Zyliss salad spinner
The hot commodity. I’ll even work early to hold it at my stop. While some salad spinners drive you down constantly, this one acts like one of those old school hand-crank lawn mowers your parents used to make use of: the pull-y mechanism gives you maximum power for minimal work as well as the fastest, driest spin.
Bonus points for a braking mechanism that no longer works out-of-control lettuce bowls. Using it’s so fun, you’ll love spinning your greens. Once you’re on a kick of washing and drying greens, keep clean, ripped leaves in your fridge for pasta, eggs, stir-fries, and sautés. You won’t even know how gritty (or water-laden) leaves taste, and that’s the best part, my friends.
Zyliss Easy Spin Salad Spinner
The Zyliss Swift Dry Salad Spinner is the best one I’ve tried. This is a relatively new spinner on the market (an upgrade of Zyliss’ Smart Touch Salad Spinner), powered by pumping down a lever from the lid. Not only is this pumping mechanism efficient, but the Zyliss has a unique design feature that really seems to boost its efficiency: a ridged basket. The ridges increase the basket surface, allowing air to flow faster through more greens without requiring a major increase in bowl size.
Where most of the other spinners I checked resulted in greens retaining between 3 and 10 percent of the water used to rinse them, the Zyliss greens retained zero or even less than zero (because greens don’t get dry to start with). That’s right: they came out as dry as before washing, or drier. The Zyliss did it better than those other spinners that could get the greens all the way dry. Other models I usually tried needed 15 or 20 pumps or crank turns to dry greens to an appropriate degree, sometimes even more. In 10, the Zyliss had them dry.
The basket shape definitely deserves some credit for this, but the pumping mechanism on the Zyliss also felt especially powerful, working the basket fast at high speed. One slight drawback was that the Zyliss takes some extra power to get moving. But it’s not so hard that I think it’s difficult for someone to do it, and after that first push, the basket is already spinning at such a good pace, it takes little effort to keep going. At first, the ridged basket seemed like less capacity than the simpler round baskets.
It looked oversuffed with seven or 10 ounces of greens, but it handled both amounts easily. Yeah, it took some extra lever pumps, and the full 10 ounces of greens didn’t come out fully dry they kept on to about 7% of the water collected by washing. But other spinners kept much more, and others couldn’t dry even seven ounces of greens, which the Zyliss dried with ease. The Zyliss lever also locks off, fully flush with the lid. The lid itself is flat, not too bulky to store this spinner.
The other spinner I tested with a similar lever also had a storage locking mechanism, but the lever itself felt much flimsier; it bent down with every push, and a few times I heard an odd cracking sound from the gears inside the lid. The third pump-action spinner I checked was also locked in the down spot, but wasn’t as powerful as the Zyliss.
Through the protruding crank, all three of the crank-operated spinners I tested proved harder to store. One, who had his crank on the side instead of on top, also had a high domed lid, making the spinner 3 inches taller than any other I tried. Typically the crank mechanism made it harder to get the spinner to a high rpm, it’s a lot of work for wrists and shoulders, and sometimes my knuckles got in the way, grazing against the lid.
Plus, you can’t run a one-handed hand-cranked salad spinner: you have to keep the bowl and lid if it’s not clamped with the other. The one spinner I tested with a pull-handle had a similar problem, and the pull-handle was very noisy (it actually drowned out the radio I was listening to while testing).
By contrast, working the Zyliss and all other pump-action spinners with one hand was simple enough simply by pushing straight down. Thanks to a large base and a silicone ring around the bottom rim, the Zyliss was also super stable. It didn’t slip, nor wobble, which was a problem I ran into with spinners getting three or four silicone feet instead of the single non-slip ring.
Despite its power, the Zyliss easily stopped with a simple brake press. Also, delicate cilantro wasn’t especially violent. But one of its drawbacks was that the basket bottom holes are much wider than those of other salad spinners. This meant a couple of stray cilantro leaves escaped the basket, so when drying small herbs or greens, I would also suggest lining it with a paper towel.
