I’ve always been a huge fan of Breville small appliances. They’re always well built and have thoughtful features that simplify cooking or meal prep. They also tend to be multi-purpose small appliances, and the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro is no exception.
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro is a food processor that goes beyond a standard food processor. Equipped with multiple different discs that are packaged in a convenient storage container, the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro shreds, slices, dices, makes French fries, and whips. I used it to make a chocolate cake and I loved using it. Not only did it turn out great, but the 16 cup bowl has more than enough room to blend your batter well.
Appearance and features of Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro is a heavy-duty food processor. The base weighs almost 26 pounds, so it’s definitely one of the heaviest food processors I’ve tested. That being said, it’s also pretty compact. I would have no problem storing it on one of my counters so it’s ready to use whenever I need it.
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- 16-cup bucket (3.8L) great for chopping family-sized portions
- 2.5-cup mini bucket useful for when you don’t need to chop large quantities
- Multiple chute options for small ingredients and large
- 1200-watt induction motor
- Variable slicing disc has 24 settings so you can customize the thickness of your cheese, fruit, and vegetable slices from 0.3mm all the way up to 8.0mm
- Includes julienne disc, French fry disc, reversible shredding disc, micro-serrated universal SS blades, dough blade, mini blade for the mini bucket, and whisk
- All blades store easily in an included storage container
Testing Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro
I wanted to test as many of the discs included with the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro as possible. To test out as many of them as I could, I tried a few different tasks.
Slicing with the variable slicing disc
Out of all the discs included with the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro, I was really interested in trying out the slicing disc. My husband and I love charcuterie boards, so I’m always slicing up cheese. I wanted to see how the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro would slice cheese, so I cut a block of applewood cheddar and an aged cheddar to see how they would do.
I started with the variable slicing disc dial set to 5 and added the cheese. What I learned right away was that the way you cut the cheese before you put it in the chute really matters. To best slice cheese you should cut it lengthways and insert it in the smaller chute. That way it will stand up when it’s slicing and won’t fall until the end.
I managed to get a few good slices of cheese, but after a few tries decided that the diameter should be set to the widest possible diameter for the best slices. When the block of cheese is almost gone it can also get caught in the bucket and bounce across the blade. That leaves you with crumbles or cheese curds, which isn’t a bad thing if your kids love poutine the way mine do.
The variable slicing disc is also a great way to slice up carrots and potatoes if you’re using them for stew or scalloped potatoes. Just like cheese, to get the best slices you’ll have to slice lengthways and put it in the smaller chute to keep it upright.
French fries anyone?
Carrots and potatoes are the two vegetables I use on a daily basis, so I wanted to test out the French fry disc. Both discs sliced up the vegetables easily. After a few tries, I found to get the longest French fries you’ll need to use lay the potato in the larger chute and turn on the processor. If you cut the potato in half you’ll still get French fries, but they will be fairly small. The French fry disc is also the perfect disc for making yam fries.
16 cups for cake batter
When you have a stand mixer you don’t always think about using another small appliance to make cake batter or bread dough, but the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro can easily take on cake batter and dough. You’ll use the S-blade to blend the cake batter, putting it in place before you add your ingredients. The only difference between making cake batter in the Breville Sous Chef and a stand mixer is how you add your ingredients. All liquid ingredients need to be added to the Breville Sous Chef first. After I added the hot water, eggs, and oil I gave it a few pulses to blend. I added all the dry ingredients and hit the start button.
You can set a timer on the Breville Sous Chef and walk away to do other tasks when it’s blending. I let it go for about a minute, scraping the sides in between, and when I popped the lid the batter was completed blended. There were no clumps of flour or sugar, and the batter itself was quite bubbly. I poured into the cake pan and knocked the pan on the counter a few times to remove the bubbles.
The cake turned out great, and I really liked using the Breville Sous Chef to make it. It’s just as easy as using a stand mixer.
Grinding espresso beans in the mini-container
When I was looking for ingredients for the chocolate cake, I realized I didn’t have any espresso powder. I’ve tried a lot of cake recipes and have always added espresso powder to chocolate cake to give it a bit of a flavour boost. Instead of heading to the store, I decided to make some myself.
To make espresso powder you just need to put a tray of espresso beans in the oven on low (200 C) for an hour. Once I dried the beans I put them in the mini-bucket and added the mini S-blade. I hit pulse a few times to see how it would chop, then turned it on start and let it go for a while.
The ground espresso beans had a very similar consistency to ground nuts. The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro did a great job, and if I were chopping nuts I would just stop there and use them. Because I needed to get the espresso beans to powder form, I had to run it through my conical burr grinder.
Cleaning the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro comes with a brush you can use to clean the sides of the bucket. Everything is dishwasher safe except the large chute, so the brush is useful when you’re cleaning any bits off of the bucket or blades.
When I pulled the blades and bucket out of the dishwasher, there were some spots left on the blades. I used a towel to buff them out, but be careful if you do the same; the blades are very sharp.
Should you choose the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro?
The Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro is a powerful food processor. I love the versatility of the different blades. Once you discover how best to place your vegetables inside the chute, you’ll get perfect cuts every time.
Cleanup is easy with this food processor, and I love how it can knead bread dough and make everything from egg whites to cake batter or dip. It does everything a stand mixer would, but it also has the added bonus of slicing, dicing, and chopping. That makes it a winner in my books.
You can find the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro on Best Buy right now.
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