots and butternut squash with ease.
The dicing kit comes with a cleaning tool that attaches to the bottom of the large food pusher. You simply line up the cleaning tool with the dicing grid and push down to get rid of any left over food that didn’t make its way into the bowl. Afterwards you can place the dicing grid in the dishwasher for a more thorough clean.
Peeling Disc for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
With the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice peeling disc, I was able to easily peel 3 potatoes in about 36 seconds. I probably could have fit a few more potatoes in the food processor bowl without any problem.
As you can see in the picture below, the Sous Chef did a good job at getting most of the peel removed. There were a few eyes remaining on the potatoes that I removed with a vegetable peeler.
The peeling disc took off a tad too much potato flesh than I thought was ideal, as you can see in the picture below. I think the peeling disc is useful if you’re cooking a big dinner for a crowd as the lost overhead may be justified by the time saved, but for most meals I find it easier to just grab my trusty vegetable peeler and quickly peel the skins away.
Reversible Grating Disc for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
The grating disc handled both soft cheeses like cheddar and hard cheeses like parmesan well. The parmesan shook the counter a little bit but it was fully grated in just a couple seconds. The grating disc can be reversed for either a coarse or fine grate.
Variable Slicing Disc for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
The Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor comes with just one slicing disc, but don’t let that trick you in thinking it comes with limited capabilities. Rather than having a dedicated slicing disc for every thickness of slice you’d like to achieve, the one slicing disc on the Sous Chef can be adjusted to various thicknesses. It has 24 settings from 0.3mm to 8mm, giving you a great deal of control when it comes to slicing your food. This one-disc solution saves a lot of valuable storage space in your kitchen!
Whipping Disc for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
The Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice includes a handy whipping disc which is perfect for whipping up some cream for your favorite dessert.
Other Blades and Discs for the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor
In addition to the discs pictured above, the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor comes with both a full-sized S-blade and a mini version for the mini bowl; perfect for making pizza dough, pie crust, hummus, mayonnaise, and more.
A french fry cutting disc is also included to transform potatoes into french fries in a matter of seconds.
- Dicing - no longer difficult breville’s new dicing attachment takes ease and precision to the next level. The dicing attachment works by slicing and then dicing your foods. This two-step process ensures even and precise cubes. The 12mm dicing attachment is a great tool to prepare a variety of popular dishes like soups and salads. The 8mm and 16mm dicing kit offer a greater variety in precision cuts and can be purchased separately.
- Peeled to perfection peeling doesn’t have to be painful. The peeler disc can peel up to 7 potatoes at a time and all sorts of produce like beetroot and sweet potato, taking the hard work out of preparing your ingredients.
- A chute for every shape Three Feed chute options for precise results. By enabling larger produce in the big chute, Breville larger dicing area creates more cubes in a single push, and the 360º dicing grid provides up to 10 cups of continuous dicing.
- Heavy duty induction motor The sous chef 16 Peel and dice has an updated direct drive, High torque 1200W motor to easily handle the toughest jobs in the extra-large 16 cup (3. 6 liter) capacity bowl.
- S-blade system the micro-serrated s-blade delivers swift action for consistent chopping, mixing, and processing of a variety of ingredients.
Pricing last updated on April 1, 2023 - 18:00 MDT. Pricing and images from Amazon Product Advertising API. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
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A Wishlist for Future Improvements to the Breville Sous Chef Peel Processor
Everything can be improved upon, even a well engineered appliance.
One Feature that Could Make it a Robot Coupe Alternative
One functionality from commercial food processors that I hope is adopted by consumer food processors is a continuous feed mechanism that spits out sliced, diced, julienned, and grated vegetables into an external bowl. When comparing the Robot Coupe to Breville, this is one key missing function of the Breville. A continuous feed mechanism would make it easier to keep your chopped vegetables separate without having to clean out the integrated bowl between vegetables. If the Breville had a continuous feed mechanism, it would become a true Robot Coupe alternative for home chefs. Now that dicing is available for the consumer market, maybe this feature for home food processors isn’t too far away.
