Addicted to pasta? Trying to cut carbs? We feel you! A fruit-and-vegetable spiralizer might just be the answer. Originally invented in Japan, the spiralizer has become a trendy and relatively ubiquitous appliance in healthy kitchens (both home and professional) across the world.
Chances are, you've seen them all over Instagram and on trendy healthy food blogs, likely a huge bowl of zucchini noodles covered in sauce and meatballs — or a salad of delicate, ribbon-cut carrots with herbs and a Mason jar of vinaigrette. The meal possibilities are literally endless (here are a few of our favorite recipes for beginners).
Spiralizers are one of the easiest, most fun ways to incorporate more vegetables and more creative flair to your dinner plate. But with so many to choose from, the BestProducts.com team decided to roll up our sleeves, put on our chef hats, and test out some of the top-rated models to see what spiralizers lived up to the hype. From handheld models for smaller fruits and veggies to more sturdy tabletop crank options and even stand-mixer attachments, our editors spent more than 20 hours testing spiralizers to find the best one on the market.
The Models We Tested:
- Best Overall: OXO Good Grips 3-Blade Tabletop Spiralizer
- Best for Versatility: Spiralizer 5-Blade Vegetable Slicer
- Best Handheld: OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Spiralizer
- Best Attachment: KitchenAid 5 Blade Core & Slice Spiralizer
- Best Electric Spiralizer: BELLA Hands-Free 4-in-1 Electric Spiralizer
- Honorable Mention: Paderno World Cuisine 6-Blade Vegetable Spiralizer
Here's a Look at Our Testing Process:
For our product testing criteria, our editors focused on these main categories: efficiency, yield, stability and safety, footprint and size, versatility, blade sharpness, convenience, and value.
During our product testing, six of our editors took home six different spiralizer models to test out over the course of a month. We experimented with spiralizing both soft-skinned fruits and veggies (think apples, pears, zucchini, and summer squash) and harder root vegetables like sweet potatoes and beets, creating a total of 12 tasty spiralized meals.
Hours Hand-Tested
Editors Involved in Testing
Hours Researched
Whether you're upping your fruit and veggie intake, going gluten-free, or experimenting with new flavors and textures in the kitchen, we know that one of the below top-rated spiralizers will be your new best friend.
Best Overall
This unit includes three blades for spaghetti-, fettuccine-, and ribbon-style noodles, which are pretty much all you need when you're just starting out. The blades come with a container to keep them safe, but the storage isn't built-in, so you'll have to keep track of them separately from the actual crank.
The hand-crank style allows you to work with more than just oblong veggies — you can also use this one to spiralize potatoes, beets, butternut squash, and even apples. Plus, a suction cup underneath the base keeps it securely fastened to the countertop, so there's no risk of the spiralizer slipping and sliding around.
During testing, I tested both soft-skinned veggies (one zucchini, one summer squash, and a red bell pepper) as well as two hard root veggies (one beet and one sweet potato) and had success making pseudo-noodles with all four veggies. While the root veggies required quite a bit more elbow grease to push through the blades, this spiralizer's helpful suction cups helped keep the unit stable and steady during testing.
This spiralizer produces some waste, as the ends of veggies must be removed before spiralizing and a thin seeded core is left over after spiralizing, but overall the waste was quite minimal. Since I normally discard the ends of veggies anyway and made almost 4 cups of veggie noodles per 6-inch vegetable, I found this loss to be negligible. Plus, cleanup was a total breeze thanks to the removable blades. Yay for removable blades!
Another note from my testing: This spiralizer is actually really fun to use. After I got the hang of how the appliance worked and how much pressure I needed to apply, I was able to push through veggie after veggie, spiralizing zucchinis and beets into colorful ribbons that I was honestly shocked to see emerge so beautifully. In less than a minute, I produced nearly 4 cups of colorful, uniformly cut veggie noodles that I was genuinely excited to cook and eat.
Overall, the OXO Tabletop Spiralizer gets our seal of approval as the best overall spiralizer for cooks of any skill level.
Best for Versatility
Whether you're a spiralizing pro looking to take your creativity to the next level, or a total newbie who just wants to have options, The Spiralizer gives you more choices than any other spiralizer. With five different blades, you can get exactly the size and texture you want from your veggies: angel hair, fine shred, coarse shred, curly fries, and a flat blade.
This one also suctions to the countertop to stop slippage, and the base has a built-in safety cover that protects fingers from sharp blades and ensures safe handling. Plus, it's super easy to clean, thanks to parts that are completely dishwasher-safe (top-rack only).
Our former site director Jamie Miles tested this spiralizer over the course of a month, testing a range of both soft-skinned and hard-skinned veggies, including one sweet potato and two zucchinis. While she had to play around with the various blade options to find the best options for hard versus soft veggies, she ultimately found this spiralizer to be super versatile for a number of different veggie noodle dishes. As she noted:
"This spiralizer can be used for a variety of veggies — not just softer ones like zucchini. This is a great reason why this spiralizer is a worthy investment for your kitchen, because it can help with many future meals."
Miles also noted how easy-to-use this spiralizer was, since she was able to easily switch between blade options, using the wider blade to create thick, individual, wide-cut zucchini noodle pieces and the finer blades for creating thin, curly, continuous strands of sweet potato noodles. In other words: This spiralizer is one hell of a multitasker.
With its very affordable price tag, stabile and easy-to-use design, and overall versatility thanks to five blade options, The Spiralizer gets our tester-approved vote as the most versatile spiralizer on this list.
Best Handheld
Handheld spiralizers don't take up the same amount of real estate in a kitchen, but there are some slight limitations to using them that you'll want to take into consideration. This particular spiralizer has an open design that accommodates some, but not all, larger/rounder vegetables. It can also be difficult to spiralize super dense veggies like beets, rutabaga, and celeria because you have to rotate them by hand (and they may not fit the opening of the blade). But it works phenomenally well for zucchini, cucumbers, and even carrots.
