Costco has the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus Processor for $19.99. I picked one up as a gift for DD who does not have a food processor and has limited kitchen storage space. She does have a dishwasher, so cleaning would be a breeze. But I realize I almost never use mine. I’m curious to know – if you have one, what do you use it for?
My mini-prep has a cheese grater blade and I use it a lot for that. I’m convinced cheese freshly grated off a block tastes better than buying it grated. I also use it for chopping nuts, crushing cookies for crusts, and chopping onions, peppers and things that I want to add to a meatloaf and don’t care if they’re uniform size. I don’t have a full size food processor, so it’s this or nothing for me!
I used to pulse fresh herbs in mine, but don’t use it much anymore.
Use mine all the time. Especially for chopping onions
Yes. Chopping nuts. Or small mixing jobs.
I use mine for a lot of small chopping jobs.
The chop wizard pretty much replaced the mini for me, except for those herbs:
https://www.amazon.com/Vidalia-Chop-Wizard-67366/dp/B000I6JZWA
I like the ease and uniformity of the dice from the wizard. We have every appliance you can name and, hands down, this one is the biggest bang for the buck in our kitchen.
Nuts, Chocolate chips, Carrots, onions, celery. I use it for small amounts and probably use it more than my full-sized one.
I used it this week. Chopped walnuts, brown sugar, & a little butter to put in acorn squash.
I don’t have a full-size one. I use the small one for things such as chopping nuts, grating carrots, and pureeing soups. I think the appliance is worth the small amount of space it takes up in the cupboard.
I use it for pesto and to purée tomatoes and onions when making Mexican rice.
My chop wizard went to Goodwill. 
I just got the mini hoping it would do a better job.
I’ve got some cheaper version of a magic bullet and make peanut butter or chop peanuts, grate chunks of parmesan, make breadcrumbs, mix smoothies, puree (eg, soups, roast tomatoes for sauce,) make pesto, and more. Mine was less than $20.
What do you think you D wants to do? What do you do with your larger processor when not using the feeder tube and slicer blade?
I have a very small one (was a gift). I use it only to chop up carrots and onions when I make meatloaf. I think I have also used it once or twice for nuts for cookies.
All the time. I chop garlic a few times a week to sautee with, onions and celery for tuna or chicken salad, anything that needs to be chopped and yet doesn’t need to stay bite size. I handwash mine, its pretty easy to keep clean.
Only $19? What a steal
Potato pan cakes are a big favorite with my son and guests, so I use the mini for that. When I’m making tuna for just myself, I use a grinder from Williams Sonoma which isn’t electric.
I used to have one of the original Cuisinart kind that had no base and used it all the time for chopping/pureeing garlic and ginger for Indian food, etc. Eventually it broke, and I replaced it with an el cheapo, non-Cuisinart version that was useless, so I got rid of it. My original Cuisinart, a DL7 Super Pro that I bought in 1983, is still going strong, although I’ve replaced most parts at least once! The mini thing only lasted a few years, for some reason. But it was a different model that the ones available now. Recently a friend gave me their Cuisinart, which is smaller than my old one. I find that I am using it a lot more for vegetable chopping and so forth, and it works well because of the size.
I think a small Cuisinart would be more useful that a mini, but on the other hand, for $19…
You could also get her a stick blender. They are the bomb for pureeing soups and so forth.
I have a KitchenAid immersion blender that came with a mini chopper bowl. I don’t use that aspect often, but I do have it if I need it!
The Cuisinart stick blenders are also on sale at Costco sometime this month! Also $19.99!
https://www.costco.com/Cuisinart-Smart-Stick-Variable-Speed-Hand-Blender.product.100378976.html
I use my mini food processor for pesto. Fresh pesto makes everything better. Plus with allergies in the house I know exactly what is going into the pesto. No peanuts or cashews.