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Reviewed.com / Betsey Goldwasser
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Credit:
Reviewed.com / Betsey Goldwasser
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This Oxo Tabletop spiralizer has a clean design, three separate blades and keeps things stable by suctioning well to your countertop. Read More
Not only is the Veggetti easy to use, but it also produces a mound of zoodles and leaves little waste. Plus it’s small enough to stash in a drawer. Read More
Using this spiralizer you can quickly and easily turn out enough zoodles to feed a crowd. With five blades, it creates a variety of shapes. Read More
Because it's electric, this is one of the easiest spiralizers to use. It can churn out piles of vegetable spirals in four different shapes. Read More
This spiralizer comes with a lot of options, including six blades, so you can make a large variety of spiralized noodles. Read More
If you've never heard of a spiralizer, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like, a tool for cutting vegetables into long curly strands. It’s great for creating vegetable noodles as an alternative to pasta or slicing sweet potatoes to make curly fries.
These kitchen gadgets come in two categories—compact handheld models and larger countertop versions that have a hand crank like old-fashioned apple peelers or an electric motor to make the work easier. For the most part, countertop models are more convenient to use and give superior results.
After months of spiralizing zucchinis, sweet potatoes, and carrots, the OXO Tabletop Spiralizer (available at Amazon for $47.95) is our top pick. While it performed similarly to some of its competitors, its design and conveniences catapulted it to the top of our list.
If you prefer a handheld model, the Veggetti (available at Amazon), which aced our tests the first time we wrote this guide several years ago, remains the easiest compact version to use. It also continues to produce results better than others in this category.
We loved the OXO Good Grips Tabletop Spiralizer for its clean design.
The Veggetti spiralizer is the easiest to use and produces the best strands of vegetables.
We made mountains of zoodles (and mounds of carrots and sweet potatoes too) to find the best spiralizer.
Hi, I'm Sharon Franke and for a foodie, I have a dream job: I test kitchen equipment for a living. For decades, I headed up the Kitchen Appliances Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Before that, I worked as a chef in New York City restaurants. When I’m not testing or writing, you can find me chopping, slicing, and grating in my own kitchen. All of my experiences come into play when I’m considering both how well tools perform and how convenient they are to use. While I pride myself on my cutting skills, it’s always fun to find new gadgets that do things like turn zucchini into spaghetti that you just can’t do with a knife.
We put each spiralizer to the test, using each of its blades to spiralize zucchini as well as carrots and sweet potatoes, which are denser vegetables and harder to cut. As we worked, we focused on how easy each model was to use and how well it spiralized. We looked for products that could cut long evenly thick vegetable noodles with clean edges and left little waste. In rating the products, we considered how easy each product was to assemble, clean, and store.
We considered whether or not to include spiralizers designed to attach to food processors and mixers, such as the popular one that attaches to a KitchenAid Stand mixer. In the end, we left them out of this guide, because they aren't a standalone tool.
A spiralizer is a kitchen gadget that turns hard fruits and vegetables into delicious, edible strands or ribbons—everything from zucchini, to butternut squash, to carrots, and potatoes. Whether you serve them with tomato sauce instead of pasta or toss them with a salad dressing, they’re an appealing way to add more plant-based foods to your family’s diet. There are several versions on the market: Small gadgets in which you turn a vegetable against a sharp blade, larger tabletop models that you operate with a crank, and as electric appliances.
While the handheld models are inexpensive and compact, they take more effort to use. To achieve long spirals, it’s necessary to maintain steady pressure while twisting the vegetable, which can get tedious even when spiralizing a single zucchini. As you get close to the blade, there's a small pronged pusher that sticks into your food which makes twisting even more difficult. If you occasionally spiralize a single squash for your own dinner or to coax a picky child to eat her veggies, one of these small gadgets will be fine.
As you would expect, the countertop versions require storage space but are considerably easier to use. If you are committed to serving zoodles to your family on a regular basis, you’ll find it much more convenient to have a model that works with the turn of a crank or flick of a switch.
Particularly with the handheld models, don't expect to produce evenly long strands. Also, virtually all spiralizers will leave some waste. None of them spiralize down to the very end of the vegetable so there is always a little chunk leftover. Plus, most don’t spiralize the core of the vegetable leaving behind a long tube of unspiralized vegetables when you’re finished.
Before you start spiralizing, vegetables and fruits need to be cut so it's flat at each end. This is particularly important with hard veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes as they require more force to spiralize. When using handheld models, vegetables may also need to be cut into spears or wedges that fit into the spiralizer.
To get long spirals, it’s essential to exert steady pressure as you twist, which is much easier to do with a zucchini than a sweet potato. You can produce pretty even strands of zucchini but it’s hard to create mounds of carrot or sweet potato ribbons.
For countertop models, make sure the vegetable isn’t longer than the length between the blade and the prongs that hold it into place. Among all the products we tested, only the electric model was able to spiralize a carrot. In the manuals, some manufacturers specified that the diameter of a vegetable needs to be at least 1 ½ inches, which disqualifies all but the widest of carrots.
We recommend that even if you don’t have time to clean your spiralizer blade immediately after spiralizing, that you either rinse it off or soak it in soapy water to prevent any vegetable residue from hardening and becoming difficult to remove. Like all sharp implements, the blades need to be handled with care to prevent accidental cuts; stuck-on gunk will require more effort to remove and therefore create a greater possibility of injury.
For cleaning, you are better off using a brush than a sponge as it can get under and around the blade without putting your fingers at risk. Most handheld spiralizers or the removable parts of countertop models can be popped in the dishwasher, which we found removed virtually all residue as well as orange stains from carrots or sweet potatoes.
Suctions to countertop well
Easy to use
Produces long strands
Blade storage
A lot of parks to keep track of
Easy to use
Produces long strands
Includes a brush
Parts are dishwasher safe
Large
Easy to use
Produces long strands
Comes with a brush
On-board blade storage and blade case
Some assembly required
A lot of parts to keep track of
Easy to use
Produces long strands
Blades are clearly marked
On-board blade storage
Parts are not dishwasher safe
Easy to use
Produces long strands of zucchini
Effective food pusher
Dishwasher safe
Five parts to keep track of
Easy to use
Produces long strands of zucchini
Dishwasher safe
Compact
Doesn’t produce long strands of carrots and sweet potatoes
Very compact
Dishwasher safe
Difficult to use
Ineffective with carrots
Pieces store in unit
Dishwasher safe
Unintuitive to assemble
Ineffective at spiralizing carrots and sweet potatoes
Sharon Franke
Contributor
Sharon has been testing kitchen equipment for the past 30 years. Before becoming a cooking tools maven, she worked as a professional chef in New York City restaurants for seven years.
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