This model can be purchased with a single-, double-, or triple-blade attachment. We recommend the triple one for greater versatility, but if you're just going to be spiralizing zucchini noodles, the single one is a great option!
Our former senior parenting editor Dana Baardsen tested out the single-blade version of this handheld spiralizer, while our photo editor Kayla Ramsey tested out both the single- and triple-blade models. Baardsen used a cucumber, butternut squash, and beet during testing and found the single-blade spiralizer more useful for softer veggies like cucumbers, as the harder root veggies require more force and time to spiralize. She especially loved how simple it was to assemble and use the unit. As Baardsen noted:
"The product is super intuitive to use and small/simple to clean, just like any other dish you can throw it in the dishwasher, or hand-wash it in a pinch."
During her product testing, Ramsey also found that the three-blade handheld model worked best for softer-skinned veggies versus root veggies. During her extensive 5-day testing period, she tried spiralizing a range of both soft- and hard-skinned fruits and veggies, including a zucchini, cucumber, carrots, an apple, and a sweet potato. As she noted:
"When I spiralized soft vegetables like zucchinis and cucumbers, it was a breeze and took me 30 seconds to spiralize the whole vegetable. However, none of the three blades were strong enough or sharp enough to spiralize the root veggies I cook with the most: sweet potatoes and carrots."
While Ramsey found the three-blade spiralizer to be much better equipped for softer veggies than tough root veggies for her weekly meal prep, she liked the small footprint of this handheld spiralizer as well as the budget-friendly aspect.
Best Attachment
Whereas most spiralizers are only able to situate a vegetable flat against a blade, this attachment also comes with a curved-blade attachment that can be used to peel fruits and veggies — even while it spiralizes (there's a great video showing how this works, posted by an Amazon customer in the comments section!). It utilizes the motor and mixing motions of the stand mixer to power the blades.
The attachment can handle fruits and veggies of pretty much any size, and it actually cores them as they spin. This can be viewed as a positive or a negative, depending on what you're spiralizing. We find it can be super helpful for things like apples, but it does end up wasting a small portion of veggies (like zucchini) that don't need to be cored.
Our associate SEO director Erica Murphy tested this KitchenAid Spiralizer Attachment using carrots, sweet potatoes, and a zucchini to create three veggie-loaded meals. Murphy found this spiralizer attachment to be incredibly efficient with sharp, sturdy blades, as she was able to spiralize most veggies in under 30 seconds. She also noted how convenient this attachment made meal prep, as she could let the motorized unit spiralize a veggie while she continued on with her other meal prep.
While she had better luck spiralizing hard veggies like sweet potatoes and found this unit best suited for root vegetables, she also noted that the various settings and speeds on the stand mixer can accommodate softer veggies if necessary.
The main downsides to this spiralizer attachment, according to Murphy, were the amount of waste produced, as she noted at least one- to two-inches of any given vegetable leftover at the end of spiralizing, as well as the unit's slightly more expensive price point and relatively large footprint. As she noted:
"If you’re someone who eats or wants to eat veggie noodles on a regular basis, then I think the price is worth it. It’s super sturdy, easy and quick to use, and makes a great veggie noodle."
Best Electric
Most electric spiralizer models stand upright with a chute that allows you to press the ingredients down, and a bowl that catches all the noodles. This, however, leads to moisture buildup that can turn the veggies soggy. This unit is our number-one pick for electric models specifically because it's built like the classic crank spiralizers, which allow the noodles to cascade and lay flat, instead of piling up on each other.
You'll get maximum versatility from four blade options for varying types of noodles, and you won't have to do much work with an electric motor that does all the spinning for you. That's right — no hand-cranking necessary! It also has an auto-stop feature that turns the motor off once the vegetable is completely spiralized. The one downside is that it can only hold fruits and veggies that are up to 6 inches in length, which means you may have to trim down larger ingredients.
Honorable Mention
Although it didn't quite make it into our top five picks, we wanted to include this Paderno 6-Blade Spiralizer in our piece since our art director Bridget Clegg swears by it. With six blades, a suctioned bottom for countertop use, and a very reasonable price tag, the Paderno Spiralizer deserves a spot on our list.
During her extensive product testing, Clegg spiralized a range of fruits and veggies, including a bell pepper, zucchini, summer squash, and sweet potatoes. Since she spiralizes veggies quite frequently, we tapped into her knowledge and 20-plus hours of testing to find out what she likes and dislikes about this particular spiralizer.
For the pros: Clegg loves how affordable this spiralizer is, as well as its versatility. Since this spiralizer includes six blade options for a variety of different cuts of veggie noodles, the recipe options are virtually endless. Although this unit requires some experimentation to find the best blade option for each fruit or veggie, she said she uses the finest blade option most frequently to create thin, spaghetti-like cuts of sweet potatoes, summer squash, and zucchini.
Now some cons: Although this unit does have suctioned feet, Clegg finds this spiralizer slightly wobbly and unstable during use. For harder veggies especially, she noted having to maneuver her stance just slightly after every couple turns. Cleanup is another area that proved to be a bit of a hassle, as she noted that cleaning the blades and spiked arm requires several steps, which is ultimately a bit time-consuming.
Overall, if you have time to experiment a bit with the six blade settings and get comfortable using this spiralizer, it's a budget-friendly and incredibly versatile option. From Clegg:
"My go-to dinner is a sweet potato noodle bowl with whatever other veggies are in my fridge, some kind of nut or seed, and a sauce as simple as soy sauce," she said. "I like to prepare a few veggies at a time and keep them stored in the fridge for meals later in the week."
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