KitchenAid KSM2FPA Food Processor Attachment, Dicing Kit, Silver

Since getting it I have made 3 cakes totally from scratch! So easy

I had an opportunity to purchase the KitchenAid Food Processor Attachment using some rebates that I’d gotten from an earlier KitchenAid promotion and when i saw a sale for this i decided to give it a try. I’d been looking at it for some time because it was the only item on the market that would dice and not just slice items like my Cuisinart. I’d been looking at the various videos that KitchenAid had on-line as well as independent reviewers and had seen some really impressive results and listened to some very negative comments. It appeared that individuals that bought or reviewed the attachment either found it very helpful or totally hated it. Being an engineer i was curious to see the construction and worried about the mechanism’s quality. So when i received the attachment I had to run it through some tests.

The first thing I noticed was how heavy the attachment was. It’s not a lightweight piece of equipment! So my first concern was about the stress the weight would place on the mixer. I’m still worried about that after several hours of use. Like any of the KitchenAid attachments it’s a little noisy when running and there is some vibration. I attribute that to the causing what some reviewers said about the attachment ‘falling off’ the mixer. I don’t believe that’s an issue if one keeps in mind that vibration in any piece of equipment tends to loosen fasteners over time, particuarly friction secured fasteners like KitchenAid uses to hold their attachments to the mixers. My advice? Check the fastener for any sign of loosening if you’re going to use it for a lengthy period of time.

So on to the tests. First was a twenty pound bag of russet potatoes, peeled and sliced to fit the hopper. I found varying advice on the speed setting. What i discovered was that in general the harder the item to be sliced and diced the faster you want to set the speed. Potatoes took about a seven to eight setting while larger carrots I set to ten. Apples worked fine at lower settings. Tomatoes (I used Roma) worked well and seemed to do better at a medium speed. That surprised me at first, I was expecting them to do better at a lower speed because of their firmness, but I think it’s because of the skin. I did not try any skinless tomatoes – that might be a test for another time. Cucumbers were best at a low setting (Note: I peeled the cucumbers in my testing and the softer they were the worse the results – English cucumbers worked the best for dicing). Another thing that I found interesting was that i got the best results when dicing if I DID NOT use the pusher to force the vegetables into the hopper – letting their own weight and the angled blade pull them in worked just fine. A big WARNING – don’t try to use the attachment to dice meat – that was a disaster! I have not tried cheese yet and if (when) I do I’ll add to this review.

So the dicing aspects of the attachment worked better than i anticipated. Since that was my primary reason for purchasing it I was very happy.

I moved on to the slicing blades and was interested to note the adjustable thickness setting on the slicing blade (KitchenAid calls it their ExactSlice System). That’s an interesting touch and i wonder how long that’s going to last. Endurance is just as important to me as functionality since I tend to keep my technology until it expires! I would have preferred a metal mechanism, but that would have necessitated a price increase that probably would have made the overall cost a nonstarter. It worked fine as did the shredding and julienne discs. I typically prefer my Cuisinart for those functions (so many more blades and options) but if I’m going to do dicing as well as slicing and julienne cuts the KitchenAid is my tool of choice.

Next was cleanup. How labor intensive was that going to be? I found that cleanup was actually easier than for my Cuisinart. I should note that i clean my tools immediately after use, no matter which brand or device. I’ve learned my lesson from letting debris dry in hard-to-reach places! The KitchenAid came apart as easily as it went together. Most of the pieces came clean in just a spray of warm water and a quick dip into a soapy bath and rinse. A nice scrub brush gets almost anything off easily and KitchenAid has thoughtfully provided a small tool for clearing any food stuck in the dicing grid so you don’t end up with bloody fingers. I also like that there is an insert that lifts out to protect the mechanism from any food particles or fluids that go around with the blades. That was a feature I hadn’t really considered important until it came to cleanup – then that made things a breeze.

The included storage case is nice, but I have two concerns. The first one is a little picky, but I had a difficult time in getting the blades back into the case so it would close properly. Turns out that the adjustable thickness slicing has to be in placed into the storage case with what I’ll call the plastic sweeping tab rotated so it’s located to the right of the case or it interferes with the closure. A picky concern, true, but I was beginning to think I’d lost my mind when the case wouldn’t close the first time. Second, the location of the hinge for the case means that in the open position it does not rest on the surface, but is slightly elevated. I’ve seen the same design on other cases and the failure mechanism is when left in that position for too long or if there’s an impact it damages the hinges. A very small design change would have alleviated the possibility with zero additional cost in either materials or fabrication.

Overall I think this one’s a winner!

Concerns? Well, like all bladed kitchen tools how sharp they are tends to make a huge difference. I am concerned about how well the dicing grid retains its edge since there’s really no way to resharpen it. I didn’t look into the cost of replacement, but i suspect it’s not cheap! The other blades? Well, they seem to be the same quality as the Cuisinart’s, and I’ve used those blades for at least ten years without issue.

Bought this primarily for the dicing tool. Understand that it might be “commercial style”, but this is not a commercial product, so keep your expectations in line. The feed spout, as mentioned by others is small, you will have to cut up most things (except maybe carrots) that you are putting through this thing. I mean, look at the size of the food processor compared to the size of the mixer. I had no trouble with dicing some red peppers, or carrots. A slightly soft onion did pose some problems, and the tomato I tried to dice was a disaster, but I didn’t really expect that anything less than some kind of laser cutter would give me perfect diced tomatoes. The shredding attachment works great for carrots and apples, though obviously it’s a slower device than my full-size food processor. If I had to slice a whole bunch of things, I’d rather use my full-size processor, but this is great for smaller quantities, and when you don’t want to fill up the dishwasher with your giant food processor bowls, or make room on the counter for the food processor. I love that all the guts of this thing are dishwasher safe, because I hate washing things like this. It’s not the most perfect slicer in the world, but it’s a great time-saver if you can afford it. The fact that the blades and accessories come in a tidy box for storage is also great, because my full-size food processor’s attachments end up all jumbled together in some kind of horrific bowl of sharp blades that may require a blood sacrifice if I’m not careful.

