The inside scoop on mandolins.

February 13, 2009 5:04 AM

I'm interested in mandolins. Not the instrument, the cooking utensil. Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

From what I've read, mandolins seem to do just about everything--slicing, dicing, the works.

For me, I'm looking for a device that will take the effort out of cutting vegetables for vegetarian dishes. Ideally, it should both mince vegetables as well as cut them into cubes or circles. Bonus points for slicing up onions, a task which I don't particularly care for.

Can mandolins fulfill all of these needs? If so, what brands should I look at for under a hundred bucks US?
And what other caveats should I think about?

posted by Gordion Knott to food & drink (34 comments total)

I'm away from home and have a bad memory, so I can't tell you the brand of the mandolin that I love for certain specific applications. That last is key, however. If I'm cutting one onion, or even chopping up several individual veggies for a dish, I usually don't bother pulling out the nice mandolin that I got for about 120$US. But if I'm trying to cut something into broad really thin slices, or if I have a ton of veg to do for some reason, then it's great. Once you get the hang of using the pusher, you can be quite aggressive with the mandolin without worrying about cutting yourself.
I love (but don't use that often) the waffle-shaped blade. Another useful note might be that the usefulness of a mandolin in part depends on whether you think that rinsing a vegetable knife is good enough cleaning. My favorite mandolin work-flow is when i realize "hey, I have a fair amount of potatoes I'd like thin-sliced for this dish" and pull the unit off the rack, slide the blade in, adjust, zip-zip-zip the taters through, and then rinse the starch off in the sink before basically hanging the thing up again. Seriously, if the thought of using my hands to carefully wash the ultra-sharp blades occurs to me, I'm much less likely to use it. YMMV.
Another approach would be to ask yourself what you might spend that money on instead? A miniprep food processor? A really good (or just decent) chef's knife?
posted by Mngo at 5:19 AM on February 13

I love mine. One thing I would say though is to buy a gauntlet. I've never managed to get the hang of the pusher thing, and if you're doing small veg, it's kind of useless anyway. I've lost count of the amount of times I've nearly had sliced finger for tea.

They'll cut pretty much anything, even swede. I made celeriac chips with mine a few weeks ago.
posted by Solomon at 5:31 AM on February 13

Always... ALWAYS use the guard/pusher. Other than that they are great for slicing anything. I use mine all the time.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 5:37 AM on February 13

I got a fancy German steel one as a gift years ago, and it's fantastic, but I never use it. Partly because it's a hassle to get it down from the high shelf it's on, partly because I've cut myself so much and partly because I don't cook the sorts of veggie dishes that need lots of thin slices.
I used to have a cheap plastic one that got some use, but that one got lost and now I just use a knife. (The joys of a heavy, large, well made chef's knife or a killer Japanese ceramic knife cannot be overstated.) However, for cucumber salads and potatoes gratin, a good mandolin is key.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:51 AM on February 13

I love my mandoline. But I think if you are expecting it to be a handy slicer-dicer that does everything, you will be disappointed. To me, it's a specialized too that does one thing really really well: super thin slicing. I use it for potatoes, for onions (as for onion soup), and to make salads of shaved fennel and suchlike. So it's great for that, but I have never found myself motivated to learn to do specialty cuts like waffling, etc. And I use a french knife for every other chopping task. Still - I wanted one for a long time, finally got it, and definitely use it often enough that I'm glad I have it. There's no way I can slice as thin with a knife as I can with a mandoline.

And agreeing with mastercheddar - don't get casual and skip using that guard. That's a long, sharp blade designed to go through soft things with little friction. You don't want the soft thing to be your hand.
posted by Miko at 6:17 AM on February 13

I used to have an extremely ordinary, mostly plastic one, from an asian grocery store, which wouldn't have cost more than about $10-$15. Worked great, though; and one of these days I'll replace it with another of the same.
posted by ambilevous at 6:18 AM on February 13

I'm not keen on buying gadgets that collect dust, so I bought a super-cheapo plastic one to see if I'd enjoy using it as a tool. A year later, I was ready for a nicer one, having established that a) yes, I use this thing for all kinds of stuff and b) it was beat to hell.

