What Is A Salad Spinner

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Oxo Good Grips Salad Spinner 40

Why America’s Test Kitchen Calls the OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner the Best Salad Spinner

Best for families

Cons:

  • none

The Oxo Good Grips large salad spinner has won many awards over the years for its classic good looks and functionality, yet it continues to develop the design. The genius of this spinner is the one-handed pump action great if you have any problems with your hands as little pressure is needed to set the spinner whizzing at an incredible speed. The salad is completely dry in seconds and an effective brake stops it instantly.

Every bit of this spinner is sturdy. The colander is large and robust enough to use for more than salad, and the crystal-clear hardened plastic outer bowl makes a super glass-like serving dish but with none of the weight. We particularly liked the non-slip base on the Oxo Good Grips and that the pump handle clips down firmly, making the lid completely flat so useful for storage. This is a good-sized salad spinner perfect for a family or anyone who likes to eat a lot of salad and greens.

Available from:

  • good quality for the price

Cons:

  • over spinning throws the dressing off

The KitchenCraft is an excellent choice as a salad spinner. Theres a clear plastic bowl with a substantial non-slip base and an inner green colander basket. The lid clips firmly into place, and a large green handle turns the spinner smoothly. Our salad came out dry, crisp and undamaged.

Available from:

Cons:

  • bulky to store

The decorative green disc on the lid holds the brake button, which, when pressed, stops the spinning abruptly.

Available from:

Cons:

My Top 5 Uses For A Salad Spinner

This post shares My Top 5 Uses for a Salad Spinner, my kitchen workhorse and all-time favorite kitchen gadget. Many of you may recognize my Oxo Salad Spinner from my videos. Its my steadfast kitchen companion and I cant imagine cooking without it. I have had it for over 15 years now. Its well-worn but still performing like a champ. As you can see from the pics, its the older style and a bit bulkier. The newer style salad spinner is lighter, has less plastic and sleeker lines. Functionally, both the older style and newer style do exactly the the same thing.

Other Benefits From A Salad Spinner

Most spinners are considered convenient and easy to use but some of them have been criticized for their bulk, the amount of space they occupy, and their difficulty for storage. When you consider the other ways of using your salad spinner, you will find this kitchen accessory more of an asset than a liability. The salad spinner you thought was just another kitchen tool can become a multi-tasking device if you consider:

  • Washing and/or drying of your herbs: herbs require thorough washing and drying like vegetable greens. Your spinner can wash and dry them as efficiently as it would your salad greens.
  • Removing excess water out of your pasta: your spinner can remove the excess water out of any kind of pasta, especially the tubular varieties like penne and rigatoni, to prevent pasta salads from becoming watered down.
  • Rinsing and/or draining canned beans: get the water out of garbanzos and give navy, pinto, and white beans a thorough rinse prior to draining them in your salad spinner.
  • Washing delicate berries: fill your spinner with a sufficient amount of water and let your berries soak in that for ten minutes and just lift the strainer basket out to drain them gently you get berries without cuts or bruises.
  • Removing seeds from tomatoes: place whole tomatoes canned or fresh into your spinner, manually break them gently, and spin several times to remove those tiny bitter seeds without difficulty.

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What Are The Other Options

Niitawh Salad Spinner: We considered this model as an option for our best budget pick. Its certainly cute and the handle makes it easy to hold, but, during testing, the handle did break off pretty easily . When it came time to dry lettuce, it was too small for a full head of romaine and the spinning mechanism was uncomfortable. Between these issues and that it cant be washed in a dishwasher leads us to not recommend it.

How Do You Use A Salad Spinner

Home Design Salad Spinner 4.75 Lt. (assorted Colors)

The answer to this will depend on the type of spinner you purchase, but as far as basics go, prepare your ingredients by chopping up vegetables, greens, fruits, or whatever you plan to wash and dry in the spinner. Place those ingredients in the basket and run cold water over the basket to thoroughly flush the dirt and debris. Place the basket in the work bowl and affix the lid. Start spinning via crank, plunge, pull-cord, or twist-knob, depending on your style of spinner. Stop once you see water in the bottom of the bowl with dirt or debris in it. Remove your ingredients and move to the next one.

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Top Use Removing Water From Kitchen Linens

Ever have something extra wet thats too delicate or difficult to wring by hand? Use your salad spinner! Place it in the salad spinner and give it a couple rounds and voila, the item is much drier. Its almost as good as the spin cycle on your washer. I use my salad spinner to dry my more delicate kitchen towels, cheesecloth and nut milk bags.

Best Overall: Cuisinart Salad Spinner

Type: Manual, knob

Capacity: 5 quarts

A plethora of great features make this all-plastic salad spinner a winner. The lid has a hole and a strainer, so you can fill the whole thing with water, use the spinner to agitate the greens, then pour the water out through the hole, while the strainer keeps everything inside. This is especially helpful for very dirty or sandy greens, such as spinach, and it’s the only spinner we tested that had this feature.

