One-minute review
Sage is the high-end kitchen appliance brand that’s known as Breville in the US and Australia. Originally founded in Sydney, Australia it has a reputation for well-designed, good quality appliances, but it’s usually much pricier than its competitors.
It has two food processor models to choose from in the UK, four in the US, and seven in Australia. The Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro which is also known as the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro in the US, is one of its top two food processor models and as such is the second most expensive you can buy from the brand.
This 3.7 litre/ 16 cup food processor comes with an additional 1 litre/ 2.5 cup bowl and blade for processing smaller quantities. In the UK and Australia, the main blade is a micro-serrated quad blade, but the US model has a more standard S-shaped dual blade. It comes with an array of useful attachments which all store neatly in the supplied storage box. These include four discs for shredding, slicing, julienne, and French fry, a dough blade, and a whisking disc.
It’s a heavy-duty food processor that’s aimed at the serious cook who wants to speed things up in the kitchen, and it didn’t disappoint on that front when we tried it out. It’s easy to use and assemble, but it’s bulky and the storage box is big. If you’ve got the space and can justify the high price tag, you’ll get a top-performing food processor that’ll be an invaluable addition to your kitchen.
Sage the Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro price and availability
- List price: £419.95/ $399.95 / AU$699
The Sage the Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro which is known as the Breville Sous Chef 16 Pro in the US and Breville the Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro in Australia is available directly through Sage in the UK or Breville in the US and Australia.
It’s the second most premium and accessory-packed food processor available from the brand and offers lots of functions. But it’s expensive in comparison to other food processors.
Design
- 3.7 litre/ 16 cup capacity
- One speed
- Neat storage box
While it has a good, but not excessively large 3.7 litre/ 16 cup capacity, the base of this food processor is bulkier than most. The whole appliance measures 44.5 x 22.6 x 27.7cm/ 17.5 x 10.9 x 8.9 inches (h x w x d). But when thinking about space, you’ll also have to factor in the large accessory storage box which measures 19.5 x 25 x 31cm/ 7.7 x 9.8 x 12.2 inches (h x w x d).
The finish on the UK model is brushed stainless steel, but in the US and Australia, it’s brushed aluminum, with an additional black option in the US. The sleek modern style will be at home in most kitchens, but be aware that if you want to keep it tucked away in a cupboard, the base is heavy. It weighs in at 7.2kg/ 15.9lbs for the base alone or 9kg/ 19.8lbs including the bowls and lid, so it’s best left on the kitchen counter.
All the parts click together intuitively and labels on the bowl and lid illustrate which direction to turn them to lock into place. The bowl has a pronounced pouring lip, and the lid features a feed chute that can be configured for use with either the small or large pusher depending on the amount of food you’re feeding in.
On the base, there are just three simple buttons, the power/ off button, start/ pause button, or pulse so it’s simple to use, but with just one speed, control is limited. There’s also a small screen that displays a timer that automatically counts up the processing time, but can also be set to count down depending on your preference.
It’s supplied with a whisking disc, reversible shredding disc, julienne disc, French fry/chip cutter disc and a variable slicing disc that can be set to one of 24 thickness settings from 0.3 – 8mm / 0.01 – 0.31 inches. As we already mentioned, the main blade in the UK and Australia is a micro-serrated quad blade, but the US model has a more standard S-shaped dual blade. Additionally, there’s a mini blade for the 1 litre/ 2.5 cup bowl and a plastic dough blade. All accessories including a cleaning brush and spatula fit neatly into labelled slots in the storage box.
The instruction manual is brief and there are no recipes included, but it does have charts suggesting which attachment is best for a variety of different foods. Most parts can be washed in the dishwasher, but to prolong the life of plastic parts like the bowl and lid, it’s not recommended to wash these regularly in the dishwasher.
Performance
- Fast
- Powerful
- Simple to assemble
The shredding disc is reversible, and we opted for thicker shreds when shredding carrot and cheese. Both of which were shredded in seconds, with good even size shreds and minimal waste. For chocolate we opted for a smaller shred, there was some melting on the disc and around 27% of our chocolate ended up trapped on top of the disc and not shredded. However, the shredded chocolate that made its way into the bowl was even and there were no clumps.
We were impressed with the adjustable slicing disc, it’s useful to have so many options for thickness of slices in just one disc. And it made short work of slicing cucumber, creating even slices with no waste. Likewise, the whisking disc thickened 600ml/ 1 pint of cream in just 20 pulses, a fast and effective result.
The plastic dough blade had no problem combining the ingredients for bread dough and we continued to run it for two minutes to knead the dough. The food processor remained stable whilst kneading the dough and the resulting bread had a good even rise.
Using the main quad blade we chopped onion, beef and bread. In just a few short pulses the sharp blades were equally effective at grinding beef as chopping onion evenly and creating fine breadcrumbs out of sliced bread. It’s important to use the pulse button though, this powerful machine is so fast that pulsing is the best way to retain control over the finished size and texture.
We also used the quad blade to mix cake batter which combined into a smooth batter very fast, with just a quick scrape down halfway through to ensure all the ingredients mixed in.
To chop a small quantity of hazelnuts we opted for the smaller bowl and blade. It took around 20 pulses which felt slow in comparison to using the quad blade. The chopped nuts were an uneven mixture of larger chopped chunks and powder, making this the least successful food we chopped. Additionally, some of the nuts got trapped on the top lip of the bowl and spilled into the larger bowl when we removed the lid, which meant we also had to clean the larger bowl despite not having used it.
On paper this food processor is quite loud, hitting between 83db and 86dB in most tests, which is the equivalent level of sound made by a train horn and makes it the loudest food processor we’ve tested.
We cleaned it by hand after each test and like all food processors, the number of parts coupled with the sharp nature of most of the attachments means it’s tricky to clean and it’s safest tackled with the brush to avoid accidents. After cleaning we did notice moisture getting trapped in the handle of the bowl, but there’s nothing you can do to dry it and it eventually dries out naturally.
Should I buy the Sage the Kitchen Wizz 15 Pro?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
First reviewed: February 2022