But really think about whether you'll have a place for it that makes it accessible, or you'll never use it, no matter how neato it is.
posted by desuetude at 6:19 AM on February 13

A mandolin definitely takes the hard work out of slicing and julienning vegetables, especially onions. I use a V-slicer which I bought at a home show about 15 years ago. It still works just fine. Before spending $100 on one, I'd suggest buying a cheaper one first to see if you like it.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'mincing' vegetables. (In the UK, mincing refers to putting meat through a meat grinder.) But a mandolin won't chop vegetables into teeny-tiny pieces. It'll slice and, if you get one with 'teeth' blades, it'll julienne. You can also cross-cut the vegetables before you put them on the holder to dice them.
posted by essexjan at 6:31 AM on February 13

A mandolin is a slicer. The ones that I am used to from professional kitchens also had a blade you could use to julienne, but they don't mince or chop. If you need to slice a lot of something, like potatoes or carrots, mandolins are great tools. However, they also require more room to use than you would expect, so make sure you've got the counter space for one.

I know that people like the cheap ones, but to be honest, this is the one to get. Yes, it is very expensive, but every single kitchen I worked in had one, and they never ever ever ever broke. If they can stand up to years of abuse in restaurant kitchens, then they will probably last several lifetimes in a home kitchen.
posted by ralan at 6:34 AM on February 13

That's the one I have. (Guess it's not German after all.) The drawback is that you have to take good care of the (excellent) blades, whereas with the cheap plastic kind, you can toss it into the dishwasher.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:40 AM on February 13

Oooh, good question. I have two cheap plastic mandolines, one of which is set into a lid on a bowl. They are both too flimsy to work well, slide all over the counter, and slice everything way too thin.

I am wondering if I should have just sprung for the more expensive one instead of going the cheap route.
posted by JoanArkham at 6:42 AM on February 13

I have one, and it is most useful for dishes like gratin dauphine where you'll need a lot of thin, even slices. Mine is a $15 flimsy plastic thing that I bought because I wasn't sure I would use it enough to justify spending the $100 a good one seems to cost. I don't, quite, because I've found that my reluctance to deal with the hassle has made me much faster and better at using a knife, and I basically no longer need it. I think if I were more gadget-friendly I would probably use it more, or if I were cooking for more than two people.
posted by fidelity at 6:43 AM on February 13

For years, my mother had a series of cheap V-slicers that she used for a variety of purposes and liked well enough. Then, thinking she might like to move up a bit, I bought her a $150 all metal mandoline from Williams-Sonoma. That did not work a quarter as well as the V-slicers she'd been using for years, despite costing very much more. We ended up taking it back, and she still uses the last cheap-ass V-slicer she had before the Mandoline fiasco.

I believe that the problem was that she wanted to use the Mandoline for thicker slices, as she had the V-slicer but that the straight blade design meant that was a huge amount of effort, relative to skimming little slices off. For your purposes, I think a V-slicer with a few options in terms of plates inserted will be more like what you want than a plain professional mandoline.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:44 AM on February 13

Personally I'd spend your money on a knife sharpener instead. I find it almost as easy to cut thin slices with a well-sharpened knife as with a mandoline, and a knife is a lot easier to clean, so unless I'm making huge quantities of something the mandoline actually adds more effort and time.

(A friend of mine who's a much better cook than I am swears by his benriner, though.)
posted by ook at 6:55 AM on February 13

I bought a pretty good model (I think) on eBay last year, and what a disappointment it has been. I've used it once, cutting potatoes and celeriac, and while I was somewhat successful, the veggies kept getting "stuck" in the guard so that it was above the knife, and thus not cutting. I would then have to take off the guard, dislodge the veggie and start over, being able to make a few slices before it got stuck again. The plastic casing around the knife also started to break, sending little shards of hard plastic into the veggies. I got so disillusioned that I put it up on the high shelf and haven't used it since.

But I might very well be using it wrong, although I can't think of another way of doing it. The model I have, by the way, is the $120 version from this page.
posted by AwkwardPause at 6:57 AM on February 13

The ones that I am used to from professional kitchens also had a blade you could use to julienne, but they don't mince or chop

Well, there is a technique where you can first slice, then julienne, then restack the bits and get tiny dice. I only know this because I've seen hucksters demo it at the state fair. But it is not the kind of thing a sensible person would bother with in a home or restaurant kitchen, when a french knife is so much more efficient at dicing and mincing. (For the UK'ers, mincing in the US also includes chopping veggies into very teeny tiny dice, as you would a clove of garlic).
posted by Miko at 6:59 AM on February 13

the veggies kept getting "stuck"

I have had this problem, too, and I've found that it helps a lot to go slower and smoother rather than trying to do a fast shave.Also, a sharper blade should slice better - if it's getting dull, like if it bangs around in a drawer without the guard or if it goes in the dishwasher, it'll slice less well. Still, I think that some of this is inevitable due to the design of the tool - and that's why the guard is so important. Every know and then you'll be cruising along slicing, and then the food will come to a stiff halt because the veg got stuck in the blade. You don't want to be bare-handed when that happens and the momentum sends your hand skidding over the food and blade.
posted by Miko at 7:02 AM on February 13

I hated mine at first, then I threw out the guard/pusher. Now it's wonderful.
posted by valadil at 7:23 AM on February 13

Mandolins are great for slicing things really neatly, thinly, and accurately. But, buy a kevlar glove and toss out the guard if you end up using it a lot. The glove is so much better and you can almost eliminate food waste by not using the guard.

