The Best & Worst Tools for Vegetable Prep | Gear Heads



The right kitchen gear can make short work of prepping vegetables. Hannah and Lisa walk you through their must-have tools for veggie prep.

Hannah’s Picks:
Super Benriner Mandoline:
Oxo Good Grips Mandoline:
Kyocera Mandoline Slicer:
Oxo Good Grips 3-Blade Tabletop Spiralizer:
Rosle Coarse Grater:
Cuisinart Box Grater:

Lisa’s Picks:
Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler:
OXO Good Grips Swivel Peeler:
OXO Salad Spinner:
Kuhn Rikon Epicurean Garlic Press:

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33 Comments

  1. The Dreamfarm garlic press has been by far my favorite and it’s not even close. I’ve tried at least 4 of 5 higher end models. The peel ejection and cleaning grooves are so helpful. Would love to see how it stacks up in ATK

  2. I quit wasting my money on 'miracle' veggie prep tools a very, very long time ago. They didn't live up to the hype, and I just ended up with more dishes to do. These days, I stick to my chef's knife and a cutting board. So much easier!

  3. I'm a bit of a kitchen Gear Head myself. I'm known in my family (who all enjoy cooking) for giving top kitchen items as gifts, and the Kuhn Rikon Epicurean Garlic Press was one of the most popular. I was pleased this Christmas when my niece-in-law pointed out that just before coming to visit, they realized that they were happily using 5 prior gifts while cooking dinner.

  4. I was starting to peel the potatoes for our holiday dinner yesterday and I could not find our peeler. I had to use a knife which was a pain. My middle daughter found the peelers in the drawer I had been looking in. Of course I could have just washed the potatoes as I was using a ricer on the boiled spuds anyway.

  5. Instead of a garlic press, use a grater, does the job perfectly, easier to clean and you’re not buying a product or taking up space with a product that only serves one purpose. And a trick for getting peels off even easier, microwave the bulb/ cloves for 10-20 seconds and they come off really easily, you don’t have to sit there shaking them in a jar or soaking them in water for a while like I’ve seen some people suggest

  6. I have both those vegetable peelers and they absolutely pale in comparison to the Cutco vegetable peeler which i have used daily for a solid 10 years now. Neat thing with the Y blade, you can use it going both directions. 4 seconds per large carrot. It's seriously fun.

  7. I love my slap chopper. Once you know how to use it, those things you took exception with are no longer an issue. Don't overload it and with each chop, give the handle a little twist before you preas down again.

  8. I own a Dash "safety mandouline", which I use instead of a food processor or knife when I need to do a lot of slicing for a meal. For chopping/dicing, I'd agree that "slap chop" gadgets are pretty useless (except for children not yet able to handle a knife safely, and then only with adult supervision); however, I own a "Vidalia Onion Chopper" clone with several interchangeable blade grids (I mostly only use the fine dice & coarse dice grids, though). That gadget saves me a lot of time with veggie prep, and a lot of tears with onion prep, too! As to peelers, I grew up using straight peelers, and really like my Oxo (somehow, I have 2 of them). My husband peels quickly with a knife, but wastes a lot of the veggie flesh, so I only set him to peeling veggies when I have something like an entire bag of potatoes to peel for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

  9. Okay ATK, WHY are dishwashers rough on blades?
    I don't put my blades in the dishwasher, but I've not heard a good technical reason why it's rough. I expect atk to have a good explanation, with testing as to why or how, not just parroting the same thing over and over. Is it the chemicals? Is it the bumping into other objects like plates? Is it the temp? If chemicals, what specific chemicals erode an edge?

  10. Been looking through previous videos… have you guys done reviews for steamer pots yet? Not the basket… not the stand alone steam machine but the double/triple whatever steamer pots that go on the stove burners?

  11. This is a learning curve I went through years ago. I personally found that some of the smaller size commercial kitchen tools work well in a home kitchen. Home kitchen tools are generally made out of plastic, are generally unrepairable, and are essentially throw away items. Commercial kitchen tools, with a few exceptions, are made out of metal (stainless steel, aluminum), are far more durable, and almost always reparable. They are expensive when new BUT used commercial kitchen tools and machines sell for pennies on the dollar. When restaurants go bankrupt, the equipment is dumped on the market at a vastly reduced price. They can almost always be repaired or restored and made good as new.
    Commercial equipment in a home kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Xb3scYQfF5w?feature=share

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