When it came time to make my wedding registry last year, I had a few items on my mind that I knew absolutely needed to be on there, and a salad spinner was one of them. Luckily, in my search for the perfect option, I came across the OXO Stainless-Steel Salad Spinner, a beautiful silver colander that promised to keep my greens dry and ready to go.
The whole reason you get a salad spinner is to get your greens dry enough to make a pleasant salad that isn’t watery. You can dry your greens yourself, of course, but after doing that for months and then switching to this OXO device, I found that the salad spinner was a much, much better alternative. It speeds up the drying process and truly gets rid of all the excess moisture without leaving you with a sopping pile of green-tinged paper towels.
This particular salad spinner offers some nice features that you don’t get in other spinners. The in-lid pump operation is probably my favorite: instead of spinning the greens yourself with a lever on top, you simply push down on the pump top a few times and it goes off on its own. There’s also a one-touch brake button that allows you to stop the spinning instead of waiting for it to slow down, which is a nice option if you’re very impatient (like me).
The other thing I appreciate about this salad spinner is that it has a nonskid base that stays put on the counter no matter how many times you pump the top. I just press the pump button a few times and walk away, leaving it to do its thing while I get a different part of my cooking done, without worrying about it skidding off the counter (something my mother’s plastic one has done to me many times).
This can also be used as more than just a salad spinner. The stainless steel bowl is nice enough, and large enough, to double as a salad bowl when you’re ready to serve guests, which is great. The colander inside can easily be taken out and used on its own for just about anything you want to wash, and it’s a nice size and doesn’t collect water at the bottom. Plus, the whole thing is dishwasher safe, and the top easily comes apart to be cleaned.
Perhaps my favorite thing, though, is the stainless steel look: it feels more durable than plastic, it looks nicer, and it’s still in perfect condition after nearly a year of constant use. That said, if plastic isn’t a big deal to you, OXO sells a similar plastic salad spinner that has most of the same features and is cheaper. Either way, you’re giving yourself the perfect salad set-up.
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