Your food processor helps you work a vast array of small culinary miracles in your kitchen. From chopping, pureeing, and turning various ingredients into delicious dishes, this little machine works almost as hard as you do.

As with any much-loved small kitchen appliance, your food processor requires cleaning each and every time you use it. It is, in fact, this housecleaning chore that prevents some people from using their processors as often as they’d like. Rest assured, this housecleaning chore is a rather tedious one, but not nearly as difficult as you think. Read on for ways to streamline the cleaning process.

Items You’ll Need to Clean Your Food Processor

You’ll only need a few simple things to streamline the cleaning of your processor. You probably already have most of them in your kitchen or pantry.

• Kitchen sink
• Medium warm to hot water
• Liquid dish soap
• Small nylon bristled scrub brush
• Dish cloth or sponge
• Long handled bottle cleaning brush
• Dry dish towels
• Dish rack
• White vinegar
• Pipe cleaners

First Steps in Cleaning Your Food Processor

The first steps in cleaning your food processor really are no-brainers. Always start by unplugging the unit. No, that should require mentioning, but you just might be surprised. We’d always rather be safe than sorry—right?

Fill your kitchen sink with medium warm to hot water mixed with a few drops of liquid dish soap. Swish your hand around in the water until it becomes sudsy.

Disassemble your processor, removing the bowl from the motor base, and following with the blades, the lid, and the pushers. Submerge all of these pieces (except, of course, the motor base) into the soapy water and allow them to soak for a few minutes.

Wash each of the pieces using your small nylon bristled scrub brush or a dish cloth. There’s no need to rinse just yet. Instead, drop them back into the water.

It’s All in the Details…

Now it’s time to tend to the more tedious aspects of this housecleaning task. Pick up each piece of your food processor from the soapy water and closely inspect it for those hidden spots where food may have become lodged. Pay extra attention to the areas inside the handle, inside the locking mechanism, and under each of the processor’s blades. Tiny crevices on small appliances are famous for disguising dirt. You must go looking for these places as bacteria can grow wherever food is lodged.

Scrub each of these hidden areas with your scrub brush. Move any moving parts while scrubbing to dislodge food from places you might not have even considered looking. If the soapy water doesn’t prove strong enough for removing stuck on food, use some white vinegar instead.

Pour the vinegar directly onto the area in question, allow it to remain there for a minute or two. Continue scrubbing with your scrub brush until the affected area is clean. Pipe cleaners are excellent tools for inserting inside some of the crevices that sport solidified messes. Keep them on hand for each time you clean your processor. Use them in conjunction with the soapy water or the vinegar.

Rinse all of the pieces of the food processor in hot water, then place them in a clean dish rack or on a dry dish towel. Dry the pieces that are void of hidden crevices with a dish towel. Leave other pieces—those that might harbor some water inside of them—on the dish towel or in the drying rack overnight.

Don’t Forget the Base

It’s important after spending all this time and attention cleaning the pieces of your food processor that you not forget to clean the base. Even though it doesn’t come directly into contact with food, it likely endures its share of slops, sprays and spills.

Use a dish cloth soaked in the soapy water to wipe down the outside of the base. If the machine head appears to have become dirty, the pipe cleaners work well for working out any mess that has become lodged there. Use your cleaning cloth, that you have put vinegar on, to help remove any tough (or long-ignored) stains on the base.

Dry the base thoroughly. Once the remaining pieces of the food processor are dry, reassemble the small appliance and return it to its designated spot.

Now that you’re familiar with the simple steps needed to clean your food processor, you should be far more likely to use the small appliance with greater frequency. Once you become accustomed to the way it can seriously enhance your culinary skills, you’ll make it part of your regular cooking routine.