Recent cabinet purge forced a decision I’ve been avoiding: I have a hand mixer, a mini food processor, and an immersion blender, and the cabinet above the sink only holds one without turning into an avalanche. My kitchen is a five-foot galley off 31st Ave—no dishwasher, one narrow drawer, and about 22 inches of usable counter. I cook real dinners most nights, batch sauces on Sundays, and host four to six people maybe twice a month. I don’t bake enough for a stand mixer, and I have no place to store one anyway.

My current thinking:

• Immersion blender with a chopper jar: best for puréed soups straight in the pot and takes the least drawer space. But the chopper jar on mine is small and the blade can be annoying to dry.
• Mini food processor: fastest for parsley, garlic, shallot, and breadcrumbs. I use one constantly for gremolata and salsa verde. But it’s a whole base, bowl, lid, blade to store.
• Hand mixer: only really comes out for whipped cream, egg whites, and the rare cake. I could probably borrow one or use a whisk.

For apartment dinner parties I keep coming back to the mini food processor because guests don’t care if the soup is a little rustic, but they notice a parsley stem in the gremolata. What’s the one you’d keep? Specifically in a tiny NYC kitchen where cabinet depth is not normal and counter space is a fantasy.

I’ve been in a similar East Harlem cabinet situation for years. Easy call for me: keep the mini food processor. The immersion blender is cool for soup season, but you can do soup in batches in a blender or just mash it. Hand mixer’s a one-trick pony unless you bake. Mince garlic by hand when you’re not doing a whole bunch. Actually my mini Cuisinart-style thing lives on a top shelf and I pull it down twice a week. If you’re really making salsa verde and gremolata for six, that’s the workhorse.

Okay this is exactly the thread I needed. I’m new to a smaller kitchen—moved from a place with a normal pantry—and I got an immersion blender as a gift. I haven’t tried it on anything except smoothies. Do I need the chopper attachment too? Can it handle frozen strawberries or am I going to burn it out? Also what do you all do with the attachments when they’re wet? My drawer has no divider and everything rolls around.

@suburban_to_bk do not use a basic immersion blender on frozen strawberries unless you like smoothies with a sad whining sound and a hot motor. Some of the higher wattage ones can, but it’s not worth it. I have OPINIONS about this. If you’re keeping one appliance, the mini food processor wins for texture control. I make toum, zhoug, romesco, and a whole jar of pesto on a Sunday. The immersion blender can’t get the same emulsion on thick garlic sauce unless you’re doing a big batch and even then it’s risky. Have you tried making toum in a mini processor? It’s life-changing! You need the feed tube and a lot of patience but the texture is unreal. I keep my mini processor in the cabinet above the stove and it has survived two moves.

Wait, can you not whip egg whites with an immersion blender? I tried it last weekend with the whisk attachment and it never got stiff peaks, just foamy. Maybe I was holding it wrong. Also @astoria_arch which one is quieter? My building has thin walls and I don’t want to be that neighbor at 7 a.m. running a mini food processor. I’m still learning. Thanks for the advice.

I’m going to be the contrarian: keep none of them if you’re really in a five-foot galley. A sharp chef’s knife, a box grater, and a $20 whisk do 90% of this. I donated my mini food processor because the base was bulky and the blade was a pain to wash in a shallow sink. For six people I just make a bigger cutting board setup on the closed stove. That said, if you must have electricity, the immersion blender with a chopper attachment has the smallest footprint. But the attachments breed in the drawer.

EastHarlem_E nailed it. I’m in Yorkville with a “kitchen” that’s basically a closet plus two cabinets, and my mini processor is the only plug-in thing that doesn’t feel like a compromise. I use the immersion blender maybe four times a year when I make butternut squash soup, and the hand mixer has been in a tote since Bloomberg. @astoria_arch one tip: if your cabinet is shallow, turn the mini processor bowl upside down over the base and put the blade in a little magnetic spice tin on the wall. Keeps the blade from slicing your hand when you reach for the colander.

Good calls all around. @ProspectParkPicnic, you’re right about the toum—the mini food processor’s slow feed is the only way I’ve gotten it stable without splitting, and it’s worth doing on a Sunday if you have a window open and neighbors who like garlic. @suburban_to_bk, I would not trust the basic immersion blender on frozen strawberries; treat it as a soup and sauce tool, not a smoothie machine, unless the manual says otherwise. @firstwinter, the whisk attachment on an immersion blender is usually underwhelming for stiff peaks, so I’d keep a plain balloon whisk for egg whites and accept the arm workout. @Gowanus_G is right that the knife does most of the real work, but for a crowd the processor still earns its spot.

Where I landed: I’m keeping the mini food processor and the immersion blender, but storing the immersion blender behind the cookbooks? Actually no, that’s how things break. The hand mixer is going to the Buy Nothing pile. For anyone also juggling car stuff with tiny-kitchen logistics, the alternate side parking thread is related in spirit: Alternate side parking on a school holiday: does 'except holidays' mean I can skip moving?