The Mandoline Slicer Will Make You the Best Chef

Mandolin slicers have a terrible reputation. And yes, they are damn sharp and can do some serious damage if you don’t respect the blade. But inviting someone into your kitchen is one of the easiest ways to cut down on prep time and improve your culinary skills.

One of the easiest ways to tell a real chef from an amateur is to watch him slice and dice. Even slicing looks professional, but it also ensures ingredients cook at the same speed and are seasoned or rubbed evenly, with each zucchini slice or potato cube getting the same amount of love. And while everyone should take the time to learn basic knife movements, a mandolin can help you make professional-looking slices, matches, and dice much faster. Not only will your sandwiches, salads, and side dishes look more delicious, but they’ll also taste better, resulting in you eating more vegetables (and maybe a little more fruit).

But first, a safety note.

Mandolin slicers come in many shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: extremely sharp blades. These blades are placed in a plastic frame and it looks like the most painful plastic slide in the world. To use a slicer, you move the food over a plastic ramp and a blade that, depending on the blade you use, slices the vegetable into paper-thin slices, julienned matchsticks, or, in some cases, waffles. fry.

But if your hand slips on the slide and you don’t use a cut-resistant guard or glove, you could get horribly injured. If your mandolin comes with a protective cover, use it , but otherwise: take a protective glove and put it on your hand .

In addition to wearing proper personal protective equipment, there are other steps you can take to reduce your risk of injury, such as making sure your slicer is stable, cutting your food into manageable portions before slicing, and keeping your blade sharp (dull blades take more effort) . forced to cut, and this often leads to problems).

Choosing a Mandolin Slicer

I’ve used complex slicer systems with multiple attachments, but my current (and favorite) mandolin is the Benriner Vegetable Slicer , a basic slicer that adjusts with a few simple screws.

In addition to the straight blade, it comes with several julienner and shredder attachments. It also comes with a small plastic guard, which, again, you really should use. It’s easy to clean and store, and affordable – usually in the $30 to $40 range, depending on where you buy it.

If the thought of a small plastic guard is unnerving, there are plenty of slicers with stronger guards, like this one (which comes with a slide-out stand) or this hand-held slicer , both from OXO. If you want to keep your fingers completely safe from harm, you can get a safe-shot slicer like this one from Once Upon a Time . If none of these tickle your fancy, take a look at some of the latest offerings from The Spruce Eats , of which there are quite a few.

Creative Ways to Use the Mandoline Slicer

Slicing vegetables before cooking is the most obvious use for a mandolin slicer, but once you have it in your hands, you’ll find yourself slicing and slicing all kinds of foods. Here are some of my favorite uses for this tool, in no particular order:

• Make the Best Submarine (Sandwich): Making a good sandwich is all about balancing flavor and texture, which is why I love chopped lettuce and thinly sliced ​​onions. You can do both with the mandolin. Bonus: You’ll shed fewer onion-related tears, as the slicing knife is faster and sharper than most knives, and the shorter exposure time and cleaner cuts mean there’s less syn-propantial-S-oxide (the compound responsible for your tears). ) is released into the skin. air. And don’t forget the fruit: a thinly sliced ​​pear or apple is simply delicious on a brie-based fried cheese.
• Make salads and salads tastier: I can’t stand a salad bowl filled with unevenly cut pieces of vegetables. The mandolin lets you slice cucumbers into paper-thin ribbons, shred cabbage for salad, and, depending on the attachments available, cut potatoes into perfect cubes for potato salad. Uniformity may not seem like such a big deal when you’re tossing everything into a large bowl, but precise slicing means each piece is coated with an even amount of dressing, ensuring a uniform texture and flavor.
• Marinate Evenly: Whether you’re marinating onions or cucumbers, slicing them with a mandolin will ensure they’re evenly thick from slice to slice, so each marinates at the same speed.
• Make your own chips, whether potato chips or apple chips: I’m not saying you can’t use a knife to cut potatoes as thinly as Frito-Lay, but you can do it much faster and more consistently with a mandolin. In addition to the classic potato chips, you can use your slicer to turn any root vegetable (and some zucchini) into chips or prepare fruit for a dehydrator.
• Slice crumbly cheeses: Aged cheddar and other crystal-flecked beauties may crumble under the pressure of a knife, but the mandolin cuts into thin, delicacy-worthy slices .
• Make a Prettier Sausage Board: You can use a mandolin to cut salami (or any hard sausage or salumi) into nice slices that look nice on the board, but my favorite mandolin meat is toasted steak , which is cut into nice little slices. petals that melt into a soft scrum and sit beautifully on the crostini.

Mandoline slicers are also just plain fun to use. They feel like a chef, make your food beautiful and help you cook everything at an even and predictable speed. Just please remember to use a guard or at least a glove. A little danger might seem funny, but a cut hand definitely isn’t.