If you’re making eggplant rollatini you can get beautiful planks of eggplant. When you have an urge to make a waffle fry or julienned carrot salad, the specialty blades can come to your aid. However, its short ramp and light weight can make it difficult to use on larger items like big onions and peppers. When buying produce to prep with this tool, choose smaller options. In short, yes. If you’re serious about cooking, a mandoline slicer can be helpful in the kitchen for its ability to add consistency to your cooking and make your presentation more professional. Before using your mandoline, be sure to read the instructions that come with your kitchen tool so you know how to properly use it. The De Buyer Revolution Dicing Machine, which is made in France, is by far the most expensive mandoline we tested but we can’t say it’s worth the splurge.

Its dimensions are 15.43 inches long, 8.9 inches wide, and 2.56 inches high. It weighs 9.9 ounces, or about 0.6 pounds, another lightweight in the kitchen that’s easy to move around as needed to keep up with a busy professional and home cook. We also tested the mandoline slicers out on tomatoes to determine how well they thinly slice something soft and delicate and whether or not they mashed the tomato as it went through the blade. We also evaluated how well the mandolines sliced lemons, which are a bit softer than a potato. After every slice test, we rated the mandoline slicers on how easy they were to use, hold, and keep steady while slicing. Take a closer look at our selection of seven top mandoline slicers currently on the market. Our aim is to feature a range of available products to give you the best options to choose for use in your own home kitchen.Another small consideration is whether or not you want to be able to sharpen the blades. While blades attached to the base cannot be sharpened, and therefore will eventually become dull, you can sharpen blade inserts to keep them as sharp as possible month after month of use. Design It comes with a handguard that has spikes to anchor the food. As you get to the end of a potato or carrot, it's difficult to push food over the blade but it will easily handle cucumbers. While this design works fine for slicing tough vegetables, it requires a lot of force and can crush softer fruits and vegetables with firm skins, like tomatoes.

If you don’t tread carefully, the sharp blade can slice through a finger as swiftly as it does a potato. For this reason, it is vital to look for a high-quality product, one that slices with minimal force and provides proficient safety mechanisms. Many mandolines also come with handguards that prevent you from slicing fingers as you push food down the runway and through the blade. However, many handguards don’t grasp food well, are wobbly, or feel uncomfortable to hold, making them awkward to use so you can’t exert steady pressure and produce even slices. However, when I have a craving for homemade potato chips, want to indulge in an au gratin, or am making cucumber salad for a crowd, a mandoline is indispensable. The Tests The 2-in-1 adjustable safety food holder gives you the confidence to slice larger and smaller food items. According to Reiss, the Benriner’s best quality is the fact that its "blade is actually a razor and can slice ingredients really exactly." To use it safely, you’ll want to keep the stainless steel blade sharp or replace it after a few months of heavy kitchen use, ideally when you notice it struggles to cut cleanly. The nonskid rubber base works well with stainless steel counters, and it’s wide at almost 4.5 inches. Throw it into the dishwasher when you’re done, or just rinse it off and dry it thoroughly.It is 11.5 inches long, 3.75 inches wide, and 0.5 inches high. These dimensions are ideal if you want to store this in a kitchen tool drawer. But with a hole in the handle, you can also choose to hang it on a hook.

This model is 15.16 inches long, 3.54 inches wide, and 5.71 inches tall. It weighs 1.58 pounds (25.28 ounces). Unique from many other multi-use mandolines, which require you to change out the sharp metal blades to adjust to different styles and sizes, the Borner V Power Mandoline has a single stainless-steel blade attached to the base. The Kyocera is a good choice for those who regularly find themselves slicing smaller or skinnier ingredients, like celery, carrots, garlic, and ginger. It is easy to store, easy to clean in the dishwasher if you choose, and requires no setup. Most mandolines come with a food holder or safety guard. This functions like a handle that clips onto the food, so you can slide your ingredients along the ramp without putting your fingers too close to the blade.In general, you get better leverage and control while gripping food with your hand. However, that comes with a risk of injury. As you create slice after slice, you’re likely to build momentum, and before you know it, your fingers might get snipped. That’s why mandolines have a reputation for being dangerous.

Cut the ends off of food so that you create a flat surface on either end. A flat surface will be easier to grasp with the handguard and to slice. If an item is long and thin like a cucumber or a zucchini, cut it in half as you’ll get more leverage with a shorter item. Plastic models are easier to maintain because they can typically be washed in the dishwasher, but they aren’t quite as durable as stainless steel. If you are an experienced home chef looking to enhance your slicing game—and maybe willing to spend more on a quality mandoline—our choice for the best mandoline to splurge on is the Benriner Mandoline Slicer.While the three julienne styles offer a variety of cuts, they are not reported to work as well as those from other brands. Customers complained that it was more difficult to slice when using these blade inserts. In fact, many cooks toss them straight into the trash when they arrive! If you plan on using a mandoline on a regular basis, it may be worth the splurge to opt for a more expensive model with more features, like the Benriner Mandoline Slicer. If you think you will use one less frequently, start out with a more affordable option. What kind of mandoline is best? In addition, it comes with a special lid and three different dicing blades that convert this mandoline into an alligator cutter; you use the lid to force a half an onion or other food through a grid to produce little squares. We found it harder to press the food through than on other similar products we’ve used. The OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline Slicer stands steady on a leg that unfolds, but it’s not as sturdily built nor as wide as the other standing mandolines we tested.