If I don't have the time or the inclination to mince by hand, I use a food processor for the job. I have two at home, a large one and a mini. I use the mini for garlic, shallots and small amounts of veg, and the large one for onions (I prefer the processor over the mandolin for this because I can get away from the volatile oils that way) and larger amounts of veg. I also have been known to use my large food processor's slicing/grating blade for veg. It works great.

At the restaurant where I work, we use a Japanese mandolin that can make long ribbons out of certain vegetables. It's pretty fun. We also use a regular mandolin and a robot coupe (heavy-duty food processor, really) with the slicing blade.
posted by cooker girl at 7:40 AM on February 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

My bother got stitches in his thumb using a mandolin, sans guard I think.

Mincing sounds more to me like needing a food processor with a couple of attachments. Either will cut circular things into circles. I'm not sure that either will cube stuff for you.
posted by magikker at 8:03 AM on February 13

I have a v-slicer. I use it for julienne but mostly for potato dishes (gallette, hash browns, fries, etc). I don't think I ever use it for onions. Otherwise, I do better with a sharp chef's knife.
posted by plinth at 8:04 AM on February 13

I bought a mandolin for my step-mom a few years ago. As far as I know, she doesn't use it much. But this past Christmas, I made a potato gratin, and wanted to get uniform slices. So I broke out the mandolin. It worked perfectly - slices were absolutely uniform. Didn't use a guard, didn't get cut.

That being said, I don't know if I would ever buy one myself. I rarely require uniform slices of anything. But if I did cook enough things where a LOT of slicing was required, I might consider it.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 8:13 AM on February 13

Use. The. Guard. If you look at reviews of mandolines on Amazon or the like, you'll see lots of horror stories with phrases like "never seen so much blood" followed by "I'll always use the guard from now on." It is all too easy to whittle whatever you're slicing down to nothing faster than you think.

And don't worry about the guard leading to food waste. Most of what you'll use the mandoline for is potatoes, onions, carrots, and the like. These are not expensive foods, and using the guard usually wastes only about a quarter inch or so. You could use a kevlar glove, but that'll add $10-$25 to the price.

Anyway, we've been pretty happy with our mandoline ($70). I wish it were dishwasher safe, but the non-stainless blades need handwashing. It's good for potatoes, whether round slices, french fries, waffle fries, or hash browns. It slices up onions quickly, which can help minimize the tears.

Frankly, however, given the effort required to clean it, it's usually faster just to use a knife unless you're running through a lot of whatever you're slicing. So, large meals or dishes that call for a lot of a particular ingredient. Someone mentioned onion soup, earlier, and it's great for that. It's also good for finely slicing the leeks for vichyssoise and similar soups. It's very helpful if you're making ratatouille, as well.
posted by jedicus at 9:37 AM on February 13

I know it's been said several times already, but it bears repeating 100 times: Use the hand gaurd! They will slice just about anything, your fingers included. (Not that I've ever done that... *cough*...)

That said, I did find them easy to use and quick for slicing veggies in a uniform size.
posted by geeky at 9:44 AM on February 13

My mother ended up with the oxo mandoline jedicus links to above. She tried it once and is terrified of it, which is saying a lot given what she will do with a knife. She claimed that it kept slipping off the counter as she tried to work.

When I was home over xmas, we were making a huge batch of potatoes gratin, so I decided to give it a whirl based on the askme love for mandolines that has come up before and I have to admit that it made slicing potatoes a hell of a lot easier. I didn't see what the big deal was as long as I used the guard and held the mandoline in place with my free hand, but there is a reason why I still don't own one for myself--as easy as it was, I don't think I'd use it enough to justify the cupboard space it would take up.

Based on what you describe wanting, I think a food processor with assorted blades (to chop or slice) would be more useful.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:35 AM on February 13

get a cheaper japanese mandolin before you invest in a more expensive french mandolin. see if you like it. if you don't use the guard you are guaranteed to slice the crap out of your finger at least once.

a good trick is to place the mandolin inside a large tupperware or on a baking dish. gives you leverage as well as a container to collect all the slices.
posted by gnutron at 10:43 AM on February 13

Unless you're preparing a lot of specific cut vegetables, it's a waste of money and kitchen space. Mandolines work well enough, but they don't work so well you want to go through the bother of getting it out and setting it up when you could get almost the same results with just a knife. Or alternately, with a Cuisinart.