Two sturdy clamps keep the lid in place for storage and while you’re pouring water out. The spinning action is initiated by a knob that you turn, which is comfortable to hold and can be turned in either direction nice for lefties.

It wobbles a little on the counter, despite a grippy base, but not enough to travel very far. And it’s super effective: Of all the spinners we tested, this one left the least amount of water remaining on the greens. The sleek, clear plastic bowl is attractive enough to use as a serving bowl. The only downsides? It’s not dishwasher safe and, with the big knob sticking out, it’s bulky to store.

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Zyliss Easy Spin 2 Salad Spinner Large

Best all-round spinner

  • Fluffs up salad as it dries
  • Ergonomic handle

Cons

  • None

The Zyliss salad spinner was our favourite on the test as a solid, well-built spinner. This was the only one we tested with a pull cord, which initially seems an odd system to use but just one good, effortless pull and the bowl whizzes round, and in most cases was all that was needed to dry our salad completely. If the bowl spins too fast, the brake was incredibly responsive and the waved colander bowl stops suddenly. The unique shape of the colander bowl helps to noticeably fluff up the salad.

The spinner has a deep, substantial plastic bowl with a non-slip base and makes a great serving bowl. The Zyliss is a perfect size for a large number or to wash and dry plenty of salad at once.

The Zyliss comes with a five-year guarantee and everything except the lid is dishwasher proof. The results were the driest, fluffiest salad on the test it is no wonder we were impressed.

Available from:

Is A Salad Spinner An Essential Tool

Cuisinart® | Salad Spinner

While salad lovers would undoubtedly find the salad spinner a tool worthy of having, others think any kitchen can go perfectly well without it. One of the reasons is that there are other means of drying out the veggies without keeping a bulky container in your kitchen. Some others consider it as just another space-consuming gourmet device in your kitchen cabinet without real value.

But preparing food has always been a personal experience what others may think of as unnecessary may be someones hero in the kitchen. Youll never know which side are you on if you dont get one. Who knows, youll be one of those people swearing by the value of a spinner as a kitchen tool. Find out more about kitchen utensils.

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Oxo Good Grips Little Salad And Herb

  • 1

Spinning Mechanism:Brake Mechanism:REASONS TO BUY

The OXO Good Grips Little Salad and Herb spinner brings the same high-quality design of the OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner but in a much smaller package. The larger model has a 4.95-quart capacity basket, while this version’s basket only has a 2.44-quart capacity. Besides the obvious reduction in volume, what this really translates to is a much smaller storage footprintwhich in a world full of kitchen gadgets is a huge plus. If you are a single person or don’t find yourself washing large quantities of greens all at once, we found this device’s size ideal for our salad and greens consumption. As with the other OXO Good Grips spinner, this device has a comfortable and easy-to-operate push button and a highly effective brake that takes minimal effort to engage. Spinning off both water and dirt with ease, this OXO model left us with few complaints.

One of the few design flaws we found with this little spinner was a sticky storage latch. To make storage even easier, you can depress the push button and lock the button flush with the top. While this is a handy function, we found that the latch would occasionally get stuck and would need to be fiddled with to release. If you are looking for a high-quality option that won’t take up large amounts of precious storage space, look no further.

Spinning Mechanism:Brake Mechanism:REASONS TO BUYSpinning Mechanism:Brake Mechanism:REASONS TO BUY

Before You Fry Make Sure Your Protein Is Dry

When planning a fried feast, you may not have thought about using your salad spinner. Salad spinners aren’t just for making healthy foods they can be useful in frying too. For experienced home cooks, there are several standard tricks to breading chicken and other proteins. To start, you need to set up a breading station, have a bowl for flour, another for egg, and a third for breading. Also, use one hand for dry ingredients and the other for wet.

But one technique that isn’t well-known is the importance of starting with dry protein. According to NPR, the secret to getting the perfect crispy breaded crust begins with a dry protein. A great way to do this is in a salad spinner. Spinning protein is an easy way to remove excess water and prepare your protein for dredging and breading. The result? Delicious fried food encrusted in crisp, golden perfection.

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Buy A Salad Spinner From A Reputable Online Seller

Now that you know how much more useful a salad spinner can be, how do you know where to buy a salad spinner? The most convenient way to buy one would be from an online store but not all online stores are made equal. You have to be very selective when it comes to buying a salad spinner primarily because this kitchen tool will determine whether or not your greens have been properly washed and dried.

Do your homework and look for online sellers with solid reputations. The Oxo Good Grips Salad Spinner products, for instance, have been praised by numerous customer reviews as reliable, durable, efficient, and affordable. Oxo salad spinners come in Good Grips, Softworks, and Stainless Steel models. The question what is a salad spinner? is answerable by one word: Oxo.