On the plus side, these holes make the basket easier to clean than any of the other spinners I’ve tried, allowing leaves to lodge in narrow crevices. That’s particularly nice considering that only the bowl is dishwasher-safe of all Zyliss bits. But at least the lid disassembles easily into two parts, allowing you to quickly clean everything by hand. These two lid parts inadvertently split on a few occasions when I either placed on or removed the lid.
This was a little frustration I had to pause to put the two pieces back together, but I wouldn’t call it a deal-breaker, as the problem was easy enough to remedy, and it didn’t happen every time. Overall, the Zyliss seems to have a nice, durable structure, but only time tells how long the plastic gears last. The spinner comes with a 5-year manufacturer guarantee.
If it fails other than your own mistake (say, dropping it on the floor), Zyliss promises to submit a substitute. Our editors picked all related items separately. We may earn a purchase commission as defined in our Sign In or Register
The Winner: Zyliss Swift Dry Salad Spinner
I’m not sure anyone owns a salad spinner, but as long as I know, we had one. Since I was young, salad was the center of almost every meal. After our main course, we eat our salad. Small desert-like. I’m never very much about this unit. We just took it out, used it, and then washed/rinsed it. One day I saw mold. Upon examination,
I found loads of mold inside the device’s shell. After years of washing, water will enter and never dry. Like your front loading washing machine If you don’t realize you need to leave the door opening another wise, there’s mold in places you can’t see. And run the cleaner cycle every so often. We’re both.
Anyway, it turns out that inaccessible crevices+water can provide a happy medium for rising mold. Eeeew, you know. I found a better salad spinner. I found our local cooking store’s Zyliss Fast Spin Salad Spinner.
Zyliss Easy Spin Salad Spinner – 5 Stars
Secure dishwasher
The Main Attraction To Me Was:
We’ve had this spinner for over a year, and it looks like the day we got it. The product comes in clear, green and two sizes. We’re tall and we use this almost every day.
It’S Dishwasher Safe
Elderly
You Can See In This Photo How The Lid Comes Apart
Winner of the prestigious European Red Dot Award for creative design, the Zyliss 5-quarter spinner features simple operation, consistent performance and durable food-safe, BPA-free plastic components. The new, improved easy-pull cord is self-retracting and built for relaxed, stable grip with a wide loop handle.
With a few simple pulls, it creates a revolutionary glide wheel for smooth, consistent rotation that dries greens quickly. Big ZYLISS Easy Spin Salad Spinner available on Amazon Cord and handle fit smoothly into the transparent lid that sits low and snug in the bowl and provides a comfortable flat-top, lightweight storage profile. This also makes storing greens in the fridge appropriate.
The slotted basket comes to a fast stop with a soft brake button press, and the swift halt in motion also gives the greens a pleasant fluff. The basket may be used as a lightweight colander, but hot liquids should be avoided. The rigid, transparent acrylic bowl has a stable non-slip base and can be used as a serving dish. The bowl is healthy on the top tray, but hand washing is recommended for the lid.
The Zyliss measures 10 x 10 x 5.5 inches in white or green. There is also a smaller 3-quarter version available, both with a 5-year warranty to be free of material or workmanship defects. In a lightweight, tidy profile, the Zyliss Easy Spin gives trouble-free results. An outstanding space saver, user-friendly and lightweight, this model’s easy to run.
A Spectacular Product.
Zyliss Easy Spin
Of the hundreds of salad spinners on the market, the 11 versions above are among the best. Although features and prices can differ, all share the essential features of easy operation, quality materials, and effective spin-drying of leafy greens.
If you love a nutritious salad or just want to eat more vegetables, pick up one of today’s time-saving gadgets – they’re wonderfully successful and worth investing in! And if you’re looking for smarter appliances to save time and improve your cooking game, check out our Food Processors Guide – they’re the ultimate convenience.
5 Quarts
See our TOS for information. Product images from OXO, Cuisinart, Culina, LeifHeit, Starfrit, Zyliss, Hullr, Ozeri, Progressive. Originally released July 19, 2015. Last updated 25 January 2020. Recently retired as a professional in TV and film, Lorna now enjoys writing on contemporary lifestyle themes. She is especially obsessed with organic tomatoes and herbs and enjoys breaking bread with family and friends.