The Lid Could Be Easier to Clean
I would also like to see more of the Sous Chef’s components be dishwasher safe. While there are only two components that Breville identifies as not being dishwasher safe (the large food pusher and geared spindle – both components have labels on them indicating they aren’t dishwasher safe which is convenient in case you forget), Breville recommends that you minimize the number of times the bowl and lid go in the dishwasher because of plastic interlocking parts that could degrade overtime. The problem is that food tends to get stuck in the lid between a non-removable gasket and the top of the id. I have only had success removing this excess food from this area by running it through the dishwasher. I worry that over time the interlocking plastic parts will degrade in the dishwasher causing my kitchen investment to become obsolete.
Better Seal Between Mini Bowl and Larger Bowl Would Have Me Using The Mini Bowl More Often
Additionally, I would like to see a better seal between the mini chopping bowl and the main bowl. If I’m processing something very liquid, some of the liquid from the mini chopping bowl will inevitably make its way into the larger bowl, causing me to have to wash both bowls defeating one of the main reasons of using the mini bowl.
An Almost Perfect Disc Storage System Could Be Made Better
Lastly, the bottom part of the blade/disc kit that houses the dicing components can only be accessed by lifting up the top part. It would be much more convenient if this bottom part was a drawer instead for easy access to the dicing components.
Overall Ranking: The Best Dicing Food Processor for Home Consumers
Despite the shortcoming listed above, I feel that the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice Food Processor is miles ahead of other consumer-grade food processors out there. Unless you’re willing to fork out a premium for a commercial-grade food processor, the Breville Sous Chef Peel & Dice is the next best thing. The addition of the dicing capabilities make it shine compared to the competitors, and the robustness of the machine and large selection of blades and discs make it a very versatile food processor for the home cook.
If you don’t need the dicing and peeling capabilities, I highly recommend you check out the regular 16-cup Breville Sous Chef, which I owned before upgrading to the Peel & Dice. You can also get the regular Sous Chef in a 12-cup version if 16 cups is too much.
- Dicing - no longer difficult breville’s new dicing attachment takes ease and precision to the next level. The dicing attachment works by slicing and then dicing your foods. This two-step process ensures even and precise cubes. The 12mm dicing attachment is a great tool to prepare a variety of popular dishes like soups and salads. The 8mm and 16mm dicing kit offer a greater variety in precision cuts and can be purchased separately.
- Peeled to perfection peeling doesn’t have to be painful. The peeler disc can peel up to 7 potatoes at a time and all sorts of produce like beetroot and sweet potato, taking the hard work out of preparing your ingredients.
- A chute for every shape Three Feed chute options for precise results. By enabling larger produce in the big chute, Breville larger dicing area creates more cubes in a single push, and the 360º dicing grid provides up to 10 cups of continuous dicing.
- Heavy duty induction motor The sous chef 16 Peel and dice has an updated direct drive, High torque 1200W motor to easily handle the toughest jobs in the extra-large 16 cup (3. 6 liter) capacity bowl.
- S-blade system the micro-serrated s-blade delivers swift action for consistent chopping, mixing, and processing of a variety of ingredients.
Pricing last updated on April 1, 2023 - 18:00 MDT. Pricing and images from Amazon Product Advertising API. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hi Tyler, thank you for this review! I appreciate your experience in using this machine and your thoughtful review. I’m trying to figure out what the machines limitations are so as not to damage what I lovingly nicknamed the Beast. Lol. It says in the material not to try to dice sweet potatoes, only to slice them. Is the same true of the french fry cutter? What about other hard root vegetables such as rutabaga? Beet root? I made a huge mistake when I first got it. I was making cookies on Christmas Eve. I doubled the batch as I… Read more »
I have not run into any problems with overloading it, but I’ve avoided dicing sweet potatoes as per Breville’s instructions. I will say though that it seemed to have struggled when I diced the Butternut Squash on the smallest grid. Things became comfortable when I upped the size of the dice. If you’re dicing rutabaga, I’d suggest starting on the larger dicing grid. As far as cookie dough goes, the Sous Chef should be able to handle it. Maybe you overloaded it? Have you tried just doing a single batch? I thoroughly enjoy the Peel and Dice and would consider… Read more »
Thanks for your reply!
I think I must have overloaded it. I haven’t made anymore cookies, yet. But will within the next couple of days. I will definitely only do single batches now, even though that makes twice the work. Lol.
I don’t have the extra driving disks. I’ll try it and see how it goes. I can at least slice it and then dice by hand if I need to.
Thanks again!