Preparing Salad Greens: Manual Vs Spinning

2021 Best Salad Spinner Reviews

However, this is the manual way of preparing salad greens we want to show you the difference between this procedure and using a salad spinner. Lets start with the all-time favorite salad green: the lettuce.

Remove the head from the root with a sharp knife or pull leaves apart with your hands.

If you are using iceberg lettuce, remove its core first with the use of a paring knife some iceberg lettuce heads may be firmer so get your hands ready to break one apart with your hands. Fill a bowl with cold water and give them a gentle once-over swish as you drop each one into it. Let the leaves float in the water to get rid of any dirt, grime or other small particles on them.

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Generally Faster Is Better

Serious Eats / Madeline Muzzi

Salad spinners are like little centrifuges. As a salad spinners perforated basket spins, youre observing several types of force in action. The water on the lettuce experiences centrifugal, or center fleeing, force. As the lettuce travels in a circle, the water continues to go in a straight line, escaping through the sides of the basket and leaving dry lettuce behind. The walls of the basket provide centripetal forcethe force that keeps the lettuce moving in a circle around the center of the spinner.

Centripetal force is measured using the following equation: Force = mass * velocity^2 / radius.

Amount of Time Taken to Dry Percentage of Water that Remained
Zyliss Swift Dry
35 seconds 13.59%

And if youre thinking: will a too-fast salad spinner damage fragile herbs or, say, berries? In theory, it could. However, none of our favorite salad spinners bruised the cilantro. Theres also always the option of lining your salad spinners basket with paper towels to act as a buffer when drying more fragile foods.

Serious Eats / Madeline Muzzi

When it came to how they generated velocity, the salad spinners fell into two broad categories: well refer to them as free-spinning or fixed rotational.

Serious Eats / Madeline Muzzi

Flaws But Not Dealbreakers

There are very few flaws. The only consistent flaw in other editorial reviews is that its not particularly easy to store. Its a large salad spinnerits colander has a 5-quart capacity, and the bowl has a 6-quart capacityand the lid isnt completely flat, but its the only model we looked at that has a locking pump, making it the easiest to stack overall. But thats a small drawback were willing to deal with in light of its many, many excellent features.

We do wish it spun a little quicker, but as we learned in testing, it still does a great job drying greens and its more restrained RPM means its great at drying other things, too.

Last, its push mechanism does take up some room in the bowl, and we wish it could be allocated to whatever you want to put inside. But considering the machines large size, its not really necessarythe Good Grips is still very, very roomy.

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Best Stainless Steel: Williams

Type: Manual, knob

Capacity: 4 quarts

The salad spinner from Williams Sonoma features sleek lines, a smooth, quiet operation, and a beautiful, seamless design. The outer bowl is made of clear plastic it would work well as a serving bowl, although there are half-circle cutouts on either side where the lid fits in place. The inner spinning basket is made of stainless steel, with smaller cutouts than some of the other spinners. It’ll likely quickly become your favorite colander as well, because boiling water won’t warp the shape like it might with plastic, and the fine holes will keep small foods like grains or sprouts contained.

This spinner uses a crank-style handle on the lid to get the spinner going. The crank ratchets so you don’t actually have to turn it a full rotation, but it only goes in one direction, which might be awkward for a left-handed person to use. The crank is hard to turn at first, but gets easier once the basket begins turning. The brake stops the spinning in an instant. This spinner is dishwasher safe, but storage might be an issue: The knob sticks up and tacks more than an inch of height onto this model.

Buy It: $60 Williams Sonoma

How Does A Salad Spinner Work

Cuisinart Salad Spinner (CTG-00-SAS) Demo Video

It is a quick and easy way to make salad without having to wash your salad bowl and utensils. To use this device, just place your salad greens in the bottom and top of the spinner, turn it on, and watch the greens spin around. The centrifugal force removed water from the leaves, making them dry and crisp.

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Why Use A Salad Spinner And How Can It Improve My Health

If there is one nutritional lesson we have all learned is that we need to eat a lot of vegetables. These are some of the most important food items we can put in our diet. Unfortunately, we have all had the bad experience of biting into some wet, soggy salads only to vow, intentionally or unintentionally, that we never want to eat that again. Being able to eat a salad with fresh, dry lettuce is very important to how we view the quality of our salads. We will be more likely to want to eat them again. Not to mention, that by washing our lettuce and veggies helps to reduce our chances of getting food poisoning.

Having dry lettuce leaves also makes it easier for dressings and oils to stick. Obviously, too much dressing defeats some health benefits, but whatever you do put on is going to taste a lot better and go further if it is not diluted by extra water hanging around on the leaves. When this happens it can be tempting to add even more dressing so you can taste it. Thus, dry leaves help increase the taste, and texture.

This next one may be stretching it a bit, but still something to consider. When your lettuce is wet, it can break down faster causing you to have to throw it out sooner. This can cause you to have to buy lettuce more often. When trying to eat healthy becomes expensive, it can make you second guess what youre doing.

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