Hamilton Beach 70730 Food Processor Review: A Budget Workhorse with One Smart Trick
The Hamilton Beach 70730 is a 10-cup food processor with a built-in bowl scraper — a simple but genuinely useful feature that scrapes the sides of the bowl without you ever removing the lid. Over 41,000 Amazon customers have left their verdict (4.5 stars), and it's earned a Better Homes & Gardens "Easiest to Use" designation and a Hamilton Beach Editors' Pick. If you need a reliable machine for everyday chopping, slicing, and shredding and don't want to pay Cuisinart or KitchenAid prices, this deserves a hard look.
Product Overview
The 70730 is Hamilton Beach's mid-tier 10-cup model, sitting above the budget 8-cup 70740 and well below pricier machines with dicing kits. Its defining feature is a removable bowl scraper — a three-blade wand mounted to the outside of the bowl that pushes food back toward the chopping blade while the machine is running, eliminating the mid-process lid-off-scrape-with-spatula interruption most food processors force on you.
| Spec | Detail |
|---|---|
| Motor | 450 watts |
| Bowl capacity | 10 cups (BPA-free) |
| Speeds | 2 + pulse |
| Dimensions | 15.47″ H × 10.25″ W × 8.43″ D |
| Included blades | Stainless steel chopping blade; reversible slicing/shredding disc |
| Dishwasher-safe | Bowl, lid, blades |
| Feed chute | Large (fits whole fruits and vegetables) |
| Color | Black and stainless steel |
The machine ships with everything you need for most prep tasks: the S-blade handles chopping, mixing, and pureeing; the reversible disc flips between fine and coarse shredding and slicing. There are no dicing inserts, no whisk, and no julienne blade — just the essentials.
Performance & Real-World Use
Consumer Reports tested the 70730 and found very good performance across chopping (almonds, onions), slicing (celery, mushrooms), shredding (cheddar cheese, carrots), and grating (parmesan). Those are the tasks most home cooks reach for a food processor for, and the machine handles all of them capably. Shredding cheddar cheese — a notoriously demanding task that can jam weaker motors — earned the top mark.
Where the 70730 loses ground is pureeing. Consumer Reports rated it fair on puree tests with peas and carrots — coarser results than higher-wattage machines achieve. If you make a lot of hummus, smooth soups, or baby food, you'll notice the limitation. The fix is to run it longer or in shorter bursts, but you won't get the silky result a 1,200-watt blender or a more powerful Cuisinart would produce.
Noise is the other fair-rated mark. The 70730 is genuinely loud — noticeably louder than many competitors. That's a real-world consideration in open-plan kitchens or early-morning prep sessions when you'd rather not wake the household.
The bowl scraper feature is exactly as convenient as it sounds. You turn the external handle to sweep the sides while the machine runs, cutting the back-and-forth with the lid in half. It's most useful for thick mixtures — hummus, pesto, nut pastes — where material keeps climbing the walls. Some reviewers have reported that the plastic scraper arm can break with aggressive or prolonged use, which is worth factoring into long-term expectations.
One practical capacity note: the 10-cup bowl doesn't mean you can process 10 cups of anything. For chopped vegetables, the usable load is closer to 3 cups to avoid overfilling. This is normal for food processors at this price point, but worth knowing before you start.
- Bowl scraper is genuinely useful — keeps food in the processing zone without stopping to open the lid
- Very good shredding and slicing — handles carrots, cheddar, celery, and mushrooms with consistent results per Consumer Reports testing
- Easy to clean — bowl, lid, and blades are all dishwasher-safe with no hard-to-reach crevices on the main components
- Large feed chute — fits whole tomatoes, potatoes, and other bulky vegetables without pre-cutting
- Compact footprint — 10.25″ wide, manageable on a crowded counter
- Strong value — performs most everyday prep tasks for a fraction of what Cuisinart or KitchenAid charge
- 41,000+ Amazon ratings at 4.5 stars — one of the most-reviewed food processors on the platform, which reflects genuine mass-market confidence
- Loud — Consumer Reports rated the noise fair; other reviewers echo this consistently
- Mediocre at pureeing — results are coarser than higher-powered machines; not ideal for smooth hummus or soup
- Bowl scraper arm can break — plastic durability reports from long-term users suggest it's not built for indefinite heavy use
- Suction cups grip the counter firmly — helpful for stability during use, inconvenient when you need to move the machine
- Only 2 speeds — no variable speed control; everything is low, high, or pulse
- Not suitable for dough — the 450-watt motor lacks the torque for bread or pizza dough
- Practical capacity is limited — 10-cup bowl size, but realistic working loads are 3–4 cups for chopped solids
For the majority of home cooks, the Hamilton Beach 70730 does exactly what they need. It shreds, slices, and chops reliably, it's easy to clean, and the bowl scraper is the kind of small quality-of-life improvement that earns genuine loyalty from regular users. The cons are real — loud, modest pureeing performance, and a plastic bowl that doesn't feel like it was built for another decade — but none of them are disqualifying for the cooks this machine is designed for. If you want to spend $40–$70 on a capable food processor without overthinking it, the 70730 makes that an easy decision.
Sources
- Hamilton Beach 70730 Product Page — HamiltonBeach.com
- Hamilton Beach 70730 Review — Consumer Reports
- Hamilton Beach 70730 10-Cup Food Processor Reviews — Kitchen Critics
- Hamilton Beach 70730 Food Processor Review — HeatAd
- Hamilton Beach 70730 Detailed Review — AllTheStuff
- Amazon listing — Hamilton Beach 70730 Food Processor