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You'll use this versatile tool for much more than just zoodles. commercial chips cutter
Sarah Karnasiewicz is an award-winning writer, editor, and cook. In addition to Food & Wine, she has contributed to Everyday with Rachael Ray, Epicurious, Food Network, and Cooking Light, among others. Sarah is the features editor for The Wall Street Journal's Off Duty lifestyle section.
Food and Wine / Phoebe Melnick
The best spiralizers should do more than just crank out zucchini noodles — they should marry design and function so seamlessly that you find yourself looking for excuses to add spiralized vegetables to every meal. Aside from creating vegetable ribbons for stir-fry recipes, salads, and low-carb pasta, this powerful tool can also make quick work of basic prep tasks like slicing, grating, and shredding. Some can even pull double duty as a cheese grater.
To help you find the best spiralizer for your kitchen, we tested nearly a dozen top-rated countertop and handheld options from brands including OXO, KitchenAid, and Paderno. We evaluated each model based on its design, blade sharpness, sturdiness, smoothness, and ease of cleanup.
We love this OXO option because it's durable and efficient. While the basic elements of the OXO apparatus were the same as the other models we tested — molded plastic construction, a hand crank, suction cup stabilization, three blades for spaghetti, fettuccine, and ribbon cuts — when it came to function, it outperformed every competitor. It was easy to assemble, the base felt sturdier, the suction grip held tighter, the crank held firmly to every sort of produce we threw at it, and it turned more smoothly and with less force.
What's the design tweak that accounts for the improved suction? Rather than one small suction cup at each corner of the base, this OXO model uses a supersized suction cup on the bottom that attaches and releases using a lever and gives a stronger hold.
The OXO blades are sharp and color-coded, which makes it easy to know which blade you're grabbing. A small plastic case is also provided for safely stashing the blades when not in use, and it tucks neatly inside the box if you're storing the whole apparatus together. The body of the spiralizer is easy to wipe down after use, and the blades are dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. It's simple, easy to use, and a total breeze to clean.
Number of Blades: 3 | Dimensions: 9.75 x 6.25 x 8.25 inches | Weight: 3 pounds
Sturdy, with good suction to keep it in place on the counter and sharp blades, this Paderno spiralizer was a solid contender during our tests. If space is not an issue in your kitchen, it could compete with the OXO Good Grips 3-Blade Spiralizer. A couple of caveats: the suction, while strong, still needed occasional readjustment to keep it steady on our countertop. We also noted that the blades sometimes clogged after lengthy use, requiring a little extra cleaning.
Still, the Paderno spiralizer scored well across the board, it was easy to set up, and quite simple to use. At a reasonable under-$40 price point, this gets our vote as our best value pick.
Number of Blades: 6 | Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.75 x 8.6 inches | Weight: 1.8 pounds
In addition to being the priciest option on this list, this spiralizer requires the initial investment of a KitchenAid stand mixer. But using this attachment is as easy as mixing or whipping ingredients with the stand mixer, and the results are clean and consistent. Its five blades let you slice, spiralize, and peel produce of various sizes, with separate blades for fruits with a small core and a large core.
You can also opt for seven blades, adding an extra-fine spiralizer blade and thin-slice small core attachment to the mix. With either option, the attachment will likely change the way you peel apples and potatoes. The blades are dishwasher safe and easy to hand wash if you prefer.
Number of Blades: 5 | Dimensions: 12.4 x 12.4 x 2.9 inches | Weight: 2.2 pounds
The Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Electric Vegetable Spiralizer is an easy-to-use electric option. It stands out for its streamlined design, which resembles a juicer with its long chute and pusher tool — only this one is equipped with a metal grip to hold your vegetables in place. It has three cutting cone blades to create uniform-sized noodles, which include spaghetti, linguine, and spirals.
Aside from its electric motor, its catch-all bowl is what makes it a must-have. It's able to hold six cups' worth of spirals and is dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. For an electric model, it has a quiet motor and it can handle zucchini and other thin pieces of produce, but it has a reputation for being particularly finicky with tougher foods like sweet potatoes and carrots.