Nthing the comments above about using a steel glove and/or guard. I stopped using our mandoline after an accident where I was using the the guard thing, but incorrectly. The good news is I'm now unidentifiable from old fingerprint records.
posted by Nelson at 12:17 PM on February 13

I recently got rid of my mandolin, because the effort involved in setting it up and cleaning it was just not worth it. I just use a good, solid chef's knife for everything. Almost as easy, and cleanup is much faster.

Then again, I'm usually only cooking for two. If I had a large family, or made more vegetarian dishes, I could definitely see using one.
posted by tomatofruit at 12:21 PM on February 13

And don't worry about the guard leading to food waste. Most of what you'll use the mandoline for is potatoes, onions, carrots, and the like. These are not expensive foods,

Not only that - but those are exactly the kinds of foods where you can throw the stubs into a freezer bag and store them in the freezer until you're ready to make stock. No waste at all!
posted by Miko at 12:27 PM on February 13

My mother uses hers exclusively for potato gratin. While the dish is extremely delicious, I don't know that it would be worth it if we didn't have a fairly sizable kitchen- then again, she only makes the dish at holidays. And use the guard- the first Christmas she used it was made memorable by both she and my father slicing off bits of their fingers using it sans guard.
posted by MadamM at 12:31 PM on February 13

I have a big expensive Bron, but I don't find that I use it very much. I get a lot more use out of this Kyocera ceramic adjustable slicer. It's easy to clean, doesn't require a lot of counter space to set up, and it's very very sharp.

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but you should use the guard.
posted by Caviar at 2:09 PM on February 13

In Michel Richard's new (I think it's the newest one, anyways—I get a little behind these days) cookbook, Happy in the Kitchen, he outlines a trick for using the benriner and a knife to get a dice that's as regular and small as your hand is steady with a knife.

I quote:

Set up a Benriner fitted with the medium julienne blade. Cut off the ends and four sides of each potato to make a rectangle. Trim away any remaining skin. Open the Benriner blade to the widest setting. Trim the potato as necessary to fit onto the surface of the Benriner.

Place the potato on the Benriner and use a sharp knife to cut the potato crosswise into very thin slices, no thicker than 1/8 inch, and as even as possible. The edges of the Benriner will prevent the knife from cutting all the way through the potato, so the slices will stay together.

Turn the potato over to position the sliced side against the surface of the benriner. Attach the hand guard to the unsliced top of the potato.

Move the potato back and forth through the julienne blade: it will emerge in cubes. Adjust the blade if necessary for perfectly even cubes.

Go to the look inside function on Amazon and search inside the book for Benriner, then click page 22 for pictures to go along with this description. I don't imagine it would work as well for onions, though I distinctly remember my grandma cutting up twelve onions at a time on her non-julienne Benriner by carefully cutting through them. Note that this works with the julienne Benriner but not so well with the big-ass French mandoline, which has a deeper-set surface and won't behave as a cutting-through guard without leaving a lot of tater behind.

If you don't care about the regularity of your dice, you'd be better off getting a food processor, which can have all kinds of attachments for slicing and julienning.

And more generally—the mandoline is kind of a specialty tool, rather than your all-purpose friend in the kitchen. Or so my experience has been. I'm glad I have it, but the old Cuisinart comes out a lot more.

Oh, and I use an iron-weave glove instead of the guard. But hot damn, yeah, do not ever use it without something between you and the finger-guillotine.
posted by felix grundy at 3:50 PM on February 13

It's funny (to me) that everyone mentions using the guard. I think it was a year or more before I even knew those things came with any kind of guard, and I don't think I ever saw anyone use it in all the years I cooked. If you could find them at all, they were usually buried deep in that one bus tub that every kitchen has where all the equipment odds and ends go. I don't think we even used the guards in culinary school. Everyone always used them bare handed, and it only took getting cut once or twice before you learned to respect the mandolin, and to give it 100% of your attention when using it. A mandolin is quick to punish the easily distracted.

I will say that if I had one of the new models with what appear to be razor blades for slicing, I'd use the guard and a kevlar glove, and probably a poking stick for extra safety. I have no fear of the old Bron models, but those new fangled ones are a horse of a different technicolor.
posted by ralan at 7:15 PM on February 13

I can't seem to use the guard. I have the Oxo mandoline, and find the guard absolutely impossibly cumbersome -- if I had to use that thing, I'd never use my mandoline. Are other guards better?
posted by desuetude at 8:09 PM on February 13