Russell Hobbs mini chopper

How easy is the Russell Hobbs mini chopper to use?

To get this mini chopper going, all you need to do is press down the single large green button to the side of the chopper bowl. The button is responsive and can be easily pulsed or held down, depending on what you’re chopping. The speed with which the blades spin is exactly right: not so slow that they’re unable to cut anything, not too fast that you can’t control them. The plastic sheaths were a welcome addition, too.

The bowl and lid twist and lock into place. There are some directions embossed onto the plastic as a guide, but the text is miniscule and easily missed. Fitting the bowl and lid feels a little precarious, as you really need to use some force to get them to lock into place. The plastic on both isn’t the thickest, so on each test we were concerned we were going to break the plastic.

The bowl, lid and blades are dishwasher-safe: a real plus.

Results

We followed BBC Good Food’s Thai green curry paste recipe. We had to reduce the recipe by two-thirds as there simply wasn’t space for the whole thing. We were still able to make a generous amount of curry paste, but this model wouldn’t be our first choice if we were prepping for a dinner party, for example.

That being said, it chopped and puréed the mix well, producing a consistent and fine curry paste.

We were able to fit a single chopped onion into the bowl. This model chopped the onion relatively well, though we noticed some slight mushiness at the very bottom, whilst the onion at the top was still quite chunky. We’d have liked to have seen more consistency.

Breadcrumbs were evenly chopped, if a little slowly done. We could only fit one torn up slice of bread in the bowl. But breadcrumbs are relatively mess-free, so if you needed more this could easily be done in batches.

Our herbs were cut cleanly, whilst we noticed a couple of odd sizes chunks, the majority were consistent in size. We thought this model would be ideal for herb dips and sauces like pesto.

Conclusion

For small quantities of pastes, dips and sauces, this Russell Hobbs model is the ideal choice. The super-sharp blades make light work of a variety of ingredients and the small bowl capacity means this model would best suit a couple or small family.

Putting this model together takes a little practice and requires more force than feels comfortable, which may be off putting for some. But it takes up very little space, is easy to clean and comes at an unbeatable price.

Specifications

Components: lid, blades, 500ml bowl, chopper stand
Dimensions (cm): H: 13.7, W: 17.7 x D: 10.7
Speed settings: pulse and continuous
Wattage: 130
Colours: white

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Mini chopper recipes

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Thai green curry paste
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This review was last updated in May 2021. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability, please get in touch at [email protected].