Number of Blades: 3 | Dimensions: 7.8 x 6.7 x 9.5 inches | Weight: 3.3 pounds
The OXO Good Grips 3-Blade Hand-Held Spiralizer is ideal for small spiralizing tasks. It's compactly designed and has a nonslip grip for comfortable control over your spirals while also protecting you from its stainless steel blades. You have three choices of noodle sizes and the blades are color-coated to simplify the process. Though it offers a stable grip, you get the best spirals when using zucchinis with thicker widths. If it's not the right girth, it will result in some mushy noodles.
Number of Blades: 3 | Dimensions: 5 x 3.5 x 3.4 inches | Weight: 0.5 pounds
Our pick for the best spiralizer overall is the OXO Good Grips 3-Blade Spiralizer because it's durable and efficient. During our tests, it was easy to assemble, the base felt sturdier, the suction grip held tighter, the crank held firmly to every sort of produce we threw at it, and it turned more smoothly and with less force than was required with other models.
A worthy spiralizer should do more than just crank out zucchini noodles — it should marry design and function so seamlessly that you find yourself looking for excuses to swirl, shred, and slice, adding vegetables to every meal just for the fun of it. And we found one model that did just that, as well as a bargain model that's ideal for compact kitchens.
To test the best spiralizers, we sliced our way through a variety of fruits and vegetables, including tender zucchini and squash, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and Granny Smith apples. With all the models, we paid close attention to the smoothness of the cutting action, the sharpness of the blades, the size and sturdiness of the overall apparatus, and cleanup.
At first glance, many spiralizers look nearly identical. Most machines fall into two general categories: countertop models and handheld models. Countertop models are about the size of a large shoebox and operate in much the same manner as an old-fashioned apple peeler, with a toothed grip to the produce and a crank handle that guides the fruit or vegetable against the blade.
Handheld spiralizers are much more compact and are designed to fit in the palm of your hand. They require the cook to put more muscle into the job — which is fine when you're working with tender produce like zucchini or cucumbers, but can end in tears with something firmer like butternut squash, turnips, or beets.
All the spiralizers we tested included the three most common blades: a flat one designed for wide "fettuccine"-type slices and vegetable chips, plus both small and large julienne blades, capable of producing delicate "angel hair" and all-purpose "spaghetti" vegetable noodle shapes.
A couple of the models tested include additional blades for coarse and fine shredding. Moderately inexpensive but not super cheap, all the handheld models fall, generally, in the $25 to $45 price range, and are constructed from a similar molded white plastic.
Considering the central element of a spiralizer is a sharp blade, the relative stability and sturdiness of each model were also a prime consideration. Most countertop spiralizers rely on a system of suction cups to affix to a work surface for wobble-free cranking. Models that dislodged during use were automatically downgraded. Another factor that seemed essential to stability was the weightiness of the base: models with smaller, lighter bases tended to feel off balance in comparison to their heftier counterparts.
With a spiralizer, you can achieve pasta-like shapes, such as extra-long julienne spirals to ribbon curls, and peel vegetables for everyday use, according to Melissa Ledbetter, Director of Marketing and E-commerce at Kuhn Rikon. "Spiralizers are small in size, easy to store, and affordable," says Ledbetter. "The major con is that a spiralizer doesn’t work on all fruits and vegetables."
"Many foods can work well with a spiralizer. Hand-held versions tend to work best with smaller and softer veggies, like zucchini and summer squash,” says Ledbetter. Larger countertop spiralizers with stabilizers can work on hardier produce, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables, as well as firmer fruits like apples and pears. Your spiralizer should come with some basic instructions on the best produce to use.
Mueller Pro Multi-Blade Spiralizer (Amazon)
Operated with a convenient crank handle, the Mueller Pro Multi-Blade Spiralizer uses four stainless steel blades: straight accordion style, angel hair, finely shredded, and thick chip style. While it simplifies the spiralizing process and works well with a variety of vegetable widths, it can be hard to clean, and its suction cups don't always stay in place on countertops.
Though very similar in appearance to the Paderno and Spiralizer models, the Brieftons 5-Blade Spiralizer fell short in performance. The toothed grip on the handle tends to lose hold on firmer vegetables, resulting in uneven cuts and the inconvenience of stopping and starting repeatedly. In addition, the blades were sometimes hard to change. Toward the end of testing, one became so stuck in place that we eventually just abandoned it for our safety.
french fries electric machine *Editor's note: We also included the Spiralizer 7-Blade Vegetable Slicer in our tests. As of February 2024, this model has been discontinued.