Is the OXO Good Grips Hand Spiralizer any good?
Yes! This product ticks all the boxes. It’s small enough to store in a kitchen drawer taking up very little of your precious kitchen real estate. It’s dishwasher safe making cleanup a relative cinch. Crucially it makes spiraling a variety of vegetables a piece of cake needing very little strength for softer vegetables like zucchini. Buy OXO Spiralizer on Amazon
If you’re like me, kitchen storage is a precious commodity; I hate clutter and useless gadgets taking up unnecessary space. Any potential entrant into this hallowed space really has to tick multiple boxes. Is it easy to store, is it easy to clean, how practical is it? I’ve been known to agonize for days, hours and weeks over welcoming a new item into the fold.
In the case of this OXO spriralizer, it checks all the boxes and more. Its petite size makes it easy to store in even a small drawer; compared to some of the huge tabletop devices I’ve seen, I love the compact nature of this tool. It’s also entirely dishwasher safe too, though you’ll probably need to give it a rinse after use before popping it in. Just to remove some of the debris that builds around the blades from use.
The mechanism for spiralizing is relatively simple, though the attached info booklet is pretty useless in explaining it. I had to glance at the package and images on Amazon (affiliate link) to get a feel for how it worked. That only took about 30 seconds of course, it’s really quite simple.
The OXO spiralizer is a two piece affair and you lodge your vegetable of choice between both. There’s the multiple pronged handle section that’s used to hold the veg in place; and then there’s the business end, the cutting blade that you twist the vegetable into, turning in a screw motion. From the other side of this you should get beautiful strands of spiralized veggie.
In practice, it’s very simple to use. The amount of strength you’ll need really depends on your vegetable. Zucchini for example is very soft and needs only a modicum of effort to rotate through the blades. You’ll get the best results if you make sure the ends of your vegetable are nicely cut off and flat before you start. If you don’t you’ll find the handle segment might slip from the vegetable. I was tempted more than once – because I’m impatient and rash – to simply hand hold the zucchini and manually rotate it through the blades – bad idea!
Why? Well, it’s so fun and simple to process the vegetable and wonder at the mounds of mounting spirals that you forget how quickly your fingers are approaching the cutting edge, and ouch, they’re very sharp. I caught the sharp blades twice before I learnt my lesson and went back to using the device properly. Again, just make sure you keep the vegetable ends flat to ensure a stable grip.
In the picture below you’ll see the results of my very first efforts. This huge tangle of beautiful zoodles (that’s the phase for zucchini noodles don’t you know!) came from just one and a half good sized zucchini squash. We used this to happily feed two people for dinner (plated with a Thai red jungle curry, see below).
Here’s a follow up dish I made. Pan fried salmon with a sauce of lemon zest, garlic, red pepper, garlic, parsley and butter – and plenty of zoodles:
I own quite a few products from the OXO Good Grips range and this product is like all the others – excellent. Seriously, I’ve yet to be let down, from tin openers to garlic presses and now this spiralizer; every item in the range has been a joy to use. They often carry a slight premium price wise, but that’s worth every penny.
You can buy OXO Spiralizer on Amazon (affiliate link) and in my book it makes our Smart Buy list as an essential purchase!
Hi, I’m Stuart, nice to meet you! I’m the founder, writer and wrangler at Gastronomic SLC – Utah’s biggest and oldest online food magazine; I’m also a former restaurant critic of more than five years, working for the Salt Lake Tribune. I’ve worked extensively with multiple local publications from Visit Salt Lake to Salt Lake Magazine, not least helped to consult on national TV shows.
I’m a multiple-award winning journalist and have covered the Utah dining scene for the better part of fifteen years. I’m largely fueled by a critical obsession with rice, alliteration and the use of big words I don’t understand. I started Shop Smart to catalogue my adventures in the grocery store and kitchen. Follow along on Instagram too!