Amazon.com Customer Reviews
A Quality Kitchen Essential - Review written on October 30, 2008
Rating: 5 out of 5
There are less expensive salad spinners, but this is ultimately the one to rely on. It is worth every penny. The ergonomic OXO design is flawless, as usual, and easy to use with wet hands during a flurry of preparation activity like making a quick dressing. I particularly like the pump action which leaves me free to multitask while getting the dry leaves I insist on. This is a much better approach than a hand-cranked or battery-operated spin system, approaches that wound up in the trash. I keep a year around kitchen garden, so this OXO spinner gets a daily workout. It is dishwasher safe and sturdy enough to take the bowl and basket with me into the garden. The practical design makes rinsing and drying a snap. I fill the basket and bowl with fresh-picked lettuce and top it off with water for a quick soak to loosen any soil or organic visitors, then pour off the water, removing the bowl to rinse. A good trick for crispy greens is to refill the bowl with fresh water and drop a few ice cubes in with the greens for a few minutes. Meanwhile, make a quick, fresh dressing in the bottom of your serving bowl. Rinse and spin dry. Place the dry leaves on top of the dressing and don't toss until you get to the table. Don't have a garden? Grow mesclun mix in a large pot for a continual harvest using scissors, leaving the roots in place. A mere 35 days from seed to table. Try Renee's Garden "Paris Market Mix." Cleaned, dry greens get very crisp and store well in a refrigerated spinner for a few days. Yes, the container is a little large, but it needs to be, and aren't great salads something worth making room for?
It's a good thing I got this as a gift. - Review written on September 06, 2008
Rating: 5 out of 5
3 customers found this review helpful.
I wanted a salad spinner and this one looked like a good one, but I never would have spent this much money on a salad spinner for myself. I figured for as often as I would probably use it, I should get a cheaper one.
A friend kept me from making that mistake. I've now had this salad spinner for a couple of years, and it turns out that this one is not only durable enough to survive my abuse, but I use it for just about every fruit and vegetable that comes into the house.
No, I don't spin a bag full of apples. But I do wash all my produce when I bring it home. (That way, if I'm trying to decide between a peach and a bag of potato chips, I can't use the excuse that I don't feel like washing the peach.) Apples, peaches, plums, pears, and so on all get loaded into the salad spinner. I fill it with water and a splash of vinegar. (That seams to get the produce clean faster than plain water alone.) I use the inner basket to swish everything around, then pull it out and dump the water, and rinse everything in the basket. A quick shake, then I leave the basket in the dish rack for an hour or two. The produce dries and gets put into the produce bin in the fridge. Repeat with grapes, cherries, strawberries... all the smaller, more fragile fruits. I even spin those gently, and they dry more quickly.
Veggies get the same treatment. While the fruits are drying in the basket I'm cutting up broccoli, cauliflower, and whatever other vegetables I've gotten. They get washed, rinsed, spun a bit, and stored in a plastic bag with a paper towel to absorb what little moisture remains.
At the end of the day when I'm tired and I want to eat NOW and I've thrown burgers on the grill, it's a lot easier to throw some veggies on the grill too when they're already washed and cut up. If I could just figure out a way to use this for mushrooms, I'd be all set.
And yes, I do use this for salad. Just about everything that's going into the salad goes in the spinner to be washed, rinsed, and spun. And I use less salad dressing because it sticks to dry lettuce leaves better and doesn't get diluted from the water on the leaves.
If I had gotten myself a cheap, flimsy salad spinner I would probably never use it. This is stored on top of the refrigerator. I keep it handy because I use it all the time.
More than just a little salad spinner, easy to use and clean - Review written on August 27, 2008
Rating: 5 out of 5
This is an amazingly convenient little unit. It make quick work of salad for one or two, cleans easily, and takes up little cabinet space. Also makes cleaning fresh herbs a snap! This will rinse sand, dirt, critters and debris from a handful of mint, lemon balm, or basil making their use!) Imagine mint tea or juleps without grit, lemon balm tea without mystery additives, and basil cleaned and dried enough for fresh tomatoes and olive oil.
Fill the bowl and soak tired greens in cold water. Use the strainer to drain the water then spin the greens for a much improved crispy salad. You can even wash and soak and drain dried beans in this, leaving dirt behind.
I keep finding more uses for this small version, but its larger cousin gets almost as much use in as many different ways.