For the occasional light shredding work, or slicing, it’s great, but the real reason to get this is for dicing. I was able to dice up an eggplant, zucchini and some peppers in about 2 minutes, with minimal cleanup afterwards. The diced pieces are a little smaller than I’d like, but for the ease of use and speed and lack of personal effort, I’m not complaining. No regrets!

I love this! The dicer alone is worth the money. I grow a large garden and can relishes, etc. The dicer is a huge time-saver! Quick, easy. And cleanup is a breeze.

Even if you don’t can produce, it is great. I diced a carrot in seconds. Perfect with a salad. Diced potatoes for breakfast.

I haven’t even used the other blades since the dicer is saving me so much work. I’m sure they will be great too. Slicing cucumbers for pickles will be perfect with this KA attachment.

Slower speeds for soft veggies; faster speeds for hard ones. Putting the blades in correctly is easy as they only go one way.

If you are a person who cooks real food, not processed crap, and/or grow a garden, this is well worth the money.

Let me start by saying I never leave reviews, I have been a member since 2008, and I am pretty sure this is only my second or third review out of hundreds of purchases. I don’t write reviews if the item performs as expected.

Quick and dirty review here: (more in depth review below for those who might wish more info)
For dicing tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos this is a complete failure and a useless attachment, twice as much material gets hung up in the dicing grate or simply spins around the inside stuck under the blade, as what comes out the bottom nicely diced. I would give it zero stars if I could for dicing those specific items. I gave 3 stars because while I did not try it myself, I believe the dicing kit would probably work very well for potatoes and similar items that do not have a skin, do not have a fibrous plant structure, and are extremely firm, in addition as a food processor (for which I have no use) the attachment as a whole seems to be very well built, very heavy duty and up to the standards that kitchenaid users expect.

More in depth review:
I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say I probably could have achieved the same or probably better finished results (even looked the same) if I had stepped on the tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos to push them through the dicing grate. After every piece I put in the machine I would get about half out the bottom as a very nicely diced product and the rest was just mashed into a mat covering the top of the dicing grate (And yes I quadruple checked to make sure I had it put together correctly). To be fair to Kitchenaid they do include a device with the kit to push food through that is stuck in the dicing grate, I just do not think that after every single piece I put in the machine I should be required to take the machine apart to unclog it, and I don’t mean every tomato, onion, etc. I mean every single piece of a tomato or onion, which was 1/4 to 1/2 of a medium roma tomato, medium red onions and average size jalapeno.
This was the scenario with the tomatoes and onions.
1: Put item in top
2: Push item down with plunger if needed (usually not needed)
3: Turn off kitchenaid
4: Admire how nicely diced the 10-15 pieces that came out the bottom look
5: Remove lid
6: Remove blade
7: Remove the larger pieces that the blade was smearing around the inside and cut them up by hand.
8: Figure out where to line up the supplied tool to push clogged food through dicing grate as you cannot see the grate at all because of all the mashed mat covering the top of it.
9: Push unclogging tool through the dicing grate and rock it back and forth, side to side and up and down several times to dislodge as much matter as possible.
10: remove dicing grate
11: Rinse dicing grate in sink to remove all the skin and vegetable matter from the cutting blades that the supplied tool couldn’t or wouldn’t push through (which was usually a lot hanging up on the dicing grate blades)
12: Use the tip of a knife to pick out all the various larger pieces of matter hung up in the dicing grate that would not dislodge with the supplied tool or with rinsing.
13: Reassemble processor
14: repeat steps 1-13 for every single piece you put in the top
If you skipped the above steps and went straight to a second piece in the top you get a few pieces fall out the bottom but as a bonus now you also get a bunch of juice and an added workout trying to push two layers of mashed vegetable matter through the dicing grate. If god forbid you tried a third or forth piece without cleaning the grate hoping in vain that these additions would push the previous layer through, you are WRONG you simply get tomato or onion juice and a mat covering the dicing grate that you cannot push through at all with the supplied unclogging tool.
For those of you wondering, yes the roma tomatoes and onions were both very firm, not soft or mushy.

I did try several alternate methods:
1: Blanched the tomatoes to remove the skins. No difference at all
2: Put and onion through behind the tomato to push the tomato through. Made a mess and didn’t push tomato through.
3: partly froze tomatoes (maybe half as hard as a potato) to make them more firm. No difference
4: Froze tomatoes to almost as hard as a potato. very minor improvement
5: Froze tomato to as hard as a firm potato. Minor improvement but mostly just made the mashed up mess cold.
A couple of hours in the freezer probably made dicing the onions about 50% better, mostly due to the fact that they appeared to shatter but still not what you would expect from an advertised “commercial style dicer”.

The Jalapeno was a total failure with almost nothing coming out the bottom, half being stuck in the dicer grate, and the other half as one large piece simply smearing around inside the machine stuck under the blade

The food processor aspect of this item probably works as well or most likely better then most of the food processors out there given how powerful the Kitchenaids motor is and how heavy duty the attachment seems to be overall, but my experience is that the dicing kit is pretty much useless for the items I wanted to dice.