Grinding meat in your food processor at home can increase the freshness and flavor of your hamburgers, sausages, dumplings and other preparations. (BestReviews)

Nothing will make you feel more like a professional chef than grinding your own meat at home. Maybe you want to make a 100% ribeye hamburger, or maybe you have some leftover chicken scraps that you want to turn into sausage, egg rolls or gyoza. Grinding meat at home both saves you money and gives you control over the quality and sourcing of your meat.

In even better news, you don’t actually need a meat grinder. As long as you own a food processor, you can grind fresh meat at home any time the mood strikes you. Keep reading to learn more.

Grinding your own meat gives you more control over the sourcing, quality, freshness and cuts of meat that you’re using. This means you can purchase any variety of meat from your favorite local farm or premium market without relying on what they’ve ground themselves. It can also mean saving money by purchasing any cuts of meat that are on sale and grinding those. If you have any leftover pieces of meat from other preparations, you can also save them in your freezer and grind them at a later date.

You can also control the texture and consistency of the meat and make custom blends of different cuts. If you’re grinding your own hamburger meat, you can use premium cuts rather than the leftover trimmings typically used in meat processing plants.

Grinding meat at home also means a fresher product with lower risk for food borne illnesses and cross contamination, so long as you’re careful with your kitchen hygiene practices. Plus, freshness makes for more flavorful meat.

A food processor can handle nearly any cut of meat, so long as it’s boneless and skinless. Any boneless cut of beef or bison can be ground into hamburger meat, while pork and poultry, including chicken, turkey and duck, can be ground for other preparations, including homemade sausage. You can even grind seafood such as scallops, fish and shrimp to make seafood dumplings, seafood sausage and other items. When grinding different types of meat, you’ll want to thoroughly clean the food processor and all its parts before switching to a different meat.

When it comes to flavor, we suggest choosing meat with a good ratio of meat to fat. Fat will improve the flavor and texture of the ground meat, especially when it comes to beef, bison and lamb. Using a cut with at least 20% fat will produce the best flavor and texture overall. For poultry, darker cuts like legs and thighs will produce a tastier meat than breasts. That said, you can just as easily grind lean cuts of meat in your food processor.

To grind meat in a food processor, you’ll first need to chop and freeze your meat. Freezing the meat allows the food processor to more easily chop through the meat without it getting stuck in the blades.

Chop the meat into roughly 1-inch cubes and freeze them on a cookie sheet or sheet tray in a single layer in your freezer. These small aluminum baking trays from Wayfair are a great option for small freezers.

This allows the meat to freeze quickly without sticking to the other pieces and avoids lumps in the meat. Freeze the meat for about 30 minutes so the edges are stiff, but the inside is still somewhat pliable. You don’t want the meat so frozen solid that the blades can’t cut through.

Once frozen, add the meat chunks to your food processor and pulse until the meat is ground into small pieces. Be careful not to over-process the meat, as this can create an undesirable pasty texture.

In addition to freezing the meat, it's a good idea to freeze your food processor blade for about 20-30 minutes so that everything stays super cold during grinding. If you have the freezer space, you may also freeze the food processor bowl. Keeping all your parts cold will prevent the meat and fat from thawing and make for a smoother grinding process. As our hands generate a lot of heat, it's best to use a tool like a rubber spatula or spoon to transfer the meat.

When grinding the meat, stop just when the meat is chopped into very small, uniform pieces. It’s important to keep in mind that meat ground in the food processor won’t quite resemble ground meat from the store, which is typically ground with high-powered industrial machinery. Avoid overprocessing the meat into a pasty texture, as this will make for an unpleasant gummy texture when cooked.

You should only fill the food processor about halfway with frozen meat to leave room for it to move around during the grinding process. If you’re grinding a lot of meat at once, work in batches, keeping the ground meat cold in the fridge while you’re grinding the next batch.

To avoid any risk of food-borne illness or contamination, it’s important to thoroughly clean your food processor as soon as you’re done grinding. Try not to let it sit out, as the meat can stick and make it more difficult to clean. When cleaning, be sure to use detergent or run the parts through the dishwasher.

Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor: available at Amazon

Our take: A high-quality food processor with durable construction, large capacity and convenient accessories.

What we like: Sleek design looks great on the countertop; the 14-cup bowl processes quite a bit of food at once, and the generous warranty provides for peace of mind.

What we don't like: A bit heavier and a larger footprint than competitors.

Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Snap & Stack Food Processor: available at Amazon and Macy's

Our take: A cost-effective and compact model that delivers quality performance for its price.

What we like: User-friendly features, including a function manual that details which blades to use; light and compact design makes it easy to store; and the stable base does not move during use.

What we don't like: The 500-watt motor is weak compared to other models.

KitchenAid ExactSlice 11-Cup Food Processor: available at Amazon

Our take: A powerful and convenient food processor with good versatility for a variety of tasks.

What we like: The base fits both an 11-cup and 3-cup bowl to allow for different sized tasks; ExactSlice system makes precise slices with ease; large feed chute accommodates bigger pieces of food for less prep; and convenient attachments include a dough blade, slicer and shredding discs and an S blade.

What we don't like: Some users find the buttons difficult to press.

Katy Severson is a writer for BestReviews. BestReviews is a product review company with a singular mission: to help simplify your purchasing decisions and save you time and money.

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